Category: Making a Difference

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Tony Magliano

Pope Francis speaks truth to power

As the first pope in history to address a joint session of Congress, Pope Francis defended the human right of masses of oppressed and poor people to immigrate.

He said “We must not be taken aback by their number, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation.”

Living by the Golden Rule

The pope said, “We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'” (Mt 7:12).

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Tony Magliano

Millions of refugees have no place to call home

The heartbreaking photo of the little Syrian refugee boy washed up dead on the shore of Bodrum, Turkey (see the picture at bit.ly/1PZHvDV) strikingly illustrates the tragic plight of desperate refugees — mostly Syrian — fleeing for their lives from the Islamic State and other violent groups in the Middle East and Africa.

The three-year-old boy, named Aylan, along with his five-year-old brother, Galip, and their mother, Rehan, drowned after the raft carrying them capsized near the Turkish coast.

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Tony Magliano

How low can society go?

When one considers the many ways countless human beings are treated like cheap disposable products — from children exploited by pornographers, to young sweatshop workers exploited by wealthy corporations — it’s hard to imagine how much worse it can get for the poor and vulnerable.

But dismembering and vacuuming babies out of their mother’s wombs, and then selling their body parts, is as low as it gets.

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Tony Magliano

Encyclical is prophetic, challenging, wonderful

It’s courageous, it’s prophetic, it’s challenging, it’’ holistic, it’s wonderful: That’s what I think of Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.

Quoting his patron saint, Francis of Assisi — who is also the patron saint of ecology — Pope Francis begins his papal letter with a beautiful verse from the saint’s Canticle of the Creatures: “‘Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs.'”

Our common home

“St. Francis of Assisi reminds us,” writes the pope, “that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. . . .

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Tony Magliano

The courageous witness of Blessed Oscar Romero

Who would have predicted it? Who would have imagined on February 23, 1977, the day of his appointment as Archbishop of San Salvador, that the highly conservative Oscar Romero — who was suspicious of the Catholic Church’s involvement in political activism — would die a martyr’s death.

And that he would die for courageously defending his people against the murderous assaults of the Salvadoran government, military, and right-wing death squads.

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Tony Magliano

Dialogue: an essential ingredient for peaceful relationships

According to the New York Times, during a White House luncheon in 1954 Winston Churchill said, “To jaw-jaw [talk-talk] always is better than to war-war.”

While clearly not a pacifist, the United Kingdom’s World War II prime minister had seen upfront the absolute horror of war and became convinced that tirelessly striving to resolve disputes through respectful dialogue was always preferable to war.

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Tony Magliano

Making the way of the cross with Jesus

Writing a column on social justice and peace offers me plenty of timely issues to choose from. And I always truly sense from God the exact issue he desires that I write on.

I’m not claiming here any special revelation. God’s active, guiding presence is available to everyone. All we need to do is deeply trust, quietly listen, and patiently wait.

Now in my case, God knows I’m on a deadline. And almost always his Spirit graciously gives me plenty of lead time. But regarding this particular column, the Spirit seemed to be silent, that is, until I visited a parishioner at the Little Sisters of the Poor’s home for the elderly in Baltimore.

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Tony Magliano

God is calling each person and nation to repent

“The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” With these two compelling sentences — as recorded in the Gospel of Mark — Jesus inaugurates his ministry and sums up what his mission is about: to break the shackles of sin that enslave humanity, to put us on the path of liberation from all oppression, and to teach us how to unconditionally love one another.

But what does it mean to repent?

Striving to avoid sin and living virtuously is certainly part of what it means. But there’s more.

A radical change

In the Gospels, the biblical word used for repentance is the Greek word metanoia — a radical change of mind, heart, soul, and action.

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Tony Magliano

Protecting unborn in a ‘throw-away culture’

What a sight! Over 25 times from the top of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., I have seen a sea of people marching to proclaim the dignity of unborn human life and how death-dealing abortion sends the unholy message that some human beings are disposable.

As I write, I plan to march with and view that sea of people once again during the 42nd annual March for Life on January 22. It’s always a moral and spiritual shot-in-the-arm for me.

We have to do more

But good as they are, the Washington March for Life and the Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco, as well as dozens of similar events at state capitols throughout the U.S., are simply not enough.

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Tony Magliano

A Christmas gift for suffering South Sudan

The world’s newest nation is in big trouble. After more than 20 years of civil war between the southern and northern areas of Sudan, the southern part of that country on July 9, 2011, became the independent nation of the Republic of South Sudan.

But the situation on the ground soon looked like South Sudan had not been born, but instead was still suffering intense labor pains.

The many years of war brought not only much death but also drained South Sudan of valuable resources, leaving it an extremely poor nation.

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