The thrones of the arrogant God overturns and establishes the lowly in their place; the roots of the proud God plucks up, to plant the humble in their place. Sirach 10:14
Welcome to the
Justpeace Front Page.
+ Grace to you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ
This week along the
way. The 1998 elections have come and
gone, and the "experts" say it was a victory
for the status quo. "People are doing fine
economically," they say. "It's a good election
to be an incumbent." 22% of the seats in the
House were contested by only one major party candidate, more than in any other election since
1958. Meanwhile, across the world, poor people starve so that the World Bank and IMF can
collect their interest payments -- and Congress just ensured that life would get worse for these
people, with its "conditions" attached to the recent appropriation for their macabre dance of the
culture of death. How many Kenny's will we kill this week? (Answer: too many.) Hear, you
leaders of Jacob, rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not your duty to know what is right,
you who hate what is good and love evil? You who tear their skin from them, and their
flesh from their bones! Micah 3:1-2
Here's what God says about the poor and justice.
JUSTPEACE PATHWAYS
Crossroads. Our weekly featured news, views, connections, networks, links.
Disasters and Emergency Relief. The primary sites are updated daily.
Living on the Earth as if people and other living things mattered. Simple, prudent, and frugal living.
Solidarity, Orthopraxis, Community Development. Reports, news, views, links, resources, from and about them that's doin'.
World Bank/IMF Watch. We keep our eye on these primary global structures of sin.
Spirituality Source of orthopraxis.
Justpeace Crossroads
To live like Dives with Lazarus at the Gate, by Scott Steinkerchner, OP. A common contemporary Catholic definition of social sin and a proposed modification to this definition based on contemporary Trinitarian theology. This article is very challenging, and it is very important.
South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Final Report last week, links on the site, 10 MB of information.
Search Institute, an independent, non-profit organization that generates knowledge and promotes its application, with an emphasis on practical research about youth development and how to translate that research into locally based neighborhood initiatives. This site is a must-see and tell-your-friends. It has dozens of pages of practical information on how to strengthen your community and help young people make it through adolescence into adulthood; they have surveyed more than a quarter of a million adolescents in developing their programs and tools. Has several pages in Spanish. Forty Developmental Assets, the more of these that are present in a family, the more likely it is the young person will graduate from high school, and refrain from illicit drugs and extra-marital sex. Healthy communities/Healthy Youth, a comprehensive look at building community and family assets. Taking responsibility for our children and adolescents, ideas for getting started, risks to avoid, the power of caring individuals, families, and neighborhoods. Ideas for building assets: in Congregations in Families
Vatican Justice and Peace News, gleaned from Zenit News Agency, Vatican Information Service, Al-Bushra.
Twomey Center for Peace through Justice, at Loyola University, New Orleans. "To create a society in which the dignity of the human person, in whomsoever found, shall be acknowledged, respected, and protected.
Another Sort of Learning, this is not the first time Fr. James V. Schall, SJ has been on the Justpeace Front Page, but this site is new (to me anyway). A professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, Fr. Schall says this site is about how you can get an education even if you are in college, or even if you are out of college, or if you never dreamed of going to college. It's not a technical discussion of education, but rather a discussion of learning.
Aristotle's Political Philosophy Page, call this one Access to Aristotle, on-line works, his politics, journal articles, academia, ethics, natural law.
The Zenit Weekly Report The world as seen from Rome. Now publishing a daily dispatch in
English, also available in Spanish.
Sow not in the furrows of injustice, lest you harvest it sevenfold. Sirach 7:3
Solidarity, Orthopraxis, Community
Development
Orthopraxis refers to practicing what you preach.
Infonation, from the United Nations, a comprehensive database of information on up-to-date statistical data for member stats of the UN.
Impact of New Jersey's Family Development Program, full text of the results of a pre-post analysis of AFDC case heads from 1990 - 1996. New Jersey is one of the states that adopted "welfare reform" early, some parts being put into place in 1992 under federal waivers. This included the controversial family cap, where additional benefits are denied for children born after enrollment in the AFDC program. The study finds that the price of this program included at least additional 1400 children killed by abortion, 1992-96 (based on increases in the abortion rate among the recipients). The study, completed by Rutgers University, also found that the Family Development Program as a whole had no impact in encouraging employment, no impact in improving earnings, the program costs exceeded the program benefits (defined as employment, earnings, etc), the government lost money on FDP. New Jersey Office of Public Information Press Release
Human Rights in Chile: Then and Now, traces the history of human rights in Chile from 1973 (the year of the military coup) through to the present. Has testimonies, documents, photographs.
Living Wage Home Page, from the Social Justice Center of Marin, has a model ordinance.
Native Title Discourses, from Australia, an honors these in critical and cultural theory, 1998, regarding issues of the rights of the indigenous inhabitants of Australia to their traditional lands.
Directory of Human Rights Resources on the Internet, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Human Rights Link from People in Action for a Better World.
Spirituality
Universalis, on-line access to the complete texts and prayers for the Liturgy of the Hours (Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer, Office of Readings). The sites does all the calculations for you and presents you with the psalms and readings appropriate for the day and hour, as found in the Roman Breviary
Sharing the Gospel with the Poorest: Beatitudes must change our lives, a retreat given by Mark and Louise Zwick (Houston Catholic Worker House) to the Faith and Sharing group of the L'Arche community in Cleveland, Ohio.
Divine Mercy Region, Secular Franciscan Order, Michigan and Ohio, has page for keeping track of the Liturgy of the Hours.
JOHN PAUL II'S PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR OCTOBER: General prayer intention: For the victims of drugs and for all those who work towards their human and social recovery. Missionary intention: That the spreading of "sects" may stimulate the local Churches to appreciate with a renewed vitality the true gifts of the Spirit.
For the sake of profit many sin, and the struggle for wealth blinds the eyes. Sirach 27:1
World Bank/IMF Watch
Envy not the lawless man and choose none of his ways. Proverbs 3:31
UN Conference on Trade and Development, big place, lots of information, discernment required.
Towards a new paradigm for Development: Strategies, policies and processes. At a recent conference, Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank, denounced the "Washington consensus" developmental model (the current globalization trend) as confusing means with ends. But his alternative doesn't seem much better: down with tradition and up with scientifically-based central planning, especially when the World Bank is one of the planners. They have such an excellent track record in places like Indonesia. I'm looking for the full text of the speech, and hope to have a link for it next week.
Partners for Development Summit, in Lyon, France, November 9 - 12, 1998, to discuss a UNCTAD initiative bringing together the business community, governments, consumer associations, academia, and NGOs to discuss ways to help developing countries. This will be the initiative's first international meeting.
Tripartite Meeting on Micro-Finance, held in conjunction with the Partners summit in France, has invited the pioneers of micro-finance, national financial authorities ("at the highest level"), and the chairmen/CEOs of leading financial institutions to review, assess, and evaluate progress and programs in this area.
Least Developed Countries 1998 Report, press release about this annual publication, with socio-economic analysis and data on the 48 nations identified by the UN as the Least Developed Countries, whose total population is more than 600 million people, with an average per capita income of about US $230.
He who oppresses the poor blasphemes his Maker. Proverbs 14:31a
Disasters and Emergency Relief
They ask their mothers, "Where is the cereal?" -- in vain, as they faint away like the wounded in the streets of the city, and breathe their last in their mothers' arms. Lamentations 2:12
The death toll in Central America continues to climb, NPR reported Tuesday evening it would be higher than 7,000 and that the homes of hundreds of thousands have been destroyed, and people are at risk of hunger and disease. For daily updates about disasters and other emergencies:
ReliefWeb from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Complex
Emergencies, information about on-going emergencies and various countries of concern to the
humanitarian community. There isn't very much good news here. ReliefNet Home Page non-profit helping humanitarian organizations raise global awareness and encourage support for relief
efforts via the Internet. AlertNet, a news and communications service from the Reuter
Foundation for the emergency relief community, has press releases from leading relief agencies,
expert analyses, reviews of key issues and events, jobs noticeboard. Has a focus page on
Kosovo. Direct from the Field, reports from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies, the world's largest humanitarian network. DisasterRelief.Org, worldwide
disaster aid and information via the internet. Some very sad and tragic stories here.
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TOP Happy are those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked. Psalm 1:1a
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Remember the time of hunger in the time of plenty; poverty and want in the day of wealth. Sirach 18:25 From the Holy Father. . . 
It is necessary to state once more the characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine: the goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. Private property, in fact, is under a "social mortgage," which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods. Likewise, in this concern for the poor, one must not overlook that special form of poverty which consists in being deprived of fundamental human rights, in particular the right to religious freedom and also the right to freedom of economic initiative. Centesimus Annus 42
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+ Send Email to the Editor. I would enjoy publishing your "Letter to the Editor" with future Justpeace Front Page issues.
+ Roots of the Catholic Worker Movement saints and philosophers who influenced Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin page at the site of Casa Juan Diego Catholic Worker House in Houston, Texas.
+ Sharing Catholic Social Teaching, Challenges and Reflections from the US Catholic Bishops.
Even to the death fight for truth, and the Lord your God will battle for you. Sirach 4:28
The VIEW from OAKLEY STREET:
Previous Editorial commentaries by Robert Waldrop
ALL SAINTS DAY FRONT PAGE SPECIAL EDITION
+ A LAMENT Concerning the Foreign Policy of the U.S.A.
+ A LAMENT for the SUMMER of 1998
+ Congress, the Presidency, and the Culture of Death
+ President Clinton Should Resign,
+++ Send email to James Wolfensohn, chairman of the World Bank. Share your concern for his soul due to his bank's cruel persecution of the poor. Read Robert Waldrop's Letter +++ Pray for the conversion of James D. Wolfensohn
My son, rob not the poor man of his livelihood, force not the eyes of the needy to turn away. A hungry man grieve not, a needy man anger not; do not exasperate the downtrodden; delay not to give to the needy. A beggar in distress do not reject; avert not your face from the poor. From the needy turn not your eyes, give no one reason to curse you. Sirach 4:1-5
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The just have a care for the rights of the poor;
the wicked have no such concern.
Proverbs 29:7
This weekly cyber-publication is dedicated to the study, practice,
and spirituality of the justice and peace teachings of the Roman
Catholic Church. We search the internet for news, views,
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people of good will in discerning the signs of these
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published each Tuesday evening.
Copyright (c) 1998 by Robert Waldrop
O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you.
Avoid profane babbling and the absurdities of so-called knowledge.
By professing it, some people have deviated from the faith.
Grace be with all of you. 1 Timothy 6:20-21
