Bending the Arc

The problem of human trafficking has become so prevalent that in 2011, President Barack Obama designated January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. National Human Trafficking Awareness Day is observed annually on Jan. 11. And in 2015, the Vatican named Feb. 8 the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking.

Below are some valuable resources:

In this Global Catholic Sisters Report article of January 6, 2025, sisters reflect on their ministry to survivors of sex trafficking in the Midwest.

In a recent meeting with members of Sisters Program of the Benedict Center in Milwaukee, WI, LCWR-9 Justice Promoters and Communicators joined staff and board members to discuss how they could work together to maximize the advocacy efforts around human trafficking issues. (See group photo)

Read the January newsletter from Alliance to End Human Trafficking
 

Taking a Faithful Stand for Equity, a program of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, started as a one-time teaching webinar whose work expanded into a statewide campaign working on equity with a particular focus on what is happening in our schools. Currently, this group gathers for monthly webinars featuring speakers on a variety of topics related to equity and a time for local organizing around the state. 

The next meeting of Taking a Faithful Stand for Equity will be on Tuesday, January 14, at 6:30 PM on Zoom.

Attendees will consider What Is The Beloved Community's "Project 2025?" What do we, who are trying to build the Beloved Community, need to work on in 2025? What tools do we have for doing that work?

Join the conversation and exercise your holy imagination! 

Register here
 

You are invited to a 3-session online conversation on the book, “Come Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and Earth” by Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ.

Gatherings are Mondays, 5:30 – 6:45 pm CST with the following schedule:
1. January 27, 2025 Before meeting read sections: Intro; Creation: A Relationship; and The Vivifying Presence of God, up to page 91.
2. February 10, 2025 Before meeting, read sections: Jesus and the Earth; and, Humankind and Otherkind, up to page179.
3. February 24, 2025 Before meeting, read section: God’s Beloved Creation and Afterward.

Register with this link by January 15, 2025: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0uc-6grz8rHtYvgKmcZ0mdFDj8rwxv-9VH 

For more information contact planners, Sr. Catherine Darcy, RSM at cdarcy@sistersofmercy.org; Sr. Carol De Angelo, SC at cdeangelo@scny.org, Sr. Alice Marie Giordano, OSU at giordanomdg@aol.com 

Conversation format: opening prayer, highlights of section, small group discussion followed by large group discussion.

Sponsored by Metro New York Catholic Climate Movement, ROAR (Religious Organizations Along the River), Dominican Sisters of Hope, Dominican Sisters of Sparkill, Sisters of Charity of New York, Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, Sisters of Mercy Justice Team - NY, Ursulines of the Roman Union, Eastern Province.
 

More than 60 Catholic groups and individuals — including the Congregation of Sisters of St. Agnes — signed a letter urging President Joseph Biden to support an initiative promoting debt relief for low- and middle-income countries.

Specifically, the letter asks Biden to support a new issuance of Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, which are a reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund. With the stroke of a pen, the SDRs through executive authority would provide people around the world with direly needed relief from their suffering in the face of poverty, hunger, and natural disaster and doing so would cap Biden’s legacy of global leadership.

The letter was covered in this Global Sisters Report article on January 6, 2025. 

The Giffords Center just released its Annual Gun Law Scorecard, which analyzes and grades all 50 states on the strength of their gun laws and compares that to their gun death rate. The data is undeniable: Fewer people die from gun violence in states that care enough to pass gun safety laws. It’s that simple. The gun violence crisis isn’t a mystery. It’s a choice America has made.

Read the Scorecard

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law, making the state the second to hold fossil fuel companies financially accountable for environmental damages. Modeled after the 1980 Superfund law, the legislation mandates major fossil fuel firms, responsible for most carbon emissions since 2000, to pay $3 billion annually for 25 years. Climate advocates called it a "massive win" for workers, youth, and the environment, as the law seeks to address the long-term impact of corporate pollution and fund necessary environmental cleanup efforts. 

Read more

The outcome of the November election may not have been what some of us were hoping or expecting, but we are invited to consider how we will respond.

The CSA community is invited to join Racine Dominicans and their Justice Promoter, Tim Hall, for a 2-part conversation about the results and implications of the November Presidential election.

Part 1: What Happened? January 9 at 6:30 pm
Part 2: The Way Forward January 16 at 6:30 pm

No registration required. The Zoom link is the same for both sessions: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89134343300 

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was introduced to congress in 1971, proposing that it should be clearly written into the constitution that people should be protected equally under the law in the United States no matter their gender. The House of Representatives passed the legislation with overwhelming margins in both parties. One year later it passed the Senate with an eighty-four to eight majority. The next step would be for 3/4 of the states to adopt and then it would be added as a constitutional amendment. In five years they were only three states short of the number needed. Unfortunately, this is when a vocal high profile anti-feminist conservative activist, Phyllis Schlafly, led a resistance to the ERA effort using scare tactics and misinformation. It worked and the legislation was stalled for years.

Then in 2020 three more states, Nevada, Illinois and Virginia adopted the ERA through the work of women activists in response to the loss of women’s rights - hitting the magic number for ratification. At that point the ERA cleared all the bars for becoming a constitutional amendment. All that was left was for the President to contact the national archivist and tell them to publish the ERA into law.

But, when those last three states ratified, the Trump White House sent a memo saying that the national archivist could not publish the ERA because the original piece of legislation had a deadline of 1982.

Because of that deadline you would think the amendment was over. But there is clear legal argument for the continuation of the ERA. Including the fact that constitutional amendments don’t normally have time limits. The 27th Amendment was ratified in 1992, a full 223 years after it was introduced. Also there is nothing in the constitution that says an amendment has to be passed within a particular time limit. In August of 2024, the American Bar Association made a public statement that a deadline for ratification of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not consistent with Article V of the Constitution.

The point is that there is a real legal challenge to Trump’s White House memo to the archivist. All President Joe Biden has to do is pick up the phone and tell the national archivist to publish the ERA (which has jumped every constitutional hoop - passing overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, and 3/4 of the states adopting the legislation).

Yes, there will be undoubtedly a legal challenge. Currently over 45 Senators and over 100 House members have written and encouraged Biden to call the national archivist and put the publishing of the ERA into motion — then let it work through the courts as it should.

The publishing of the ERA would be a significant firewall for legislation that would discriminate against women and persons in the LGBTQ+ community. 
Contact President Biden and Vice President Harris today, requesting they make publishing the ERA before the end of their term a priority.

Read more about the full 100-year history of the ERA