Servants of Christ  AACC
An Old Catholic Church
St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota

Global Social Justice Issues

If we could shrink the earth's population to
a village of precisely 100 people, with all
the existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would look something like the following:

There would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from North/South America
8 Africans

52 would be female
48 would be male

70 would be non-white
30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian

89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual

6 people would possess 59% of the
entire world's wealth and all 6 would
be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would be near death
1 would be near birth

1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from
such a compressed perspective,
the need for acceptance, understanding
and education becomes glaringly apparent.

The following is also something to ponder...

If you woke up this morning with more health
than illness…you are more blessed than the
million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle,
the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture,
or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of
500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a worship service or say
public prayers without fear of harassment,
arrest, torture, or death...you are more
blessed than three billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes
on your back, a roof overhead and a place
to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet,
and spare change in a dish someplace...you
are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you can read this, you are more blessed
than over two billion people in the world
who cannot read at all.

More will be added soon.
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Mother of the Disappeared

For Catholic peoples of Latin America, the Sorrowful Mother —Madre Dolorosa—is a central image in their life. Her statue stands in most churches, clothed in black. Mary’s bitter experience on Good Friday has made her a sympathetic sister to those whose lives are marked by similar sorrow. She has shared the lot of the downtrodden and can stand in solidarity with them through all ages.

Tens of thousands of Latin American mothers have had family members abducted—“disappeared”—by death squads in recent years. What can these women do in their despair when their governments ignore their requests for help? In 1976 a number of Argentinian mothers began a silent protest every week in front of government offices as a way to release their despair. Wearing black dresses and white kerchiefs, they carried photographs of their missing loved ones and marched around the plaza. They wore a white rose bud if they hoped their loved one was still alive, and a red rose bud for the dead. From Argentina the march of the mothers spread to El Salvador and other countries.

This icon presents a new Madre Dolorosa, who stands in solidarity with the Mothers of the Disappeared. She wears their white kerchief, and her wine-colored Byzantine garment is almost black. She has no photographs to carry of her son, who was also abducted by a death squad and tortured to death, but she carries his crown of thorns. She wears both red and white rose buds, since she has become mother of all the disappeared.

The white handprint smeared across the side of the icon is the signature of the El Salvador death squads. It is unusual to add such a detail to a Byzantine icon, and the result is shocking: the icon is violated! The hand, however, expresses a deep truth. The death squads violate icons of God every time they abduct and torture a human being. If the truth is not pretty, let it challenge us to action.

"Mother of the Disappeared" courtesy of and © Br. R. Lentz ofm. Reproductions available from Trinity Stores • www.trinitystores.com