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National Migration Week 2013 December 18th, 2012
National Migration Week will be observed January 8 – 14. The theme for the 2013 observance is “We are Strangers No Longer: Our Journey of Hope Continues.”
The Missionary Oblate JPIC Office is inviting you to use this opportunity to raise awareness and educate your communities on the issue of immigration and Catholic Social Teaching.
The 2013 theme, “We are Strangers No Longer: Our Journey of Hope Continues,” commemorates the 10th anniversary of the historic joint pastoral letter of the United States and Mexico bishops conferences; Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope.
The observance of National Migration Week began more than twenty-five years ago by the bishops in order to provide Catholics an opportunity to take stock of the wide diversity of the Church and to work for justice for immigrants.
Resources for National Migration Week 2013:
Resources at the National Migration Week 2013 of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website. (Available in English & Spanish for parish commemorations)
Pope Benedict XVI’s message – World Day of Migrants that will be celebrated Sunday, January 13, 2013.
Peace & Life Connections; December 14, 2012 December 15th, 2012
We reproduce the Consistent Life “Peace & Life Connections” weekly newsletter on this website. If you are interested in more information, or in subscribing to the e-newsletter directly, please visit www.consistent-life.org/ Please note that we do not edit the content of this publication.
HOLIDAY EDITION
Note: Due to the holidays, Peace & Life Connections will not be published on the next two Fridays, and will start a new year on Fridays in January.
Quotation of the Season: A Christmas Carol
John M. Grondelski, National Catholic Register, December 17, 2011
2 (Pro-Life) Christmas Classics:
A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life Carry a Message for All Seasons
Dickens’ Christmas Carol . . . is a polemical work: Dickens was sparring with the laissez-faire capitalists whose influence in industrializing Britain sought to limit concern for the poor to running poor houses and treadmills. . . His other target was Thomas Malthus. Malthus, the intellectual granddaddy of zero population growth, had argued that population increase would inevitably lead to disaster. . . Scrooge gives voice to the elite opinion of his day when, dismissing the businessmen who come to his office seeking charitable contributions, he opines that those who would rather die than go to a poorhouse “had better do it and decrease the surplus population.”
Click here to read more »
Shopping After a Factory Fire December 13th, 2012
Squeezed between the news reports of Black Friday weekend, when U.S. consumers spent more than $59 billion dollars, and a Cyber Monday that was the busiest online shopping day ever, came the tragic news of yet another horrible fire in a garment factory…
Read Fr. Seamus Finn’s latest blog on Huffington Post.
Southern Africa Trip Report December 11th, 2012
Mary O’Herron, a long-time staff member of the JPIC Office, recently traveled to South Africa with her family. She wrote up some reflections on her time visiting Oblates in Durban. Read her trip report (Download PDF)
National Apology to Native Americans December 10th, 2012
On December 19, 2009, the United States government officially apologized to Native Peoples – but didn’t tell anyone.
A diverse group of citizens plans to change this with an historic public reading of the national apology to native Americans in Washington, DC on December 19th. The reading, which will be broadcast via live-stream video, will take place in front of the US Capitol.
Mark Charles, a member of the Navajo Nation, has created a compelling, short video about the apology from the perspective of native peoples (watch the video). What is truly needed, he says, is an opportunity for a new national conversation for reconciliation between Native America and the rest of the country.
The gathering’s intention is to invite the nation’s citizens and leaders, and members of the global community to “join our efforts to communicate as publically, as humbly and as respectfully as possible the contents of H.R. 3326 (and the apology enclosed therein) to the Native American tribes, communities and citizens of the USA.”
For more information about this event and to RSVP, please click here. You can also go to this site to watch a live-stream video of the public reading on December 19.
Thanks to the Sojourners Community for this information. Mark Charles is a member of Emerging Voices, a project of Sojourners.
