Remarkable women

Friday, Apr. 03, 2015

Being involved in the social mission of the Catholic Church is both challenging and faith affirming. Catholic social teaching takes us all out of our comfort zones at some point, but if we follow its lead, we end up in inspirational places.

Sometimes, I am lucky enough to be taken to those places through the stories of remarkable women. Two recent examples leap immediately to mind. I didn’t have to travel far physically, but each woman took me and my fellow travelers to worlds beyond our experience.

The first journey was with Catholic Relief Services’ Caroline Brennan. Caroline is part of the CRS Emergency Relief team; she travels to areas of the globe with a multitude of different needs. While here in Utah last month, she spoke to a small group of women at an evening gathering about her recent experiences in Syria and Iraq. She described the lives not just of refugees in general, but of specific women. Perhaps most importantly, she explained why she was telling us about each woman. It wasn’t because the women engaged in any great acts of heroism beyond other refugees, or had even done anything “more extraordinary” than simply survive the complete destruction of their normal existence. It was because Caroline wanted each individual to be remembered as an individual. 

As she explained it, for most of the refugees, remembering who they are, and being seen as individuals by others, is vital. Many of these women and their children lived in lovely suburban areas very similar to those where the women in the room listening to Caroline live. They enjoyed restaurants, shopped, volunteered at their kids’ schools – the standard fare of many women. Then, suddenly, their homes were gone: obliterated by guns, bombs, tanks.

The loss of home will give us pause, but combine it with pictures of a woman Caroline talked to and named for us, and the reality the women face thousands of miles away becomes much closer.  Add the story of one woman who told Caroline what she missed most were the family photo albums — something many of us would try to preserve in a disaster. But the woman talking to Caroline didn’t just want the memories in the albums, she wanted to be able to prove who she and her family were before the violence.  She wanted her identity back. 

The second journey was a death row walk with Sister Helen Prejean. In an emotional, powerful talk at Westminster College (see the links to the coverage on the landing page), Sr. Helen managed to take the full audience through the pain of a murder victim’s family to the pain of the perpetrator’s family as their loved one is executed. She also took us through the pain of death row guards who work day in and day out with healthy men and women, only to walk them decades later to their deaths. Sr. Helen also named the individuals whose stories she shared. By doing so, she drove home the point that the death penalty does little more than create additional victims.

Both women have traveled to places few of us will ever see, or may ever want to see. Both women managed, with great respect for the individuals whose stories they shared, to bring their journeys home to us. And both women helped their audiences see Catholic social teaching in action. Walking with the unwelcome, the unwanted, people in pain, people facing loss of every kind: that is our Catholic mission.  Thanks to Caroline and Sr. Helen, I was able to share a small part of that mission.

I and any Catholic can continue to be part of these particular missions.  Anyone interested in hosting a small group gathering to hear from Caroline Brennan or other CRS staff, contact me at jean.hill@dioslc.org.  To assist Sr. Helen in her ministry, view www.catholicsmobilizing.org and join the Prayer and Action Network for notice of upcoming opportunities to challenge the use of the death penalty in Utah. (https://vr2.verticalresponse.com/s/prayeractionnetwork)