Key Upcoming Culture-of-Life Gatherings/Projects

Hymns, Fellowship and Pizza will follow the Life Chain at 3:45 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Lindbergh Park at Ashford Drive and Eckstrom Ave.  From Genesee go east on Balboa. Turn right on Charger Blvd (just west of the 805). Immediately turn left on Eckstrom Ave and then turn right on Ashford Drive. 

For more information and to reserve a pizza, contact Sue Lopez 619-276-7525, Slopez@integrity.com

Life Chain 2006 
Sunday, October 1, 2006
2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Start at the corner of Balboa Ave. and Genesee

Hymns, Fellowship and Pizza
Sunday, October 1, 2006
3:45 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. 
Lindbergh Park
Corner of Ashford Dr. and Eckstrom Ave.




Number 3:   Please pray for the success of "An Eye for an Eye?" a half-day conference for San Diego Clergy on the Death Penalty, scheduled for September 20, 2006

Eye for an Eye? Program

-- Overview on the Death Penalty in California by Marjorie Cohn, Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and President-elect of the National Lawyers’ Guild.

-- Representatives from the Roman Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Protestant faith will present their traditional teachings, with time for question and discussion.

-- Featured Speaker: Pastor Billy Neal Moore,
author of "I Shall Not Die: Seventy-Two Hours on Death Watch."

Billy Moore spent almost 17 years on Georgia’s death row for the robbery-murder of 77-year-old Fredger Stapleton. Moore confessed to the murder, pled guilty, and was given a death sentence. Moved by his remorse, the victim's family forgave him and began a campaign to set him free. He attracted international attention when Mother Teresa personally contacted the Georgia Board of Pardons on his behalf and the Reverend Jesse Jackson joined in the campaign to spare his life. Seven days before his scheduled execution, he received clemency and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Following his parole in 1993, he was ordained a Pentecostal minister. His freedom, as he puts it, is a call from God to speak to all people about the death penalty.

-- Prayer and reflection

-- Lunch with discussion

-- Round-table with all attending clergy

To download a pdf flyer featuring this event to pass on to interested clergy of any denomination, visit...

http://www.osmelink.org/messages2005/Eye4anEyeSept20Brochure.pdf

We appreciate your support.

e-link Advocacy REPORTBACK

Dignity Response:


The Justice for Immigrants website is a very helpful resource for anyone with questions on what the Church teaches regarding the immigration issue.  It clarifies what the Church is really advocating and provides Her reasons for doing so.  I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about immigration issues.

Joseph Horejs

Web and e-mail-based Resources

Please visit the "Yes on 85" web site (especially to make a donation to the campaign), the California Catholic Conference web site for promotional materials from a Catholic perspectiv, and the Catholicsfor85.org web site to volunteer and to publicly support Prop. 85
 

You'll also want to see the two new television commercials developed by the "Yes on 85" campaign and make a donation to maximize the air time of these great resources.






TV Commercials: http://www.yeson85.net/video.html

Please send the above link to these commercials to all Californians on your e-mail listing.

 

New Local/Regional Events and Gatherings 

Watch for OSM e-link bulletin #52 around Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Article/Statement for August 23, 2006

Conclusion of Bishop Cordileone's Labor Day reflection:

I didn’t realize it then, but I was learning from experience the principles that our Catholic tradition teaches us about the dignity of work and of workers themselves.  Now that I can combine my study of these teachings with my experience, I have come to understand that this dignity is based on that most pivotal truth revealed in Genesis 1, 26: God created man and woman in His image and likeness.  Moreover, this story of creation shows that work is of such great dignity that even God Himself engages in it: the first chapter of Genesis portrays God as working for six days in creating the world.  After His creation is complete, we are told: “Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work He had been doing, He rested on the seventh day from all the work He had undertaken” (Gen 2, 2). 

But God’s work does not stop there.  God’s love for us is so great that He became one of us: at a certain point in human history God’s co-eternal, only-begotten Son became a man, sharing in our human nature.  Jesus himself worked with his hands in the carpenter’s shop, learning the trade from his foster-father St. Joseph, before he began his public ministry.  The Incarnation is the ultimate act of solidarity: God’s solidarity with His human creation.

Solidarity, of course, was a frequent and cherished theme in the teaching of Pope John Paul II.  In his Encyclical Solicitudo Rei Socialis, he describes the virtue of solidarity as “not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far.  On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”  In expounding upon this theme, John Paul made a major contribution to the development of Catholic Social Teaching begun by Pope Leo XIII with his landmark Encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891.  That Encyclical, in turn, had developed principles of Catholic moral teaching and applied them to the pressing social issues of his time: labor and social justice.

Of course, these continue to be pressing issues down to our own time, and so the Church has not failed to guide us in right thinking on these matters.  Human dignity means that each individual is to be valued precisely because of being a human person, and not for some utilitarian end.  The human person is primarily spiritual, and cannot be reduced to mere material usefulness, as if the person’s value is to be found in one’s capacity to produce and consume.  And so our own Catholic bishops in the United States taught in their pastoral letter Economic Justice for All that all economic life should be shaped by moral principles, and economic choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermine the dignity of the human person, support the family and serve the common good.

At the same time, we are also social beings, and our basic human vocation of happiness with God has to be worked out in society.  The workplace is a key ingredient in this recipe of divine happiness, for not only do we spend so much of our lives there, but it is also the privileged context in which we interact with others and can contribute to the common good.  We cannot be happy without giving of ourselves for the good of others.  Human labor, then, must not be treated as a mere commodity, something to be endured for the sake of material gain.  We have witnessed in our own time the tragedy of this approach: winners and losers.  On the other hand, when all give, when all contribute to the common good, then all gain, all are winners.

On Labor Day, we take a pause, we rest from our work in order to appreciate its dignity, and all that God intends it to be in His plan for our happiness.  Work is not even below God’s dignity!  What a great privilege God has given us to share in His creative activity.

The opening prayer for Mass for the blessing of human labor sums it up well.  May we live faithfully the words of this prayer:

“God our Father, by human labor You govern and guide to perfection the work of creation.  Hear the prayers of Your people and give all people work that enhances their human dignity and draws them closer to each other in the service of their brothers and sisters.”