Justice Jottings June 2005 An Email Update from the Marianist Social Justice Collaborative (MSJC) New on our website!! For Fathers Day - Prayer for the Fathers of the World.  Click here.  Click here to read "The Limits of Charity" by David Hilfiker.  A thought provoking article on the question:  Do the works of charity impede the realization of justice? Interesting article about a grad of a Marianist high school seeking to find common ground on the abortion debate.  Click here to read the story.                                                    Visit us at:  www.msjc.net Remember - Our website is interactive. We'd like to hear from you!  We've made some recent changes in our setup so it is easier to use. Just get a password and you can enter into discussions with other MSJC members about these and other issues.  NOTE - if you are using the AOL browser, you can view the website but may not be able to enter any of the discussions with that browser. Scroll down to read over the following items: Issue Team Updates  Be an Advocate for Justice - "Just say NO" to nuclear weapons Resources A Thought to Ponder Issue Teams Update - see the website for more details Anti-Racism "Deepening Our Awareness of Different Cultures" workshops (either 2 hour or all day formats) will be available sometime in the fall, offered by the Cultural Audit Planning Team.  Watch for more details. Four workshops based on Fr. Clarence Williams' "Recovery from Racism" will be offered for the priests and deacons of the Camden NJ Diocese.  Fr. Paul Marshall & Fr. Ted Cassidy are among the facilitators.  Get more information about Fr. Williams' workshops at www.ifrfr.org.   Ecology & Environment  The Marianist cloth shopping bags are back!   Produced in Kenya by IMANI's Job Creation Program, the bags are made of durable canvas with a Marianist logo. Your $10 donation supports the development of IMANI and protects the environment.  If just 25 percent of U.S. families used 10 fewer plastic bags each month, we could save 2.5 billion bags each year!  Team member Leanne Jablonski FMI has an article in the spring issue of Catholic Rural Life Magazine on "Humbly Changing our Lives in Response to Climate Change".  The article outlines the most effective choices we can make in our individual, community and institutional lives (including food, transportation and energy use choices) to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and energy use.  The issue includes a number of other excellent articles on the theme, "Global Climate Change - What is Our Moral Response?" Read the article at http://www.ncrlc.com/crl_spring2005.html. Sarah Wingert, a student at the U. of Dayton, has accepted a MSJC internship working with issue team chair Bro. Don Geiger to research ways to promote the purchase of more locally-grown food. Death Penalty- go to http://www.msjc.net/DeathPenalty/default.aspx for for info on the following: The number of people sentenced to death last year fell to the lowest level since the Supreme Court reinstated the penalty in 1976 - 125 last year, down from 300 in 1998. To read about this trend, see the article under Death Penalty links. Death penalty blogs are sprouting up! Click the link under Death Penalty links.  Oh ... what's a blog, you ask?  It's short for web log and is a kind of journal or diary. Good for transmitting frequent updates.  Check it out.  There are at least 8 DP blogs, and probably more. Jim Young, a law student at St. Mary's U., has accepted an MSJC internship working in Austin TX with the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty in preparing for the Texas Journey of Hope (scheduled for October, 2005). Consider attending or supporting the 2005 vigil and fast to abolish the Death Penalty in Washington, DC from June 29 to July 2. MSJC is a co-sponsor.  More info at: www.abolition.org/starvin12.html Sweatshop Labor Wal-Mart has agreed to take two UD students from the United Students Against Sweatshops group to Bangladesh to visit their garment factories in that country. 31 institutional members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) have submitted a resolution to Wal-Mart shareholders asking, among other things, that Wal-Mart provide information on whether their global suppliers operate in keeping with the company's Code of Conduct pertaining to wages, benefits, working conditions, etc.  We ask those of you that hold shares in Wal-Mart to vote "Yes" on the resolution.  For more information - http://www.iccr.org/news/press_releases/pr_walmart_umc052505.htm. Two students have started MSJC-sponsored summer internships - Joe Jacobson working on sweatshop issues with Fr. Bill Christensen in Bangladesh and Joan Cook working with Bro. Steve O'Neil at the UN focusing on child labor issues. War and Peace The gallery "Darfur Drawn: The Conflict in Darfur through Children's Eyes" is  available at:http://hrw.org/photos/2005/darfur/drawings/ Be an Advocate for Justice Contact your senators and urge them to support an amendment to eliminatefunding for the nuclear bunker buster in the '06 budget. Click here for background information.  Click here to send a message to your senators. Resources - know any good ones? Share them with us "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" - John Perkins' book describes, in a gripping, spy-novel type tale, the inside story of how multinational corporations gain control of the economies of developing countries. FREE staff development on the Arab and Islamic cultures. In the current atmosphere of distrust of those different from "us" (often approaching xenophobia), perhaps your school or parish may wish to take advantage of this free workshop. Click here for details. Funding criteria and applications for 2005-2006 Marianist Sharing Fund grants now available at  www.marianist.net/grants. More information available from Myles McCabe at mmccabe@sm-usa.org.  Deadline - Nov. 10. Workshops at the United Nations on "Global Economics" and "Orientation to the UN" offered by the Religious Orders Partnership for Global Justice - www.religiousorderspartnership.org. A Thought to Ponder       "Our first task in approaching another people, another culture, is to take off our shoes, for the place we are approaching is holy.  Else we may find ourselves treading on another's dream.  More serious still, we may forget that God was there before us."                                                                                                                                                        - Author unknown