Justice Jottings #2
An Email Update from the Marianist Social Justice Collaborative (MSJC)
Visit our website – www.msjc.net
Scroll down to read over the following items:
Issue Team Updates – why not get involved and join one of our teams?
Sharing the Good News – justice happenings in the Marianist world
MSJC Steering Committee Update
Resources
Events – Jansen Seminars
Thought to Ponder
Issue Teams Update - For more info or to get involved, click on the contact listed
Ecology & Environment – Get your cloth shopping bags! - Team is developing a relationship with IMANI in Nairobi to offer Kenyan-made, reusable cloth shopping bags in the US. Bro. Jack Somerville is coordinating this effort, and all proceeds will benefit IMANI. Bro. Joe Barrish has produced a design and Bro. Peter Kiama is working on bag construction. A great way for US consumers to make responsible shopping decisions at the local level while supporting global solidarity.
Contact: Don Geiger
donald.geiger@notes.udayton.edu·
Anti-Racism – Team met last weekend. Refocused mission based on feedback from the recent Multicultural Workshop. Three key goals emerged:
1) collaborate with Marianist Family in developing a policy statement against racism and supportive of cultural solidarity;
2) assist Marianist Family to develop strategies to become free of racism;
3) provide the ways & means for the communities of the Marianist Family to experience racial and cultural solidarity. Join them in working out the strategies and
“how to’s.”
Contact: Ted Cassidy
tcassidy@capemaymarianists.org Sweatshop Labor – Junaid Khan, a businessman and educator from Bangladesh, joined the team for its Jan. meeting. He will take a lead role in getting the worker owned factory up and running. His presence provided a real boost for this project. Tentative date for opening the factory – Feb. 2005. Other team priorities for the year:
1) Get the message more into Marianist communities and institutions about what each person can do to address sweatshop labor;
2) Convene a “Sweatshop Labor Strategy Conference” in May or June and invite a small group of key players in this movement.
Contact: Al Prendergast
alprendergast@prodigy.net Death Penalty – working currently on a membership drive. Just completed a brochure that outlines our mission and objectives. To get brochures for your institution, ministry, or community contact Brian Halderman, nSM
brianhalderman@yahoo.com. Conference call soon to determine the next major event of the issue team and when we will hold our next face to face meeting. Interested in being involved? Contact Brian Halderman, nSM.
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Sharing the Good News – justice happenings in the Marianist Family. Let us know about others and we’ll pass them along. Send to jimvogt2@yahoo.com.
Students at Central Catholic HS in San Antonio are planning a “Social Justice Seminar” in April. They will have speakers and workshop sessions on topics including war, immigration, poverty, abortion and the death penalty. For more information, contact Floyd Contreras
floydscon@swbell.net.
About 40 local residents attended an evening on culture and diversity sponsored by the Marianist Family Retreat Center in Cape May NJ. In addition to Anglos, there were Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans present. The meeting focused on how minorities are getting squeezed out of the local housing market due to increasing housing prices and rents and what they can do about it.
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MSJC Steering Committee met in Jan. & adopted goals for the next 18 months. They are
communicate our social justice message more effectively with the entire Marianist family;
involve more Marianists in solidarity with the poor and marginalized in building a world of peace & justice;
work with existing Marianist networks and institutions/organizations to help them integrate justice concerns in their work;
develop a process for taking public positions on justice issues.
Contact: Jim Vogt
jimvogt2@yahoo.com.
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Resources – know any good ones? Share them with us.
2004 Earth Day materials now available! On April 25 or another Sunday, celebrate God’s gift of air with the 2004 Earth Day Sunday Resource, "Life-Giving Breath of God." Included are basics on the state of the world’s air quality; worship resources; and ideas for personal, congregational, and community action. Available at :
www.webofcreation.org/ncc or
http://www.toad.net/%7Ecassandra/Airhome.htm Questions? Contact Cassandra Carmichael, National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program Director, at
cassandra@toad.net or call (202) 544-2350.
Human Rights Watch World Report for 2004 in now available online at
http://hrw.org/wr2k4. This edition offers a series of more analytical, reflective essays on a single theme — human rights and armed conflict.
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Events
The Jansen Seminar originated in the SM Pacific Province and is designed to be an informal sharing of best practices and challenges concerning the work of social justice in the church. It is NOT a workshop but rather a dialogue among the participants. This year there are three seminars scheduled: St. Louis, Feb. 27-28; Baltimore, March 5-6; and Los Angeles, May 1-2; with the Los Angeles seminar more geared to include lay Marianists and families. Contact Bro. Bill Farrell (408) 674-5841 marianist99@yahoo.com for further information.
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A Thought to Ponder
In light of the cost of war (see www.costofwar.com):
“A nation that continues to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4, 1967)