National Council of Catholic Women at 200 N. Glebe Road, Suite 703, Arlington, VA 22203 US - Report of the Program Director to the Membership

2007 National Convention

Columbus, Ohio

September 23, 2007

2007 has been an eventful year for NCCW.  We have developed and introduced new programs and resources, revitalized and updated others, and continued the process of renewing our organization.  We trust you have seen and approved of some of the results you have seen at this Convention.

NCCW’s new Spirituality Resource was introduced to you here in Columbus.  We hope you will enjoy the prayer services, readings and meditations, and will find it to be a valuable addition to the spiritual resources you use both in council and personally.

Also in a spiritual vein, we have embarked on an effort to increase the spiritual support NCCW gives you by connecting every effort we make and every program and activity we become involved in with our faith.  You have seen evidence of this in connection with this year’s Convention.  Each Commission workshop here was associated with a Scriptural theme or quotation.  You saw them in the descriptions of the workshops carried in Catholic Woman, and you saw them again in the convention program.  We hope these have provided opportunities to consider the topics of the workshops in the light of faith.  We are attempting to do the same thing in Catholic Woman.  In the July/August issue of Catholic Woman you read a homily by Bishop Guy Sansaricq, Auxiliary Bishop of Brooklyn, which was a spiritual reflection on the holiness of migrancy and about how we must treat those who migrate in search of a decent life.  The bishop noted that his homily was “Prepared for the Feast of St. Joseph, who migrated to Egypt, fleeing the threats of a wicked king.”  Reading that gave me a chill, reflecting on another dimension of the humility of Christ – that he became a stranger in a strange land for our sake as an expression of his love for us, much as many of those who enter the United States under the radar do so to save the families they love.  This homily ran in Catholic Woman to provide each of us an opportunity to meditate on what loving our neighbor means in the context of the current climate surrounding undocumented immigration.  The Church doesn’t tell us what position to take on these specific issues, but it does set before us the love of Christ and ask us to think about them in light of the Gospel.  We will continue to look for more ways to tie our faith to what we face in our everyday lives, in our country, and in the world.  This is our message:  We are women who belong to Christ.  Everything we do as part of NCCW, we do in the name of the Lord.  Whether we are praying the Rosary, or reducing the amount of driving we do to cut down on greenhouse gases, or marching for life, or learning about rural poverty and the needs of the family farmer, or visiting our Congressional member’s district office to talk about providing health coverage for uninsured children – all of these things we do out of love for Him who gave us the ozone layer, who provided for us the land to grow our food, who created the miracle of human life, and who gave us the resources, both individually and as a nation, to provide health care for all children.  We are not activists.  We are women with a mission – a mission to help create the new Jerusalem – the kingdom of God here on earth.  That is what NCCW is all about.  That’s why we’re here today, that’s why we are in council, and that’s what this organization is committed to supporting you in doing. 

You’ve heard about NCCW’s new Leadership Training program that will be launched next year.  This is a flexible program which can be tailored to the differing needs of different councils.  After running a couple of pilot programs in the spring, we will begin regular presentations next fall.  We on the staff and those who will present the program look forward to working as partners with you to build and strengthen NCCW.

Another product of this year’s efforts, also introduced at this convention, is our updated Domestic Violence Resource Packet.  The packet was first launched in 2000.  In addition to updated statistics and other basic information, the revised 2007 version offers timely new information on abuse of elders, abuse in teen relationships, and abuse in military families.  The packet was introduced here in conjunction with our Family Concerns Commission workshop, which this year featured the topic of domestic violence.  If you did not get your packet here at Convention, you can order one through the office, and we hope you will find useful its information about how to participate in fighting and preventing this tragic problem.

We continue to work with like-minded Catholic organizations on national coalitions that seek a just solution to problems involving immigration, the scourge of human trafficking, and the threat to our world presented by climate change.  Many of you heard Dan Misleh, the Executive Director of the new Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, speak to the Community Concerns workshop about the threat climate change poses to human health.  NCCW is proud to serve on the Steering Committee of the Coalition.  The Coalition is a group of Catholic organizations which, together with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, is articulating the Catholic Church’s views on climate change.  The Church is emphasizing that the poor, with whom it always stands in solidarity, have little ability to protect themselves against the rising waters, health threats and other dangers climate change brings.  The coalition’s, and the Church’s, and NCCW’s, most important task is to be the voice of the poor and disenfranchised as we search for solutions to these difficulties. 

Please join with your sisters in council for NCCW’s First Annual Day of Fasting and Prayer on November 15.  Before we begin our holiday feasting, let us pause to reflect on the plight of those who have no food, and ask God to give us the grace to find a way to eliminate hunger from our world.

The protection of children from environmental threats is receiving increased attention.  Sheila McCarron and I attended a one-day symposium in April hosted by the bishops’ conference that brought together experts from the medical, environmental and government communities to discuss the substantial evidence of environmental toxins that threaten the health of unborn and other young children.  This issue will be a top priority for 2008.  The Program Department will update the Children and a Safe Environment, or CASE, resource packet to include some of the most current information on the subject, and to give NCCW members avenues in which to become involved in educating the public about these threats.  It is also notable and encouraging that this is increasingly an issue on which the traditional pro-life and pro-justice communities can work together – and that it really is good news for all of us as we try to focus attention on the consistent ethic of life that the Good News of the Gospel asks us to embrace.

The Annual Reports that diocesan commission chairs send to the national commission chairs tell us that women in the dioceses and parishes want to know more about the programs developed by NCCW and the resources available to support those programs.  The frustration experienced by those of us in the national organization has been the lack of avenues through which to bring these programs to the women who are hungry for them.

That is starting to change as we upgrade our technological capabilities.  I look forward to how we can use these changes to increase the effectiveness of communication between NCCW and you, its members, and thus, to improve the effectiveness of our programs.  We thank the Associates of NCCW for their generous assistance in helping us to pursue this goal.

You will soon be able to join or donate to NCCW, update your address and other information, or shop for NCCW items and resources right on our website.  These things in themselves will rectify a number of recordkeeping and communications problems.  We are looking ahead to the time when we will be able to bring programming information to you by e-mail and other creative avenues, and allow the national Commission Chairs to send you news about matters in which you have indicated an interest.  Members at the parish level will have much more information about national programming and how to participate in it, making programs more effective and useful to you.  This is still a vision, but it is one we’re working hard to make into a flesh-and-blood reality in the not too distant future.

I look forward to working with you and for you as we move into the next chapter of NCCW’s proud history.