Daily Archives: March 11, 2015

Church

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: The Joy of the Gospel – Called to Celebrate and Serve

Pax Chrisit USA

Sr. Patricia Chappell, SNDdeN
Executive Director, Pax Christi USA

Joy[NOTE: The following is the keynote address given to the Social Ministry Convocation for the Archdiocese of Baltimore on March 7, 2015.]
In the theme of this year’s convocation, “The Joy of the Gospel: Called to Celebrate and Serve,” I find both a challenge and an invitation.

I would like to begin these remarks this morning with a question…

•    What is in the Gospel that we are to be filled with joy about?
•    What is it that makes the Gospel so attractive and alluring that we cannot but radiate joy?
•    Who is this Gospel?
•    What is the Gospel…this Good News? I believe the Gospel, this Good News is the selective narrative of one who came as the fulfillment of a promise.  It is about Jesus…WHO he was and is…how he lived his life…what he stood for…and the legacy he left us. Continue reading KEYNOTE ADDRESS: The Joy of the Gospel – Called to Celebrate and Serve →

Environment, USA

Here’s Another Thing To Love About Hawaii

Think Progress

ARI PHILLIPS

Kaanapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii. CREDIT: FLICKR/ RANDY ROBERTSON
Kaanapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii. CREDIT: FLICKR/ RANDY ROBERTSON

Hawaii is on track to pass legislation this year requiring the state to go 100 percent renewable by 2040.

Earlier this month, committees in the Hawaii House and Senate both unanimously recommended bills that would raise the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) from the current target of 70 percent by 2030 to the ultimate goal of 100 percent by 2040. Hawaii has had an RPS since 2001, and right now the state gets just over 21 percent of its power from renewable sources — a 12 percent increase in just six years. Continue reading Here’s Another Thing To Love About Hawaii →

USA

Cruel and Inhuman: UN Slams US as Only Nation that Sentences Children to Die In Prison

Common Dreams

Special Rapporteur Juan Méndez notes US policy violates international human rights law

Sarah Lazare

Image from action in Oakland, California highlighting injustice in the prison industrial complex 24 April 2012. (Photo: Daniel Arauz/flickr/cc)
Image from action in Oakland, California highlighting injustice in the prison industrial complex 24 April 2012. (Photo: Daniel Arauz/flickr/cc)

A United Nations human rights expert strongly condemned the U.S. on Tuesday for being the “only State in the world that still sentences children to life imprisonment without the opportunity for parole,” thereby imposing cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment.

Juan Méndez, the Special Rapporteur on torture, made the comments in a report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva—building from his previous censure of cruel incarceration practices in a nation that locks up more people than any other country in the world. Continue reading Cruel and Inhuman: UN Slams US as Only Nation that Sentences Children to Die In Prison →