Father Joe is Slumming It

You've been slumming before, right? If this isn't your particular "slang-uage," slumming means "hanging out," doing nothing in particular, especially when you don't spend money as you usually do, hang out in a poorer neighborhood, or sleep outside instead of inside. You get the idea.

Thirty years ago, Joe Maier from the state of Washington left the U.S. for Thailand. He is a priest who belongs to a community called "the Redemptorists," (their official name is Congregation of the Sacred Redeemer, referring to Jesus. ( Redemptorists' website ). In Chicago, Redemptorist priests and brothers are in residence at St. Michael's Church in Old Town and Blessed Sacrament in Little Village, (among other places.) Fr. Joe literally went slumming, moving into Klong Toey, the poorest section of Thailand's capital city, Bangkok.

Over the years, Fr. Joe and his co-workers have founded, worked, and staffed 33 different kindergartens, a hospice for adults with AIDS, a home for children with AIDS, an orphanage for children whose parents died of AIDS, and a "safe house" for girls and young women.

It's hard for us Americans to believe, but children and teenagers in Thailand, and other poor countries around the world, are often sold into prostitution or even slavery. The safe house for girls and young women in Klong Toey is a place where they can come and live to escape such a fate. One young woman who lives there was sold by her own mother for the equivalent of about $100.

Father Joe figured he'd be in Thailand for a term of about six years maybe-and that was in 1974! He still has no plans to leave. Recently, he was interviewed by a U.S. reporter who kept talking about how much good Fr. Joe was doing for the people in Klong Toey. Fr. Joe stopped the reporter and set him straight: "These people accepted me," he said. "They gave me the greatest honor when they said, 'You can stay here and live with us.'"

It was Pope Paul VI (pope from 1963-1978) who said, "If you want peace, work for justice." The insight is profound. Even if there is no fighting, true peace is not to be found as long as some people live in wealth while others are forced by circumstance to "slum" it. There's much crime and violence in the slums of Klong Toey. But child by child, Father Joe and his coworkers are building peace.

For more on Father Joe's work, see Father Joe's website

Catholic Connections

"It is for public and private organizations to be at the service of the dignity and destiny of humanity; let them spare no effort to banish every vestige of social and political slavery and to safeguard basic human rights under every political system."

- The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, #29, from the bishops of the world gathered at the Second Vatican Council, 1965.

Reflection Questions

What's one injustice that you see in your neighborhood, or in Chicago, that needs to be addressed if we are to find true peace?

Join us in our Forum to discuss these questions!