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From 2009 to 2011, I lived in community andprovided social work services at Casa Juan Diego, a Catholic Worker house serving undocumented immigrants in Houston. Casa Juan Diego performs both the Corporal Works of Mercy by providing housing, health care, food, and clothing and the Spiritual Works of Mercy, mainly by referrals to social and immigration services and by publishing a newspaper addressing institutional causes of suffering. This paper presents three findings from my work there: 1) with two possible exceptions, Catholic social teachings and the Social Work Code of Ethics are very compatible, 2) conflicts on abortion/contraception can be managed, and 3) conflicts between the social teaching on solidarity and the social work ideal of professionalism are harder to manage.
Key Words: Works of Mercy, Catholic Worker, NASW Code of Ethics, Catholic social teachings, human dignity, social injustice, solidarity, service.
From 2009 t? 2011, 1 lived full-time as a staff member in community at Casajuan Diego, a Catholic Worker house serving undocumented immigrants in Houston, Texas. Open since 1980, Casajuan Diego now serves, houses, feeds, supports and advocates for the masses of undocumented persons that come to its door. Based on Catholic social teachings and the writings and examples of the founders of the Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Casajuan Diego performs the Corporal Works of Mercy by providing hospitality in the forms of housing, health care, food, and clothing and the Spiritual Works of Mercy by referrals to social and immigration services and by publishing a newspaper addressing institutional causes of suffering (Zwick & Zwick, 2010).
Dorothy and Peter started the first Worker house during the despair caused by the Great Depression as they saw the solution to such suffering in the renewal of both Catholicism and the social order (Zwick & Zwick, 2005). If the poor were to be served as the scriptures mandate, then the service role of the Church and the economic system of the country both had to be changed. They founded Houses of Hospitality, not shelters; with Catholic Workers living and working among the poor, not just providing services and then going home at the end of the day.
When 1 first started working at Casa Juan Diego, 1 felt disconnected to any...