Panel: Catholics must make better connections between militarism, racism, poverty
by Tom Roberts | Aug. 28, 2013
Washington -- The Catholic community must be more forceful in making the connections between militarism, racism and poverty, the head of the country's largest Catholic peace organization said Sunday during a panel discussion, one of the activities this week in the nation's capital tied to observance of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
"We have been too silent and too complacent" regarding the issues of racism, militarism and poverty and in drawing connections among them, said Sr. Patricia Chappell of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, executive director of Pax Christi USA. "We have to make those connections. We have to help people understand how the budget that is being proposed for arms and drones and all of that, how that, in fact, impacts the neighborhoods and communities we come from."
Chappell, the former president of the National Black Sisters' Conference, said as a 13-year-old, she watched people in her neighborhood hold dinners and sell food to raise money to take a bus to Washington for the Aug. 28, 1963, march.
"There was a sense of pride; there was a sense of a new Pentecost," she said, recalling how people crowded into homes of those who owned television sets to watch news accounts of the event. "We knew something important was happening."
http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/panel-catholics-must-make-better-connections-between-militarism-racism-poverty
http://paxchristiusa.org/
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