Inclusion is the deliberate and active effort to ensure the participation, representation, and belonging of all individuals within a community or soceity, regardless of their differences. Loyd-Paige and Williams describe inclusion as “a process of bringing together people and things that are different… [it] is more than just welcoming. Welcoming is smiling and opening the door for someone to enter. Inclusion builds upon welcoming to incorporate a sense of belonging.”1 As Catholics, we are called to welcome and invite all into our community based on the Gospel values. On the one hand, the Church is meant to reach out to everyone – as suggested symbolically by the Bernini colonnade of St. Peter’s Basilica, the arms that embrace the people. Yet, at the same time, the Church is a definite society, which rules, expectations, and internal structures; which by its very nature excludes certain forms of thought and behavior. Cardinal Francis George was once asked whether all are welcome in the Church. He responded, “Yes, but on Christ’s terms, not their own.” In a word, there is a healthy and necessary tension between inclusion and exclusion in any rightly ordered community.
Saint John Baptist de La Salle was committed to solidarity, “where all can find a place, with their most fundamental rights respected, for all are sons and daughters of the same Father.”2 Therefore, Lasallian educational institutions are to be communities “characterized by the acceptance of each human person.”3 Places where differences enrich the community life, incarnating what “together” in “together and by association” truly means.4 To uphold the dignity of the human person because they are created by God and for God, informed by the Catholic Church’s magisterial teaching, is a decidedly Lasallian endeavor. Thus, inclusion is part of our Lasallian and Catholic heritage.
How do I recognize that we are all sons and daughters of the same Father in my interactions and inclusion of others?
Footnotes/References:
1. Loyd-Page, Michelle & Williams, Michelle D. (2021). Diversity Playbook: Recommendations and Guidance for Christian Organizations. Abilene Christian University Press, p. 123
2. Circular 455, 44th General Chapter Message, September 15, 2007, p. 58.
3. & 4. Circular 461, September 2010, 2.3.2, p. 26
