Common Good Newsletter: August 2007
Catholics for an End to the War in Iraq
Last month, Catholics United, in collaboration with NETWORK, a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, and Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace movement, launched Catholics for an End to the War in Iraq ( www.catholicsforanend.org ). Catholics for an End joins the broad and growing movement of opposition to the Iraq War with a new coordinated national effort to mobilize Catholics to become a powerful voice for ending the war in Iraq.
With the war in Iraq ranking as one of the most important issues to Catholic voters, according to a 2006 post-election poll, Catholics for an End provides Catholics with an opportunity to insist that our nation’s leaders take immediate action to end the war responsibly. “We started the Catholics for an End to the War in Iraq campaign because everywhere we went, Catholics were asking what they could do to help bring about a new direction in Iraq,” said Chris Korzen, Executive Director of Catholics United.
The campaign provides Catholics with opportunities to join sign-on petitions, media campaigns, and targeted local events to call on national leaders to follow a three point plan for success: bringing together Iraq’s warring factions for a multi-party conference that will include neighboring countries in the peace process, providing funding and support for the reconstruction of Iraq, and an immediate and responsible withdrawal of U.S. combat troops.
In its first three weeks, the Catholics for an End website saw 8,000 people sign on to the petition, well on target for the campaign’s goal of 20,000 signatures by September 1. Once the goal is met, Catholics for an End will hand-deliver the petition to leaders in Washington. In addition, the campaign is asking petition signers to help organize the Catholics for an End movement in their local areas.
NETWORK Releases a New Way Forward in Iraq
NETWORK, a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, recently released a proposal for sustainable peace and an end to war in Iraq. The proposal acknowledges the current situation in Iraq and offers solutions for peace. The NETWORK proposal offers viable economic and diplomatic solutions, such as the formation of an Iraqi Peace Conference for all factions in Iraq encouraged by the U.S. and hosted by the UN or other international bodies utilizing the services of skilled negotiators who know the reality of the Middle East. The proposal also calls for U.S. funded efforts in local development and micro-enterprise that will make it possible for the Iraqis to reclaim their country.
NETWORK has urged Congress to make it clear that the U.S. does not intend to have permanent military bases in Iraq or to control the Iraqi oil. NETWORK adds, “Realizing that it is in all nations’ interests to avoid civil war, there must be a committed effort to regional diplomacy. The U.S. must also fully fund and participate in the aid to the hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced citizens of Iraq.”
For more information: http://www.networklobby.org .
National Catholic Organizations Call on President to Support America's Children
The House and Senate are now considering reauthorization packages for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The President has threatened to veto any expansion of the federal program, which provides health insurance for low-income children. Nine national Catholic organizations released a statement calling on President Bush and Congress to work together to cover the nine million uninsured children in America. “The SCHIP program is a common good policy necessary for the protection and fulfillment of human life and human dignity. When even one child is sick and cannot receive medical care, we are diminished as a nation,” the statement said.
These organizations joined other groups, such as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities USA and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in proclaiming accessible child health care to be a Catholic moral imperative. Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Pax Christi USA, NETWORK, Maryknoll, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and other organizations signed the statement. As the reauthorization package continues its journey through the government, we pray that legislatures make decisions for the common good and fully fund SCHIP to protect children’s health and lives.
For more information go to: http://www.catholicsinalliance.org/cacg/media-center/catholics-call-on-president-to-support-americas-children.html
Pax Christi to Hold National Conference on Peacemaking
Pax Christi USA, a National Catholic Peace Movement, will be celebrating its 35th anniversary as it holds the National Catholic Conference on Peacemaking: The Pursuit of Peace in a Culture of Violence on August 10-12 at Seattle University in Seattle, Washington. The conference will be a mix of prayer, celebration, guest speakers and informative seminars on fostering social justice in America.
The keynote speaker will be Jack Jezreel, the Executive Director and founder of JustFaith Ministries, an organization dedicated to the creation of faith-formation programs emphasizing the gospel message of peace and justice. Other speakers include Camilo Mejia, the first US soldier to publicly refuse to fight in the Iraq War; Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and Rev. Charles Morris, global warming activist and director of Michigan Interfaith Power and Light. Throughout the conference there will be special events and guests commemorating Pax Christi USA's 35 years.
On Friday, August 10, at a pre-conference gathering, Pax Christi USA will host a special event, A National Grassroots Discernment for the Peoples' Peace Initiative, to gather the voices and experiences from every level of the national Catholic peace and justice movement to articulate the challenges of Catholic peacemaking in the 21st century.
For more information: http://www.paxchristiusa.org
A Social Justice Issue: Catholic Organizations Fight for Farm Bill Reform
“Every five years,” Rich Heffern writes in the National Catholic Reporter , “the nation’s farm and food policies are tweaked by the U.S. Farm Bill, one of the largest compendiums of legislation with direct implications for social justice, food safety and security and land stewardship.”
First enacted during the Depression, the Farm Bill helped subsidize farmers and ranchers that otherwise would have gone broke, and to ensure that the nation had a ready and plentiful food supply. Now some 70 years later, on the eve of the 2007 Farm Bill’s renewal, religious organizations such as the National Catholic Rural Life Conference (NCRLC), Sojourners, NETWORK, Bread for the World and Church World Service are calling for broad reforms to a bill now known for increasing subsidies for corporate farms while decreasing them to the small farmers that need them most.
“We’re looking for Congress to lower the commodities payments to farms,” Robert Gronski, Policy Counsel for NCRLC, said. “We understand the need for the commodities payments, but we would like to see a stricter limit or cap on those payments, which would help small family farmers. The House bill is good, but it needs to go further. When the Senate picks up the bill for review, we hope they do a better job of tightening the limits, and lowering the means payments substantially. This would free up more funding for rural development, conservation efforts, and organic agriculture, to name a few.”
NCRLC has teamed up with sustainable agriculture and family-farm support lobbies in an effort to reform the Farm Bill called the Food and Farm Policy Project ( www.farmandfoodproject.org ). NCRLC also joined 350 other organizations in a statement calling for substantial revisions to U.S. agriculture policies in the upcoming bill.
What It Means to Be Catholic
While there is no shortage of commentary about faith, values and politics, American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church is a must read for anyone who wants to understand Catholic identity, voting patterns and larger trends among the laity and institutional Church.
William V. D’Antonio, a fellow at the Life Cycle Institute at Catholic University of America, and co-authors John D. Davidson, a professor of sociology at Purdue University, Dean R. Hoge, an emeritus professor of sociology at Catholic University of America and Mary L. Gautier, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, weave together polling data and historical analysis to provide a snapshot of Catholics’ political life and changing definitions of what it means to be Catholic. The authors find that Catholic identity remains strong and that post-Vatican II Catholics and “Millennial” Catholics born between 1979-1987 regard helping the poor, a regular prayer life and receiving the sacraments as core to their spirituality.
Calendar
August 5-9
Faith and Resistance Retreat: 'Global War and the Assault on the Environment'
Remembering the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its relevance to nuclear policy today.
Hosted by: The Jonah House of Baltimore and the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker of Washington, D.C.
Phone: (202) 347-3215 ext. 552
Contact: Mike Dorn, mikedorn1979@gmail.com
Website: http://www.jonahhouse.org/Aug07invite.htm
August 10 - 12
2007 Conference: "The Pursuit of Peace in a Culture of Violence"
Sponsored by Pax Christi USA
Seattle University, Seattle, WA
Website: http://www.paxchristiusa.org/
September 18, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Headline Forum: Exit or No Exit? Morality and Withdrawal from Iraq
“To stay or to leave? After four years of war in Iraq, that is a political question, a military question - and a moral question. As the results become apparent of the recent “surge” in American involvement, a panel of distinguished ethicists will examine, once again, the moral principles that should govern when and how the United States disengages from Iraq.”
Panelists:
Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, author of Just and Unjust Wars and Arguing About War; Gerard Powers, of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame and former Director, Office of International Justice and Peace, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Sohail Hashmi, Chair of International Relations, Mount Holyoke College, editor of Islamic Political Ethics and author of The Islamic Ethics of War and Peace; and Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and author of Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World.
Location: Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, Pope Auditorium
113 West 60th Street, NY, NY
Co-sponsored by the Joan B. Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame.
Phone: (212) 636-7347
Email: ReligCulture@Fordham.edu
October 8, dawn to dusk
From Conquest to Community, From Violence to Reverence: A Nationwide Interfaith Fast to End the War in Iraq
“We call on all Americans to join in fasting from dawn to dusk on Monday, October 8, the day officially known as "Columbus Day," to call for an end to the Iraq War. On this day, people of faith in local communities across our nation will act as catalysts to transform the meaning of the day from one of conquest to community and from violence to reverence.”
Participating Organizations: Office of Interfaith Relations, National Council of Churches; Office of International Affairs & Peace, National Council of Churches; Pax Christi USA: National Catholic Peace Movement; Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns; The Shalom Center; Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations; Unitarian Universalist Service Committee; Presbyterian Peace Fellowship; Network of Spiritual Progressives; Fellowship of Reconciliation; Council on American Islamic Relations; Buddhist Peace Fellowship; Ecumenical Peace Institute/Clergy and Laity Concerned; Fons Vitae Publishing; Medical Mission Sisters' Alliance for Justice; The Moderator's Global Justice Team, Metropolitan Community Churches; Humanity Check; Cape Town Interfaith Initiative (CTII); Wilmette (IL) Muslim Community
Website: http://www.shalomctr.org/node/1269
October 11 - 13
NTOSAKE
A leadership-training program for women
Sponsored by the Gamaliel Foundation/ABLE
Atlanta, GA
Contact: Ms. Susan Sneed, NTOSAKE Coordinator
Phone: 636-891-8004
October 19 - 21
Reviving Our Spirits: Transforming Our Politics
A weekend of inspirational speaking, and dialogue with Jim Wallis and Richard Rohr.
Sponsored by Sojourners
The Renaissance Cleveland Hotel
Cleveland, OH
Phone: 505-242-9588
Website: http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/conferences/ros/
The Common Good Newsletter Staff
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good promotes awareness of Catholic Social Teaching and its core values of justice, dignity and the common good to Catholics, the media and Americans of all faiths. For more information please visit www.catholicsinalliance.org . For a daily summary of news on the intersection of faith and public life, subscribe to www.catholicmediareport.org .
Staff:
Alexia Kelley, Executive Director
Pat Wheeler, Communications Director
John Gehring, Senior Writer
Lisa Merlini, Web and Newsletter Editor
Writers:
John Cosgriff, Summer Media Fellow
Brian Murray, Media Intern
Krista Stevens, Beatitudes Society Fellow
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