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The Peace Pulpit by Bishop Gumbleton	Sunday, February 24, 2008
Homily Archives	Weekly Homily

[Editor's Note: Because of technical difficulties, the first few minutes of this homily were not recorded. We regret this error.]

Is God in our midst or not? Well, recently I had an experience that made me realize, and I hadn't thought about it so clearly before, how desperate is the need for water and what people will do to get water. This past year in El Salvador, the government made a move to privatize water. Can you imagine? Something that every human person has a right to, the government is going to sell or allow people to sell for profit, and of course it'll be at a price that probably most of the poor in that country would not be able to pay.

All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr.
	Friday, February 29, 2008 - Vol. 7, No. 25

In ancient Rome, the office of "tribune" was created to represent the common people, the plebeians, over against the patrician magistrates, meaning the elite ruling class. Over time the office basically lost this founding ideal, but the idea of a "tribune" as a voice for the common person still survives in other contexts -- for example, in its widespread use as a name for newspapers.

"Where have all the peace songs gone? Long time passing..."

Amid all the talk about the details, such as whether or not the surge is working, we need to remember just whose land Iraq is and where we need to get...

For the lyrics to "Iraq is Their Land," please see this website:

http://home.mchsi.com/~george.robinson/wsb/index.html

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El Rio Debajo El Rio: The river beneath the river, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

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Rio

Noted author Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés will begin a weekly column, titled "El Rio Debajo El Rio: The river beneath the river," on March 3. A new column will be posted every Monday.

We can send you an e-mail alert when Dr. Estés has posted a new column, if you sign up here. If you already receive an e-mail alert for another NCR column or feature, click on this icon to update your e-mail alert profile to include "El Rio Debajo El Rio."

The University of Saint Thomas (UST) in Houston, Texas is taking a hard look at its current curriculum. Since this planet is witnessing the Sixth Great Extinction, my recommendation is to concentrate on healing this world by environmental restoration and structuring our accounting, taxes, political, social and economic spheres to live well and get out of our fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway, war, poverty economy that requires 1.4 billion of the world’s citizens to live in poverty.

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Religious fundamentalism, in whatever tradition or denomination, represents a "stuckedness" in early stages of intellectual, affective, moral, sociopolitical and religious development (or Lonergan's conversions). It lacks, then, in a word, authenticity.

The voice of prophetic protest must come from a very deeply rooted spirituality:

quote: "What is this (contemplative prayer) in relation to action? Simply this. He (and she) who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without this deepening of his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his egocentered ambitions, his delusions about ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas." Thomas Merton," The Climate of Monastic Prayer"

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