I hope you enjoy the updates below. We are especially excited to prepare for Dr. Kristin Shrader-Frechette's visit to campus next week. Details on her presentation are accessible from the sidebar. As always, we hope to see you there.
Dr. Terrence Rynne, Center for Peacemaking founder and instructor of Peace Studies at Marquette University, has been invited to participate in a conference hosted in Rome by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pax Christi International.
This conference, titled
Nonviolence and Just Peace: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence will explore ways the global Catholic community can more deeply and widely engage in the practice of nonviolence.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Rynne on this great honor.
News & Updates
Peace Works program receives Generous Promise Grant
We are excited to announce that the Center for Peacemaking has received a $25,000 grant from the Congregation of St. Joseph. These funds will be used to sustain and expand implementations of the Peace Works program in Catholic schools.
Peace Works changes the way young people living in impoverished and vulnerable communities are educated by teaching peacemaking skills to educators and students. As participants learn how nonviolence can be used to confront indignities, they see themselves as peacemakers with the skills to live out their faith and make the values and practices of peacemaking a permanent component of their lives, schools, and communities.
We offer our sincere gratitude to the Congregation of St. Joseph for the funding and for recognizing the important role that nonviolence education programs such as Peace Works play in promoting systemic change.
In the News
Read Pope Francis' World Day of Peace address
On the 49th World Day of Peace (January 1, 2016), Pope Francis shared a message titled
Overcome Indifference and Win Peace. The message identifies "today's information explosion" and growing levels of "indifference to one's neighbor, born of indifference to God" as the sources of "disinterest and a lack of engagement, which help to prolong situations of injustice and grave social imbalance."
Pope Francis directly challenges us to resist indifference when he says, "each of us must work in accordance with our abilities and our role in society for the promotion of the common good, and in particular for peace, which is one of mankind's most precious goods."
In moving from indifference to mercy we come to see that "mercy is at the heart of God...a heart which beats all the more strongly wherever human dignity is in play." These works of mercy, combined with creating cultures of solidarity and compassion, are the three key components of overcoming indifference and working for peace.
Overcome Indifference and Win Peace | The Vatican
