Gospel message sets theme for meetings with lawmakers

Published: 2004-05-11

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CNS) -- Catholics, in Sacramento for the sixth annual Lobby Day meetings with state lawmakers, rallied for social justice after being inspired by a homily that called them to action and warned them against complacency. "When we think of stiff-necked people, we always think the stiff-necked people are somebody else -- those guys over there -- but that's really us," Jesuit Father Greg Boyle told 900 people at an April 27 Mass that opened the annual Catholic Lobby Day in Sacramento. Father Boyle, who works with street gang members in Los Angeles, based his homily on the second reading of the Mass describing the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Just before his death, Stephen had enraged his opponents by calling them a "stiff-necked people." In working for justice today, Father Boyle said, "we don't stand against stiff-necked people. We stand against forgetting. Mother Teresa said, 'We have forgotten that we belong to each other.'"

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