Bending the Arc

In his April 30, 2026, article in the National Catholic Reporter, author Daniel Horan gives readers much to think about as it relates to today’s trends of gaming and market predictions. He supports comments and concerns raised by Pope Leo and Cardinal Cupich, and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, who see gamifying everything as a threat to our humanity.

Read the full article here.
 

A FREE WORLD PREMIERE SCREENING of the documentary Land of Canaan will be offered this Saturday, May 23, 2026, thanks to the Palestine Museum US.

At a time when Palestine faces erasure and genocide, it is vital to celebrate and protect the rich cultural heritage of this ancient place.

The screening will start at 12:00 Noon US EDT / 11:00 AM CT.

Watch the trailer here: 

Click here to register to view the film

 

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month - a celebration of the innumerable contributions, vibrant cultures, and rich heritage of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

Wisconsin Governor, Tony Evers signed an executive order ordering the flags of the United States and the state of Wisconsin to be flown at half-staff on Thursday, May 14, 2026, in honor of Hmong-Lao Veterans Day. Each year since assuming office, Gov. Evers has proclaimed May 14 as Hmong-Lao Veterans Day in Wisconsin.

Read his full May 13, 2026 press release about the executive order here: https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WIGOV/bulletins/416c73f

If you are looking for a unique activity this Memorial Weekend, consider a trip to Sheboygan and visit the Lao Hmong Memorial at Deland Park. The memorial was dedicated on July 15, 2006.

Laudato Si’ Week 2026 invites us to move from hope to action. Hope is not passive; it is lived and shared through daily choices, community life, prayer, and concrete acts of care. This year reminds us that ecological conversion grows step by step — through relationships restored, creation protected, and communities strengthened. Choose one simple action that aligns with the Laudato Si’ Action Platform goals, found here. Share it with your local community and add it to the global Padlet here.

Toward the end of Laudato Si’ Week, participants from around the world are invited to a virtual Creation Care Ceremony: A Blessing and Sending Forth on May 23, 2026, at 8:00 AM CT. During this global gathering, you will:

• Renew your commitment to care for creation
• Present and celebrate your initiatives
• Receive a special blessing for your actions

Register for the Creation Care Ceremony

CSA is excited to share that THREE more people from the Congregation are participating in the Laudato Si’ Animator training this spring, bringing our total of animators up to 12! Congratulations to Sister Lael Niblick, Madeline Gianforte, and Dusty Krikau for making this commitment. Marian University student Luca Pasternak also participated in the training and is joining them for their final seed project: working with Holy Family this fall to bring a showing of the movie, The Letter. Save the date for September 13 at 11:30 in Holy Family Hall.

People for People, a growing group of neighbors, friends, churchgoers, farmers, small business owners, teachers, and simply concerned citizens in the Fond du Lac (WI) area, began meeting last fall to discuss concerns about ICE raiding U.S. communities. They also wanted to better understand the County Sheriff’s 287(g) Warrant Service Officer (WSO) agreement with the Department of Homeland Security.

The group has spent months educating themselves and others on the many aspects of immigration and border policies, immigration law, the role of immigration enforcement, and the real stories of human struggle. They are proud to offer a free, in-person presentation to the public titled, Immigration: How We Got Here, A Better Path Forward.

This will be presented by Kat Griffith on Thursday, May 21 at 6 pm in Founders Hall of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes Motherhouse, 320 County Road K, Fond du Lac, WI. 

Registration requested HERE

Kat Griffith has given versions of this presentation to a wide variety of audiences in Wisconsin and beyond, including numerous civic and political organizations, churches, Ripon College’s Center for Politics and the People, WisconsinEye, the League of Women Voters (local and national), and college classes. Her background includes a number of years living and working in Latin America, many years as a Spanish-English interpreter for immigrants and asylum seekers, and a background in public policy, economics, and communications. She has been active on immigration policy since the 1980s, is currently a Fond du Lac County Board Supervisor, and is committed to bipartisanship and respectful dialogue across political differences.  

If you are interested in learning more about, or getting involved with, People for People Fond du Lac, let us know by completing this involvement form. Thank you!!

When we explore our national justice systems, we are confronted by our beliefs, both as individuals and a society, about what creates and sustains justice and healing. In nonviolence, we opt for a restorative system based on a higher image of the human being, a “new story.” 

In a May 5 post from the Metta Center for Nonviolence on Substack, Michael Nagler offers some counter-points to six beliefs that limit us to retributive action and systems.

1. The belief that humans are inherently violent and must be controlled through punishment.
This pessimistic theory has been completely discredited, by scientists. But the image of the human being (us) implied in popular culture generally, throughout that culture, but particularly by advertising, shows us as nasty, selfish, etc. Humankind (Rutger Bregman) is one good recent source to show how the stories we tell ourselves even about events that actually happened—the Titanic, the murder of Kitty Genovese stick in my mind—are drastically and damagingly wrong. Every society has many more powerful ways to guide and control the behavior of its members, e.g. by persuasion. Punishment, e.g. exile, is rare, used only for extreme cases.

2. The belief that punishment works—especially that it deters harm or brings healing.
I think the biggest claim about punishment is that it deters, and that’s demonstrably wrong. Recidivism is high in the U.S. criminal ‘justice’ system. These facts, like the above, are ignored. Paradigms speak louder than facts. As for healing, even the victims of serious crime, e.g. family members of persons killed, very often say they do not want punishment; it does not bring closure, much less healing.

3. The belief that others (or institutions) should determine what is healing, rather than those directly affected or the community.
Exactly wrong. This is symptomatic of a very widespread false belief about human beings, that we have limited or no agency, that we need others, ultimately government, to do things for us, individually and as a society. Very demeaning and damaging. The criterion for everything we do, for ourselves and others, should be, does this help the subject grow. When my grandmother died (grandma Yetta, age 102), her son, my uncle, complained at the burial, ‘In the old days we used to shove dirt on the casket ourselves; it was a machiah (blessing).’ Now we are separated from our emotions, leaving wounds unhealed, often by entities far removed and impersonal who don’t know us.

4. The belief that harm affects only the person directly impacted, rather than everyone involved—including the broader community.
Sigh, wrong again. The harm happens to everyone concerned including the perpetrator of the harm. The discovery of “moral injury” is one of the great breakthroughs made by science into the true, interconnected nature of who we are; See item 6.

5. The belief that people cannot change.
Here we go again; comforting (sometimes), but false. Estranged individuals can be reconciled, ‘hardened’ criminals can be restored—it happens over and over, and mature cultures like the Maori of NZ, the Navajo (Anasazi) of the U.S., and countless examples from all over the world (thank you Doug Fry, e.g. War, Peace, and Human Nature) institutionalize this capacity to change in countless ways. We can—today often are—so conditioned we no longer believe in our capacity to change and fail to recognize it when we do.

6. The belief that we are fundamentally separate from one another.
I’m glad you finally came out with it. This is the root of all the other lies; it’s existential and severely damaging. It springs from the grandmother of all lies, that we are only or primarily our physical bodies, the part of us you can see and touch. E.g. “the old story.” If only we were taught in school, nay, in our families that we are body, mind, and spirit (aka consciousness), in increasing order of power and importance, all this could be corrected. So that’s what we can do in our own minds and hearts. The change starts there, and by and by, as Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘might o’ersweep the world.’ Now that would be a cleanup, eh?

Want a daily dose of nonviolence inspiration in your inbox? Subscribe here.

Are you interested in Restorative Justice? David Ryan Barcega Castro-Harris, founder of Amplify RJ (check out his YouTube Channel, please) will host an online workshop as part of the Metta Center’s month-long focus on Restorative Justice in May… this Saturday, May 9, from 9-11 am. The workshop on RJ will be engaging and participatory. They are not planning to record it. If you’d like to attend to learn more about RJ and our Nonviolence Studies program, you are welcome to sign up. Register here, only if you can attend live.

Fond du Lac High School students recently formed a Students for AI Awareness (SAIA) club. The club was created in “response to excessive use by both the student and faculty populations.” SAIA recognized that AI is harmful to the environment, the job market, human creativity, and more, so the club began with the intention to host events related to AI scam protection, the spread of AI misinformation, and the negative effects of using AI.  With just a few weeks remaining in the academic year, they reached out to CSA to host their first educational event at the motherhouse. The event is open to the public with a special invitation for sisters and associates. 

Tuesday, May 5, 2026 |  5:30-7:30 PM
Founders Hall 
CSA Motherhouse, 320 County Rd K, Fond du Lac

This in-person only event will educate on the negative impacts of generative AI usage along with how to spot it in your news, social media videos, and messages. Pizza dinner will be provided. The SAIA club will showcase their research, campaigning strategies, and their hopes for the future. We hope you'll come to learn and support this audience of young engaged educators!

Follow up what you learn at the SAIA event by joining Faith In Place for the May Monthly call May 14 at 6 p.m. CT/7 p.m. ET.  The featured speaker is Maria Fernanda Chavez from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Many communities across the nation are seeing the rapid growth of data centers. Join the call to learn what you need to know and how to support your community! 

Maria Fernanda Chavez is a Senior Analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate and Energy program. In this role, she focuses on the capabilities of renewable energy technologies and the importance of equitable and justice-centered policies for a clean energy transition. She has been featured on Wisconsin Public Radio, 27 WKOW and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for her original analysis on the economic, health and climate impacts of data center load growth in Wisconsin. 

Register today for the Monthly Call!  
 

At the beginning of the 119th Congress, the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2025 (H.R. 1144) was reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. This bipartisan bill, led by Representatives Chris Smith and Kweisi Mfume, would accomplish several goals, including: 

• Reauthorize and strengthen existing anti-trafficking programs across numerous federal agencies;
• Establish a new Human Trafficking Survivors Employment and Education Program to help prevent the re-exploitation of trafficking survivors; and
• Require counter-trafficking strategies, activities, and efforts to be further incorporated into U.S. international assistance.

In April 2025, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration joined with national partners in calling on the House to pass H.R. 1144. The bill now has the potential to reach the House floor in the coming weeks. 

Complete this action alert to join with the bishops in calling for the House to pass H.R. 1144.