Practices Search Results
In an article in The New York Times, Gardiner Harris reveals that 28 million children between the ages of 6 and 14 are working in mines, factories, construction sites, shops, and farms in India. This is happening despite laws banning child labor and unsafe working conditions. As a result many kids are getting sick and even dying.
These pictures testify to the suffering.
In an article in The New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof reported on Pope Benedict's reprimand and criticism of American nuns and the organization that represents 80% of them. The Vatican lambasted their emphasis on working for the poor rather than spending their time fighting abortion and gay marriage. Kristof praises the nuns' pathbreaking work: "They were the first feminists, earning doctorates or working as surgeons long before it was fashionable for women to hold jobs. As managers of hospitals, schools, and complex bureaucracies, they were the first female CEOs."
We ask you to join him and us in supporting these incredible women who have been the heart and soul of Catholicism for centuries. (Photo: gathering of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.)
The continuing recession in the United States has been especially hard on Baby Boomers, those in their 50s and 60s raised with high hopes of a happy and fulfilling retirement filled with travel and the pleasures of a life of leisure. Instead the Labor Department's latest report on jobs identifies this age cohort as the greatest victims of the economic down swing.
Here we are at the end of our first year of "Praying the News." As we look back at the 28 prayers, we would characterize 2011 as a turbulent year for weather and disasters, the rebellions around the world against the power and greed of dictators, the suffering of animals, the tragedy of widespread poverty, and the continued violence against women and gay people. We continue to hold all those affected by these events in our prayers as we near the start of a New Year, and we offer a new prayer for all the peoples of the world.
Over the past year, 30 young Tibetans have committed self-immolation as a form of self-sacrifice to draw attention to the relentless oppression by the Chinese in their homeland. On March 26, 2012, a Tibetan in exile in India set himself on fire and ran through the streets of New Delhi. In Tibet these events have led to a crack-down on monasteries and monks along with the detention of those who persist in having pictures of the Dalai Lama. The New York Times reports that "the Dalai Lama and his subordinates have expressed shock and sadness at the immolations but have called them a reflection of desperation by Tibetans living under a system that represses their religion and culture."
Today's news is troubling. Bombs are falling in Gaza and Israel. People are still suffering from the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy. Yet once again in the United States, we are asked to open our hearts and give thanks on the national holiday of Thanksgiving.
And so we pray this news. . .
In an article in The New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman reported on the recent shooting of 22 elephants including several very young ones in the Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The killers shot them from the air, then landed so they could cut off the ivory tusks worth one million dollars. The park guards suspect that the perpetrators were members of the Ugandan military shooting from a helicopter and using ivory poaching to fund military activities. Other notorious armed groups – the Lord's Resistance Army, the Shabab, and Darfur's Janjaweed – are hunting elephants and using the tusks to buy weapons.
Gettleman writes: "Africa is in the midst of an epic elephant slaughter. Conservation groups say that poachers are wiping out tens of thousands of elephants a year, more than any time in the previous two decades, with the underground ivory trade becoming increasingly militarized."
Elephants are the largest territorial mammals living on earth. Gigantic and strong, they are able to move with agility and perform many different functions with their trunks such as smelling, feeling, greeting, and bathing. Three other qualities make them outstanding creatures: their intelligence, their extraordinary memory, and their delight in living in herds with other elephants. They have life spans of 60 years or more.
In Peace to All Beings, Judy Carman notes how many of us are deeply shocked and moved after reading about incidents of human cruelty to animals. We are often moved to take action and to send our prayers to them.
Newspapers, magazines, and television reports deliver the story of another suicide: a famous filmmaker leaps to his death off a bridge, a college student exposed by classmates as being gay takes his own life, a young girl mercilessly bullied by her peers hangs herself at home. Soldiers and Native Americans are two groups with high suicide rates.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 36,909 individuals in the United States committed suicide in 2009. This figure makes it the tenth leading cause of death. Sadly, the rate of suicide has been increasing since 2000; this is the highest rate in 15 years.
Compassionate One, our hearts go out this day to the one in seven Americans – 47 million people – who are buying and eating less because of cuts in the food stamp program.
Fact: The largest cuts in the history of America's food stamp program have gone into effect when the increase ordained by the 2009 economic stimulus package expired. The reductions total $5 billion. (Slate.com)*
Generous One, help us all to give more to Food Banks and programs delivering food to those in need to make up for this cruel and inhuman treatment of the nation's poorest people.
August 27, 2011. Hurricane Irene made landfall this morning on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and continued making its way up the Eastern seaboard of the United States where hurricane warnings were in effect all the way to Massachusetts. President Barack Obama declared an emergency for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. More than 2.3 million people were ordered to evacuate their homes. In New York City, where the storm is expected to hit Sunday as a Category I hurricane, the entire subway and bus system was shut down.
"This is probably the largest number of people that have been threatened by a single hurricane in the United States," said Jay Baker, a geography professor at Florida State University. It has been estimated that as many as 60 million people are in the path of this giant storm. For them and their loved ones, we offer this Prayer for Protection originally written by Unity minister James Dillet Freeman for soldiers during World War II. It was carried to the moon by astronaut Col. James Aldrin on Apollo 11 and by Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin on the first manned moon landing.