Introducing the 2021 National Campaign
Last year, Call To Action launched our first “national campaign.” Our goal was to coordinate our members across geographies and strategies for changemaking. To do so, we introduced a church reform vision of “movement ecology”: alternatives, education, direct action, and lobbying each have their place in activist movements, including our own. One person may love convening alternative liturgies; perhaps their friend is great at planning direct actions to demand women’s ordination. By weaving our skills together and thinking carefully about when and how to use each strategy, we get things done.
The 2020 National Campaign culminated in Advent with a jam-packed month of events, liturgies, and project sharing. We celebrated the successes of the 2020 Campaign and turned toward our plans for the new year. As we moved into our 2021 Campaign, we asked ourselves: What (aside from a global pandemic!) didn’t go as planned? What worked well and what didn’t? What should 2021 look like?
We started the 2021 Campaign with six months of study. Zach Johnson and Abby Rampone led a book discussion series on Dean Spade’s Mutual Aid, John Noble coordinated a spring study series about church labor, and our immigration working group continued to gather and learn about conditions on the U.S.-Mexico border. We picked mutual aid, labor, and immigration as themes because they emerged from our members — and our world — during the 2020 Campaign.
Mutual aid: Alternative liturgies were some of our most visible and effective member-led projects in 2020; the Sacred Swarm and the Alternatives Working Group are two ongoing success stories. These alternative Catholic spaces are examples of spiritual mutual aid, but CTA members are practicing both spiritual and material mutual aid in their communities. Furthermore, the pandemic and the uprisings of summer 2020 made many people more aware of the mutual aid networks that communities of color have cultivated. Mutual aid is a powerful way to both build a movement and meet our needs, so we want to see what we can do when we look at church reform through this lens.
Labor: Our Education Working Group brought together Catholic educators who discussed their experiences in conservative diocesan workplaces. Church worker justice is important to CTA: We stand with church workers who face discrimination and we seek an intersectional approach to workers’ rights in the church and world. Worker exploitation has only been heightened during the pandemic: praise for “essential workers” is contrasted with the abuse that workers face at corporations like Amazon and Frito-Lay.
Immigration: Our immigration working group held a virtual border experience in December 2020, building on their in-person border gathering in 2019. CTA members organized themselves to work on a justice issue that matters to them, and we want to uplift that work. By listening to people who are directly affected by harmful policies, we’re discerning how to act in solidarity with immigrants and refugees.
We’ve also changed our campaign structure based on what went well in 2020 — and what could’ve gone better.
Workshop structure: We’re replacing most working groups with workshops. We imagined working groups as places for project incubation and collaboration. By shifting our focus to workshops, we’re hoping to cultivate more dedicated spaces for skill-sharing and project development. People can attend workshops that address their needs, which will help them sustain local projects. We’ll use the framework of movement ecology to decide which workshops to offer: we want people to learn how to effectively do lobbying, direct action, education, and/or building alternatives! At a workshop, you can develop a skill, like learning how to conduct a one-on-one, or delve deep into a specific issue. Some working groups will continue to meet for more sustained support and collaboration.
Advent 2021: This year, Advent will be a time for celebration. We’ll uplift the work that our members have done throughout 2021, announce new projects, and take a look at ongoing efforts. We don’t want our work to culminate in Advent; rather, Advent will be a moment to celebrate the life in our midst — and look toward the future.
We hope you’ll join us! To get involved in the 2021 National Campaign, watch for announcements about upcoming workshops and more.
