Year-end appeal for an Advent church
As 2021 draws to a close, we’re reflecting on the season of Advent. Our work is always Advent work, the work of preparation and anticipation for Christ in our midst.
As you know, we are building a home for Christ coming as a young person, an old person, a person of color, an LGBTQ person, a person on the margins of the church. We can only do this with your help. Will you send a year-end gift of $35, $50, or more?
This year, we acquired a brick-and-mortar home for our movement. Call To Action purchased the Rye House in Minneapolis to build an intentional community. Several young transgender people have already moved into the house as caretakers and collaborators. They’re working with CTA and local partners to make the house a home. In the past few months, they’ve hosted anti-pipeline activists, held spiritual space for the Twin Cities transgender community, and hosted a nascent house church community. A legacy donation from Father Mike Tauke and the generosity of long-time CTA member Barb Sadler made the Rye House, a project led by young people, possible.
You too can make a legacy gift to open up new possibilities for intergenerational programs like the Rye House by contacting us at cta@cta-usa.org or calling 773 988 2352.
Building a home for people at the margins of our church and world demands that we look at the threads between church and social justice more broadly. That’s why this year, we led study and skill-building workshops on labor justice, mutual aid, and immigration. These are three areas where church and social justice converge.
We talked to CTA members who are fighting uphill to organize their Catholic workplaces. We heard from CTA chapter members who are practicing mutual aid with the homeless in the Pacific northwest. Our Re/Generators are working on a range of creative projects, from building a new community in the Detroit area to compiling LGBTQ-inclusive resources for campus ministries. We held events with partners like NETWORK Lobby and the Sunrise Movement. We’re thinking outside the box to build a new future for the church reform movement.
In one of our most important developments this year, Call To Action took another step in our anti-racism work by forming our first People of Color (POC) Re/Generation Cohort. The POC Cohort runs alongside a separate multi-racial Local Re/Generation Cohort for young Catholics to organize in their local Catholic communities. Nineteen young adults participated in the POC Re/Generation program which is designed to build relationships and solidarity within the POC Catholic community. By directing resources to young people of color, we’re empowering them to build their own church home that meets their own needs. In 2022, we will bring the People of Color Cohort together in-person to further nourish the relationships they’ve built this year.
We are ending a year of exciting experimentation and growth for our organization, and we can’t wait to share our visions for 2022 and beyond. In the first weeks of the new year look for updates on our Rye House intentional community program, a return to in-person gatherings, our take on Pope Francis’s Synod process — and more.
With Advent prayers and enduring solidarity,
The CTA staff team:
Revalon Wesson - POC Re/Generation Cohort Facilitator and Administrative Assistant
Claire Hitchins - Local Re/Generation Cohort Facilitator
Abby Rampone - Communications and Activities Coordinator
Tamar Yager - Associate Director
Zach Johnson - Executive Director
PS - You can spread your donation out by giving monthly. Just click here to start your donation. Your gift of $10, $20, or more every month will help us maintain a predictable, steady stream of income. Thanks!
