Pax Christi Minnesota

Please save the date, Saturday September 25th for our annual assembly.  This year we will gather in Crookston and the theme is: Choosing Peace in Today’s World: Nuclear Disarmament featuring keynote speaker (and one of the original founders of Pax Christi USA), Bishop Tom Gumbleton.  The brochure will be posted on our website soon.

Our monthly meditation at St. Joan of Arc Parish Center will be on July 24, 2010 from 9-10:30 a.m.  S. Florence Steichen, CSJ will be facilitating.  Please see the attached selection that will be used for reflection.

6^th Annual South Dakota Pax Christi Growing Peace conference on September 18, Watertown, SD will soon be here!

Time: Registration 8:30. Conference  9 a.m.-4 p.m. Cost: $12 plus Free Will Offering. Scholarships are available.  Our Presentation Sisters Social Justice Team   and the Benedictine Sisters Social Justice Committee have been meeting and working with the SD Pax Christi Coordinators.

Bishop Gabino Zavala, Bishop President, Pax Christi, USA will join us from LosAngeles for our keynote, A New Moment for Nuclear Disarmament.   Ralph Hutchison, Coordinator, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, will be us again. Some of you may recall Ralph from our 2007 conference when he presented with Sr. Mary Dennis Lentsch. Ralph’s presentation, Nuclear Disarmament: The Urgency of the Moment, will tie in current US nuclear weapons production and policy in the context of the global movement for nuclear abolition. Students from Presentation College will perform the 1,000 Cranes play which briefly tells the powerful story of Sadako and the bomb disease.

Our monthly prayer/meditation gathering will be held June 26 from 9-10:30 AM at St. Joan of Arc parish center. Lynn Cibuzar will facilitate this month.  Attached is the reflection piece she has chosen for our discussion. Please join us if you are able.  

June is Torture Awareness Month.  Mark it by learning about U.S.-Sponsored torture, engaging in Christian reflection, and learning how to shine a light on the dark practice.  Tell your congregation and bring your friends to hear these speakers at a Wednesday evening forum:

. . Dr. William Cavanaugh, author of Torture and the Eucharist and Assistant Professor of Theology at University of St. Thomas;  Peter Thompson, J.D., who assisted in the defense of Omar Khadr, a 15-year-old detainee at Guantanamo.  Thompson is winner of the 2009 Distinguished Service Award from the Minnesota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Prof. Sharon Tan, Professor of Christian Ethics at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities; And more to be confirmed…

Learn more about torture and how to end it by Shining a Light on Torture on June 23 from 7-9 p.m. at Richfield United Methodist Church, 5835 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN.  For more information go to the Minnesota Council of Churches Torture Awareness Month page here: http://mnchurches. org/programs/ education/ Anti-Torture/ TortureAwareness Month.html