In Spring 2017, I wrote an open letter to Cardinal Blase Cupich.
At the time, I was living in Chicago and working for an archdiocesan parish school. One year earlier, our cardinal announced that he had initiated a universal twelve-week paid leave following births and adoptions for all full-time workers in the Archdiocese of Chicago. I still remember coming to that faculty meeting and feeling instant excitement as our pastor relayed this good news to our staff. In the back of my head, I knew that my wife, Katherine, and I were about to try to start our family.
Shortly after, we found out we were expecting. We worked through a fairly healthy pregnancy for Katherine and welcomed Lucy into our newly expanded family. I spent the first twelve weeks of Lucy’s life at home, with my wife and her, practicing fatherhood and this new phase of spousal living, in full breadth and depth. It was and is an immense blessing, and I wrote to my bishop to share my gratitude and reflections.
And he wrote back! What a guy!
 |
| Here's the reply he sent. Still think it's super neat! |
As the honeymoon wore off, we tried to get our ducks in a row for my transition to part-time work and stay-at-home parenting and Katherine’s return to work. I remember thinking that this new benefit in Chicago would be a harbinger to the Church and wider culture: twelve weeks paid is a reasonable, fair standard, and a basic opportunity that should be guaranteed to as many parents as possible.
Two years later, after a longer period of trying and wondering, our second child came along. This time, I was working part-time and without benefits. I had arranged with my supervisor to over-work for several weeks and “bank” hours, such that I could take a few weeks with almost-zero hours around the birth and net out to even. Katherine’s full-time benefits (in a different job now) were basically the same as before, but let’s zoom in on that a bit.
As a registered nurse at a large hospital, her benefit was short-term disability pay. It would cover about two-thirds of her expected earnings for six weeks (or extended to eight upon the surgeon’s approval of a recovery following a C-section delivery) to recover from labor and delivery. A twelve-week leave was protected by the FMLA policy, but those final six weeks are considered “bonding time” rather than recovery – so that meant either lost pay or applying accrued Paid Time Off hours in order to be paid. We of course used up 100% of the PTO bank during FMLA to keep her pay as normal as possible, but this didn’t get us to full coverage. We swallowed a modest but not insignificant amount of lost wages to afford her a little over three months with each of our newborns.
As many of our contemporaries navigate all of this and we compare notes, it seems our setup was about average, maybe a bit better than average. We do have some friends who have put in several good years of high-level work at their companies and earned their way up from robust base benefits to even better ones, including paid leaves lastings over six months and the chance to start leave a few weeks before the due date. Yet, there are others who, because of unusual or insufficient benefit structures or unconventional jobs, lack a formal leave on par with any of this.
So it’s been a head-scratcher for me to look back at the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2016 – an entity which has closed or merged several parishes, scraped by and sold assets to fund settlements for horrible abuse crimes, and always struggled to pay competitive market wages – and find that it was ahead of the curve in establishing this crucial benefit for us. We were told when it was established that they simply decided to increase the annual raise in the parish assessment fee to the diocese, and explained that this added cost would be borne proportionally by all communities as a necessary step forward (nice!). And while I thought and hoped it was the opening of the floodgates, it appears in retrospect that is very much not the case.
The great work by the team at FemCatholic compiled a portrait of leave policies in the dioceses of the Church that is rough to say the least. They were both thorough and transparent in how they assembled this data, and their coverage is illuminating. Start with this headline, and then read the whole thing. Please.
My next thought is that diocesan offices are a great place to scrutinize. Even if their central staffs are small, they are the standard-setter for a region of parishes, schools, and organizations, at least by reputation if not in actual formal governance. If dioceses can be challenged and confronted to pursue this crucial benefit more robustly, then perhaps the progress across parishes, schools, and other institutions will come more widely and quickly. And then our faith communities can become a stronger example for a culture of life and the call to family, community, and participation.
So what do we do? On a smaller level, there’s certainly ways to keep conversations going – comparing notes with friends and family going through a pregnancy, learning about the wide range of benefits out there, keeping the ball rolling. For ourselves, we can ask our supervisors or HR teams about existing policies and benefits, and advocate that twelve-week paid leaves for new parents be seriously considered and explored. And on the wider scale, we can join up with the community that FemCatholic is trying to raise across our Church. Sign their petition, and add your name to a growing list of Catholics trying to highlight the need for this life-giving benefit.
I once tried to talk to a bishop. Turns out he was listening and responded!
Two years later, after a longer period of trying and wondering, our second child came along. This time, I was working part-time and without benefits. I had arranged with my supervisor to over-work for several weeks and “bank” hours, such that I could take a few weeks with almost-zero hours around the birth and net out to even. Katherine’s full-time benefits (in a different job now) were basically the same as before, but let’s zoom in on that a bit.
As a registered nurse at a large hospital, her benefit was short-term disability pay. It would cover about two-thirds of her expected earnings for six weeks (or extended to eight upon the surgeon’s approval of a recovery following a C-section delivery) to recover from labor and delivery. A twelve-week leave was protected by the FMLA policy, but those final six weeks are considered “bonding time” rather than recovery – so that meant either lost pay or applying accrued Paid Time Off hours in order to be paid. We of course used up 100% of the PTO bank during FMLA to keep her pay as normal as possible, but this didn’t get us to full coverage. We swallowed a modest but not insignificant amount of lost wages to afford her a little over three months with each of our newborns.
As many of our contemporaries navigate all of this and we compare notes, it seems our setup was about average, maybe a bit better than average. We do have some friends who have put in several good years of high-level work at their companies and earned their way up from robust base benefits to even better ones, including paid leaves lastings over six months and the chance to start leave a few weeks before the due date. Yet, there are others who, because of unusual or insufficient benefit structures or unconventional jobs, lack a formal leave on par with any of this.
So it’s been a head-scratcher for me to look back at the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2016 – an entity which has closed or merged several parishes, scraped by and sold assets to fund settlements for horrible abuse crimes, and always struggled to pay competitive market wages – and find that it was ahead of the curve in establishing this crucial benefit for us. We were told when it was established that they simply decided to increase the annual raise in the parish assessment fee to the diocese, and explained that this added cost would be borne proportionally by all communities as a necessary step forward (nice!). And while I thought and hoped it was the opening of the floodgates, it appears in retrospect that is very much not the case.
The great work by the team at FemCatholic compiled a portrait of leave policies in the dioceses of the Church that is rough to say the least. They were both thorough and transparent in how they assembled this data, and their coverage is illuminating. Start with this headline, and then read the whole thing. Please.
My first thought was disappointment, and sadness. Five years after the joy and consolation of my leave, the progress hasn’t been made in our Church. We are easily criticized for raging against a culture that condones abortion but not robustly enough advocating for greater support of mothers, parents, and families. Let’s keep doing a better job of standing for whole lives, conception to natural death, with deep quality and dignity of life at all points.Today on the feast of the Annunciation, we want to start a conversation with the #CatholicChurch on #maternityleave. See the findings from our Investigation of all 176 dioceses in the US, here: https://t.co/2Vv3AY2ASx #civilizationoflove #prolifeproleave
— FemCatholic (@FemCatholic) March 25, 2022
My next thought is that diocesan offices are a great place to scrutinize. Even if their central staffs are small, they are the standard-setter for a region of parishes, schools, and organizations, at least by reputation if not in actual formal governance. If dioceses can be challenged and confronted to pursue this crucial benefit more robustly, then perhaps the progress across parishes, schools, and other institutions will come more widely and quickly. And then our faith communities can become a stronger example for a culture of life and the call to family, community, and participation.
So what do we do? On a smaller level, there’s certainly ways to keep conversations going – comparing notes with friends and family going through a pregnancy, learning about the wide range of benefits out there, keeping the ball rolling. For ourselves, we can ask our supervisors or HR teams about existing policies and benefits, and advocate that twelve-week paid leaves for new parents be seriously considered and explored. And on the wider scale, we can join up with the community that FemCatholic is trying to raise across our Church. Sign their petition, and add your name to a growing list of Catholics trying to highlight the need for this life-giving benefit.
I once tried to talk to a bishop. Turns out he was listening and responded!
On #MothersDay, May 8th, we will be sending this letter to the #USBishops. While bishops are not solely responsible for diocesan leave policies, we are inviting them as leaders to partner on advancing the conversation for paid leave in their dioceses. https://t.co/0jT1SMkt4S
— FemCatholic (@FemCatholic) March 26, 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment