Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Yearning Eyes: The Plight of Migrants in India

March 4, 2021

~ by Sr. Lavina D’Souza, Global Sisters Report; photo credit: Arturo Madrid-unsplas

The blank look on his face… a look of hopelessness…helplessness…perplexed…it wasn’t a silent face at all. The look on his wrinkled, aged face spoke aloud, as he stood passively before the vehicle that was about to leave the slum. He had remained absolutely silent all through our interactions with the people and now his look was disturbing. It yearned for something!

We had organized a food distribution for stranded migrants in one of the slums of Mumbai due to the lockdown. This slum area of migrants is not unlike other migrant living areas elsewhere in India. They live in subhuman, pathetic conditions, lacking decent housing facilities, potable water, sanitation facilities and other amenities, and are exposed to inclement weather and a hazardous atmosphere. They work for long hours, sometimes risking their health and lives, and yet, are paid less than they are entitled to. As they lack financial and health security and have little or no social support from a caste-and class-ridden society, they are unsure of what they can or cannot control in their lives. This leads to a certain passivity; resigned to their “fate”.

As I looked at the yearning eyes of the aged man, it seemed to me that he gazed not at the vehicle, but at the complacency of those who were more privileged than he. Are we so mired in our complacency that we have become blind to their reality?

The recent low point of this societal complacency has been the passivity of a few privileged people in India as they watch the unending trail of desperate migrants trying to reach home to be with their loved ones. The migrants take any means – even treacherous journeys on foot, sometimes walking hundreds of miles. In such foot journeys, a few of them lost their lives before reaching home, all due to exhaustion, because they wanted to escape dying of hunger as they tried to save themselves from the coronavirus. These are India’s nameless, faceless migrants who were denied time and transport to return home due to the sudden lockdown which was, ironically to save lives.

But who cares for the lives of the poor? To read the complete article click here

Criminal Justice Reform and Beyond

October 29, 2020

Vivian C. Smith, PhD, Chair and Associate Professor Criminology and

Bethany Van Brown, PhD, Assistant Professor of Criminology

moderate a panel discussion on Criminal Justice Reform and Beyond. The panel will explore the varying dimensions of the criminal justice system in America.

Parents of 545 Children Separated at U.S.- Mexico Border Still Can’t Be Found

October 22, 2020

~ Mark Katkov, NPR News
Despite a federal judge’s order that the government reunite families who had been separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s “no tolerance” migration policy, the parents of 545 children still can’t be found, according to a court document filed Tuesday by the U.S. Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Thousands of families were separated under the policy before the Trump administration ended the practice in 2018. The ACLU successfully sued the government, winning a court order to reunite families. Thousands of parents and children were reunited within weeks.

But about 1,000 families who had been separated in a pilot program in 2017 were not covered by the initial court order — reunification of this group was ordered only last year. The passage of time has made finding both parents and children more difficult.

“What has happened is horrific,” says Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, who has been leading the litigation. “Some of these children were just babies when they were separated. Some of these children may now have been separated for more than half their lives. Almost their whole life, they have not been with their parents.”

The update on reunification efforts was filed ahead of a status conference scheduled for Thursday before U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego.

David Xol, of Guatemala hugs his son Byron at Los Angeles International Airport as they reunite after being separated about one and half year ago during the Trump administration’s wide-scale separation of immigrant families, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

The filing estimates that two-thirds of the separated parents are believed to have returned to their home countries. Nongovernmental groups appointed by the court have “engaged in time consuming and arduous on-the-ground searches for parents in their respective countries of origin,” according to the filing, but those efforts were halted by the coronavirus pandemic and are only now resuming in limited fashion.

NPR’s Joel Rose reports that the children initially went into a shelter system before being placed with sponsors across the country and that many will likely try to remain in the United States. The ACLU’s Gelernt says about 360 of the children still have not been located.

Pope Francis will take Post-Pandemic Pleas to Global Stage

September 9, 2020

~ by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

When he addresses, via video message, Pope Francis is expected to speak about using the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to rethink economic, political and environmental policies in a way that will benefit humanity and the earth.

Since COVID-19 was officially recognized as a pandemic in early March, the Pope has been urging individuals, organizations and governments to recognize the inequalities the pandemic has highlighted in economics and access to health care and education, as well as the ways current patterns of production and consumption have damaged the environment.

In an interview published on August 27, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, was asked what principles of Catholic Social Teaching could help the global economy recover from the pandemic and its lockdowns.

“COVID-19 not only provoked a health crisis but impacted multiple aspects of human life: the family, politics, labor, businesses, commerce, tourism, etc.,” Parolin said. “The broad and interconnected character of the pandemic constantly reminds us of Pope Francis’ observation that ‘everything is connected.’”

“Today the pandemic is giving a tremendous shock to the entire economic and social system and its supposed certainties at all levels. The problems of unemployment are and will be dramatic; the problem of public health require the revolution of entire health and education systems; and the role of states and relations between nations are changing,” Parolin said.

The church feels called to accompany the complicated journey that lies before us all as a human family. She must do so with humility and wisdom, but also with creativity,” Paolin continued.
Today’s courageous creativity is more urgent than ever so that the dramatic crisis of the pandemic does not end in terrible tragedy, but opens spaces for the human and ecological conversion that humanity needs,” Parolin said. To read the entire article click here

UPDATE: It was announced that Pope Francis will travel to Assisi on October 3 to sign an encyclical on the social, political and economic obligations that flow from a belief that all people are children of God and therefore, brothers and sisters to one another. The encyclical is expected to [focus on] preferential option for the poor, universal destination of goods and the obligation of solidarity.

Student Advocates Bring About Change in Congress

January 21, 2020

Dr. Jerry Zurek, Cabrini University Professor, Communications Department sent this email to the 50 Cabrini students who advocated and lobbied on behalf of poor communities around the world. The current Administration wanted to cut the aid budget that would help refugees, migrants, and people suffering from extreme poverty by more than 30 percent. Cabrini students joined theirvoices with those of many others and Congress rejected these harsh cuts.
——————-
To all 50 students who lobbied this year:

Congratulations! Your voice mattered! Congress passed the foreign aid budget, and what you advocated for, passed! Your effort to prepare to go to DC paid off!

You should be so proud of your hard work. Think of all the people who will be helped because YOU CARED.

Congress–both Republicans and Democrats–voted to reject the Trump administration’s cuts to Poverty-Focused Development Assistance and even raised funding by a little bit, 1 percent raise.
• Increased development assistance to alleviate poverty in vulnerable communities by $400 million;
• Provided more than $500 million for assistance to Central America – money that the administration had reduced to 0. This will benefit the people of Guatemala and elsewhere and work to alleviate the root causes of migration.
• Signed into law: The Global Fragility Act will step up a comprehensive U.S. strategy to prevent extremism and promote stability in some of the toughest global hotspots.
• Refugees: the administration wanted to cut funding to just 10 percent of last year. Congress kept it the same as last year.
• Global Health remains strong: PEPFAR, the Global Fund, Maternal and Child Health, Nutrition — all remain strong.
• Food aid: Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole got a slight increase.
• Climate: While Congress does not provide funding the Green Climate Fund, it did include $140 million in flexible funding for the Global Environment and other climate programs.
Read more:
https://www.usglc.org/the-budget/congress-finalizes-fy20-spending-international-affairs-budget-sees-small-increase-as-global-challenges-grow/

Thanks to each and every one of you for answering the call to care for the most vulnerable!

Cabrini University Students’ Immersion in Guatemala

March 13, 2019

Eleven Cabrini University students, one alumna, three faculty members and the Director of the Wolfington Center participated in an immersion trip to San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala over [the recent] Spring Break. The trip was led for an 11th year by Communications Professor Dr. Jerry Zurek and Romance Languages and Literatures Professor Dr. Raquel Green, as part of their Engagements with the Common Good course entitled “Working for
Justice in Guatemala”.

All participants spent the week working in the mornings on construction projects in and around San Lucas Tolimán, and being educated on the numerous initiatives of the San Lucas Mission to promote health, education and the empowerment of women in the region.

San Lucas Tolimán is a community of roughly twenty thousand people located on the southeastern edge of Lake Atitlán, which was once famously described by naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt as the “most beautiful lake on Earth.” It is located in an area of Guatemala that was ravaged during the thirty-five year Guatemalan Civil War, particularly during the early 1980s, when Blessed Father Stanley Rother of neighboring Santiago Atitlán was one of several Catholic priests murdered in the country. In San Lucas Tolimán, Father Gregory Schaffer also was threatened with death, and one of his closest workers in the Mission was disappeared in the same year.

Despite such ever-present violence and deeply entrenched material poverty, Father Greg was able to profoundly alter the conditions of the area by empowering lasting social change rooted in the needs as stated by the community. Today, nearly seven years after Father Greg’s death, the staff and long-term volunteers of the Mission work alongside numerous visiting groups to engage in projects that support basic material needs and also contribute to the communal and spiritual growth of the residents of the area.

“Working in the community really opened my eyes to the spiritual richness of the people of San Lucas Tolimán, which is what I will forever focus on instead of their material deprivation. I learned so much from each person about grace, dignity and respect,” said Dr. Todd Matthews, one of the faculty members on the trip.

In addition to San Lucas Tolimán, Dr. Ray Ward, Director of the Wolfington Center, Dr. Melissa González-Contreras and Dr. Matthews also had the opportunity to spend a day at the Dispensario Madre Cabrini in the town of Bárcena, close to Guatemala City and roughly three hours from San Lucas Tolimán. There they were able to meet with Sister Juanita of the Missionary Sisters, along with the Administrator of the Dispensario, Claudia Aceituno, and several members of the staff. They also saw the tremendous work being done by the Missionary Sisters and lay staff with the residents of Bárcena and surrounding villages. The Dispensario operates a medical clinic, provides psychological services, vocational training and a variety of other services such as a school and workshops that particularly aim to educate and empower women.

In the hillside village of El Tablón, a women’s center has been established, where roughly 1/3 of the women in the community regularly meet to learn about leadership and women’s rights along with providing social support to each other. Compared to San Lucas Tolimán, these efforts are in the nascent stage of development but are already having a significant impact on the lives of those in a community where most children are not able to go beyond a grade school education and many of them are married in their early teens.

Social change is slow and often frustrating, but the work done by the Missionary Sisters in Bárcena and all of the participants in the San Lucas Tolimán Mission is directly improving the lives of countless Guatemalans and is a powerful reminder of the beauty and impact of what Mother Cabrini started over a century ago. We may not change the world, but lives can be transformed, as we saw happening to ourselves and to the people in these two missions we were privileged to visit. ~ submitted by Dr. Todd Matthews

Building Communities of Welcome in Chicagoland

January 16, 2019

Nancy Golen, CRC Director (seated l.) and Sr. Cathy Fedewa, CSFN (seated 2nd r.) join the Cabrini Retreat Center Staff in reaching out to immigrants in Chicagoland

Spiritual Retreats are central to many immigrant faith traditions and Cabrini Retreat Center is privileged to welcome many immigrant groups. But, even with subsidized fees, the demands of daily life as an immigrant prevent many others from a traditional retreat experience.

Introducing Sr. Cathy Fedewa, CSFN

The desire to respond more widely to the needs of the immigrant community, led to Sr. Catherine Fedewa, CSFN, joining the staff at the Retreat Center as Coordinator of Immigrant Outreach and Advocacy.

Sr. Cathy takes the spirit of Cabrini beyond the door and into the community and brings back valuable insights.

A Sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth, Sr. Cathy comes to Cabrini with a wealth of experience. She serves on the Board of Bethany House of Hospitality for Women, is a member of Sisters and Brothers of Immigrants, and Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants. Tutoring a Chinese student through Aquinas Literacy Center and making regular visits to detained immigrants are now part of the outreach the Retreat Center provides through Sister Cathy’s passion for the immigrant community. [Read more…]

Women Religious Keep Their Vigil at the Border

January 16, 2019

Sr. Norma Pimentel, a Missionaries of Jesus sister, made news on January 10th when she was invited to a roundtable discussion of border issues as President Donald Trump visited the U.S. southern border. She had invited him in a public letter the day before to visit the Humanitarian Respite Center she runs.
But Trump had dismissed that border visit beforehand as a waste of time and mere photo op, The New York Times reported. Pimentel’s presence at the roundtable was just that — she was in the audience, not at the table, and not allowed to speak. All those speaking praised Trump administration policies.

Yet behind Pimentel’s witness for more humanitarian treatment of asylum-seekers by the administration is a host of women religious who have traveled across the United States and Canada to volunteer at the border in recent months. The wave of volunteers comes in response to information and a call to help issued in October by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

At least 286 sisters have volunteered at the border, and congregations have sent more than $340,000 to the agencies working there, such as the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, and Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, and many others, said Sr. Carol Zinn, SSJ executive director of LCWR.
Zinn, a Sister of St. Joseph of Philadelphia, said those are only the volunteers and donations LCWR knows about, and that she woul

dn’t be surprised if the true number was more than 500 volunteers and more than $500,000 donated, and the volunteers and donations continue to flow south.
President Trump made a pitch for the wall in an address from the Oval Office Jan. 8, a speech the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas said in a statement was “rooted in untruths, fear and division.”

“Make no mistake, there is a humanitarian crisis on the border, but it is one of the Trump Administration’s own making,” the statement said.
It concluded: “We are at a pivotal moment in history, one that asks our nation to reflect and act justly upon what it truly means to welcome the stranger. Our faith demands that we not be on the wrong side of history.” To read the full account: https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/ministry-migration/trump-visits-border-pimentel-and-other-sisters-keep-their-witness-55781 To read a related article: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/building-bridges-border

With Migration, Cooperation is Better than Isolationism

December 12, 2018

The Vatican praised the adoption by more than 160 nations of a key agreement on global migration, saying today’s migration challenges are better tackled together than with “isolationist” stances.

The U.N. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration “includes a comprehensive framework of best practices and policy instruments to increase international cooperation and sharing of responsibility in the governance of migration,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, head of the Vatican delegation told government leaders.

The agreement, which is not legally binding, gives countries “the space to respond to their national circumstances and priorities, in full respect of international law and of the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their status,” he said at the gathering on December 10. [Read more…]