VATICAN II TALKS - No. 3

WOMEN IN THE CHURCH AFTER VATICAN II

The third talk in the Vatican II Talk Series in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Council, co-hosted by the Community of Saint Paul and Sacred Heart Parish in Racine took place on Friday, July 12, with over 70 people attending.  The talk titled Fifty Years Later: How Have the Promises of Vatican II to Women Made a Difference In our World and Church?” was given by Sister Frances Cunningham, OSF, the former Director of World Mission Ministries in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, who also served on the international leadership team of the School Sisters of St. Francis for twelve years.   In conversation with those present, Sister Cunningham discussed what steps had been taken in  Vatican II with regard to the advancementof women’s participation in the Church, and the promises that accompanied these changes.  She  analyzed how these promises changed Church, while also exploring how they were or were not kept.  To close, she provided some food for thought and encouragement as to how to these promises can be taken up at the level of the parish and local church.

VISIT OF YOUTH TO THE AGRICULTURAL CENTER IN COCHABAMBA

In the municipality of Vacas in Cochabamba, Bolivia, youth continue to be supported in their education in the Totorampampa Multifunctional Center. At the end of last month, 20 youth participating in the center participated in a trip to the city center in Cochabamba – a first for many of them.  They also visited the Agroforestal Combuyo Center where there is an ongoing investigation to create a sustainable agri-forestal system.  The youth enjoyed it very much, because they see these sort of efforts as something possible to implement in their own villages. Also, many of them are already participating in forestation work, thus they were fascinated to see spaces full of a variety of different trees.

REFLECTION

Dialogue: danger and benefit

Sincerely dialoguing with another person is an experience full of possibilities and risks. A dialogue that is really a dialogue (and not a monologue) always has the potential of changing the perspectives of those involved. Dialoguing transforms us. The moment that someone strikes up a conversation with the sincere intention of exchanging ideas and opinions, that person has implicitly declared that he or she is open to modifying his or her convictions.  For this reason, all those who hold dialogue in suspect, do not trust in it and avoid it, perhaps do so because they, without recognizing it, hide within themselves doubts and insecurities with regard to their beliefs and options.  These persons at most say they dialogue, but in reality they lecture and preach.  There are persons, in fact, who prepare their conversations as if it were a combat, with well thought out tactics and strategies, because for them the encounter consists in exactly that – something that has to be won.  They have convinced themselves beforehand that they precisely know what works, what is of value and what is not, and they have the duty of showing others what is the right path. That is not a dialogue. Only those who are aware of their own fragility truly dialogue, accepting the possibility of being wrong.

With this notion of dialogue we can understand the rejections of many in the Church of the proposal of the Council, which is essentially one of a willingness to dialogue. Those who then mistrusted this attitude are the same who later rejected and continue to reject today (more or less openly) the Conciliar documents or some of their aspects.  They sensed then and continue to sense now that the call to enter into dialogue with modern culture has the potential of changing the Church, and their rejection is based upon the fear that it would indeed happen. Naturally, what does happen then is that without dialogue there is no advancement: we end up with a repetition of the same concepts, that soon become incomprehensible to the ears of those with whom we did not want to enter into dialogue.  The Church, like other institutions and persons, has before it two options: it can close within itself, fortified in its positions, refusing to dialogue, and become paralyzed; or it can sit down without fears to converse with modern and postmodern culture, with non-believers and with dissenting believers, and with everyone it can, knowing that in this dialogue it may lose securities but gain depth. Knowing that this dialogue will change it.  The key is precisely in assuming that this transformation, instead of a disgrace, is a benefit.  When we let ourselves, as persons and institutions, be enriched by the perspectives and criticisms of others, we end up winning.

                                                                   Martí Colom

END OF COURSES AT THE NAZARET LABOR TRAINING CENTER, LA SAGRADA FAMILIA PARISH, SABANA YEGUA

The Nazaret Labor Training Center offers courses in beauty and hair-styling, computer skills and sewing for persons of low income living in Sabana Yegua, as well as sewing courses in four more rural communities: Ganadero, Proyecto 4, El Rosario and Los Toros. These courses are coordinated by the Parish and run from August to June.  This past June brought the end to yet another year of the Center's classes and on June 21 there was a festive graduation ceremony for the participants who had finished the different courses. 

25 HAITIAN CHILDREN RECEIVE BIRTH CERTIFICATE

None of us worry much about existing legally in our country.  At our birth, our parents had us registered and we immediately had an identity as citizens - the government knows we exist and what family we come from.  But this is not the case for the children of undocumented Haitians born in the Dominican Republic.  Dominican laws do not extend Dominican nationality to them.  While some countries maintain the right to citizenship based on soil (territory), other do not.  The Dominican Republic falls into the second. The regretable consequence of this is that day by day the majority of children born in the DR to undocumented Haitians parents have no country that recognizes them, as their parents do not go to the Haitian consulates for fear of being deported.  Thus, legally, these children do not exist.

From within La Sagrada Familia Parish, we are now collaborating the the Haitian Consulate closest to Sabana Yegua (Barahona), in order to register children under the age of three.  This collaboration is the fruit of two years of negotiations and relationship building with the consulate, and organizing within the Haitian community in the parish. 

At the end of June 2013 we were able to obtain the first 25 birth certificates emitted by the Republic of Haiti.  This means that 25 children who did not exist to any country now have documentation... this is a big first step.  Hopefully, some day there will be more flexibility in the Dominican inmigration laws and they will be able to obtain recognition from not only the country where their parents were born, but also from the one where they were born, grew up, and will work. But there is a long way to go. 

REFLECTION: The Subtle Persistence of God

We could say that God  is “subtly persistent.”  In his delicate dealings with us, God is never coarse, rude or even obvious. He is subtle. His presence is that soft breeze of the prophet that could easily blow right past unnoticed , so that one must have a special sensitivity to detect it. God, respectful of the autonomy that he has given us, doesn´t  violently invade our lives. Yet he is stubbornly persistent. Subtle, no doubt, but persistent in his constant presence, in his support, in his love. Discovering the subtle persistence of God is an adventure full of blessing.

                                                                                                             Martí Colom