A new initiative began in the Rockford area late last month called 815 Choose Civility. The idea was born from the Transform Rockford project.

For our readers unfamiliar with Transform Rockford, it is a community project that began in 2013 to make Rockford a top 25 community by the year 2025. You can read more about the process, mission, goals and strategies at http://www.transformrockford.org

To help fulfill the idea of a truly successful community, organizers realized that working in a diverse community requires understanding and a true measure of civility practiced by everyone.

And the idea of being civil needed to go beyond the promises of only a few people. So 815 Choose Civility was born. According to organizers “our community, country and world craves respect in all areas of communication specifically when we disagree. Let’s join other communities in our nation sharing in this initiative.”

Bishop David Malloy and our diocesan chancellor, Ellen Lynch and I were invited to take part in the debut of the project that was held in Rockford’s Heartland Church. Bishop Malloy and Lynch were already scheduled for other events but agreed to take the pledge. I attended to find out more about it during a presentation that included an explanation of the civility project in Northwest Indiana for which 815 Choose Civility was modeled by journalist Summer Moore of The Times newspaper there.

There was also a panel discussion, videos and breakout sessions.

After the presentation, participants were invited to take the short pledge (bottom right) which asks each person to do the following at home, at work and in the community.

♦ Listen and observe to gain understanding;

♦ Show respect and honor other people and their opinion, especially when we disagree;

♦ Be inclusive and respect all points of view and welcome all groups of people working for the greater good of the community;

♦  Take responsibility and practice accountability;

♦ Speak kindly and choose words wisely; and,

♦ Be honest and admit mistakes.

For those of us who practice our faith, these tasks should be pretty simple. Our parents, teachers, faith, catechism and our scriptures all teach us this very thing … to be civil. But all you have to do is turn on the news, check your email and you realize, we can all be far from civil too many times.

In these days of free-wheeling social commentary, all people, Catholics included, sometimes forget that we just need to be nice even when we are provoked to act otherwise.

After the event, I shared what went on at the presentation with my staff, our bishop and our chancellor. And since Catholic ideas and people seemed to be very well represented in the panel presentation and in the audience, I thought why not take it another step further?

So I called one of the core team members of 815 Choose Civility and asked if we could expand on their effort of civility and would they mind if we reached out to our people of faith outside of the 815 area code, tweak the name a bit, and ask Catholics to take the pledge. The organizers were happy that our Catholic community would give another leg to their chair, so to speak.

That’s why The Observer is joining our diocese in the quest for civility. We are asking you to join us in Catholics Choose Civility! It’s just a simple promise to be kind in your thoughts and in your deeds. And even though for people of God showing love for all God’s people should be second nature, sometimes good things bear repeating.

So before you post a caustic remark on Facebook or Twitter or talk back to your parents, think about turning the other cheek and transforming your family, your school, your parish and your community one kindness at a time. Be a Catholic who chooses civility!

Take the pledge and say St. Francis’ perfect simple prayer to remind us about who we are called to be.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; ...where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.