Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, speaks with Bishop Thomas between sessions during the Nov. 10 Bishops’ Social Justice Summit. (MT Catholic/Eric Connolly photo)
 

By Susan Gallagher

Respect for human dignity was the message at the Bishops’ Social Justice Summit, which drew conference speakers as diverse as a Haiti earthquake survivor, a leader in Roman Catholic charitable outreach and a murder victim’s mother against capital punishment.

Montana’s two Catholic dioceses collaborated to present the conference on Wednesday, Nov. 10, at Carroll College. Nearly 200 people attended. The conference was designed to strengthen “the flame of social justice in our hearts,” said Moe Wosepka of the Montana Catholic Conference, one of the organizers.

In opening remarks, Bishop Michael W. Warfel of the Diocese of Great Falls- Billings said aversion to social-justice advocacy in churches suggests an individualistic approach to living in society. The bishop said the need is just the opposite: greater sensitivity to alleviation of poverty and other conditions denying people the opportunity to live in dignity. At the close of the conference, Bishop George Leo Thomas of the Diocese of Helena said the Catholic message unequivocally is that “there are to be no throwaway people, no castoffs, no disposable people.”

Catholic Relief Services’ Magalie Rigaud speaks as Bishop Warfel looks on. (MT Catholic photo) Speakers included Magalie Rigaud, who is on the Catholic Relief Services staff in Haiti and with her twin sons, survived the Jan. 12 earthquake there. Rigaud said she and the boys, 12 years old at the time, were trapped in the rubble of a collapsed supermarket for eight hours, until looters rescued them.

“God was there,” she told the audience in Helena. The day after her rescue, Rigaud returned to work at Catholic Relief Services, the international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community.

Supporting human dignity is a pillar of the agency’s work, said Rigaud, who spoke about post-quake housing as an example. Having initially provided tents for people displaced, she said, CRS is replacing those with plywood shelters, a transition to the next tier of housing as Haiti strives to “build back better” and emerge with dwellings, hospitals and myriad other facilities superior to those before the earthquake.

The conference audience also heard remarks by Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, which is pressing to halve U.S. poverty by 2020. About 40 million people in the United States live below the poverty line, Father Snyder said. With the economic upheaval in the country today, he said, the United States is at a crossroads and must “rebuild how we want to be as a society.”

Vickie Schieber spoke about her opposition to capital punishment, a message she has shared widely in the years since her 24-year-old daughter’s strangulation in Philadelphia, where she was a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. The man who killed Shannon in 1998 at her apartment was arrested in Colorado four years later. He is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to charges stemming from the death and a series of rapes.

Vickie Schieber, who lives in Maryland, said that her Catholic faith sustained her through her loss, that life is sacred and that she believes in forgiveness. No benefit would have come from imposing the death penalty, she said, adding that society needs protection from people such as Shannon’s slayer and that she supports his life sentence.

The conference included breakout sessions on several topics, plus a photo exhibit with images of poverty in the United States. Catholic Charities USA and In Our Own Backyard, an organization of photojournalists committed to poverty alleviation, collaborated on the exhibit.

In closing the conference with prayer, Bishop Thomas said, “Whenever we look to the interests of our neighbor or the community and serve them, we are in a sense, God’s own co-workers. Let us pray for his help through this celebration, my sisters and brothers, that God will bring our work to fruition and that his protection will keep those who minister here in his loving care.”


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 11, November 19, 2010.


Related: