From Honduras in Crisis: A View from the Rural Poor
John Donaghy
Monday, 19 Oct 2009 at 7:00 pm – Sun Room, Memorial Union
John Donaghy will report on the condition of the Honduran poor during the ongoing political crisis following President Zelaya's forced departure. Efforts continue to set up talks between interim leader Roberto Micheletti and deposed President Manuel Zelaya, who is in the Brazilian embassy. John Donaghy is the former Director of Campus Ministry and Coordinator of Charity, Justice, and Peace Ministry at St. Thomas Aquinas Church and Catholic Student Center at Iowa State University. In June 2007 he began ministry in southwestern Honduras with the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copén. He is now associate director of the local diocesan social development agency. Part of the World Affairs Series: Can We Save the World?In addition to his current work in Latin America, he has spent time in El Salvador as a leader of educational delegations and doing pastoral work in the parishes of Santa Lucia, Suchitoto, and San Roque, San Salvador.He was a volunteer with a program for Catholic and Protestant children in Northern Ireland sponsored by the Irish Fellowship of Reconciliation and has participated in Campus Ministry Across the Americas in Peru and Bolivia. Donaghy has a PhD in philosophy from Boston College.
From John's blog...
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2009
A few hours of freedom
The curfew was lifted this morning and so people can circulate from 10 am to 5 pm. I actually left the house a little before to get to the Catholic radio station. The streets weren't empty and shops were open.
I went to the radio station because Padre Fausto and others from the Resistance were talking and taking phone calls. I had called in mentioning that people I know in the US are contacting the State Department and their legislators about the crisis in Honduras.
I'm spending about an hour in an internet café with wireless to do a little work outside the house. This afternoon I'll spend a few hours in Caritas.
While checking the web I found a Catholic News Service article that quoted me, accurately.
http://ncronline.org/news/global/lay-mis...or-wealthy
and http://www.americancatholic.org/news/rep...px?id=1659
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A further note about curfews. I stopped by the Caritas office and was talking to two women on the support staff. We noted that the curfew really hurts the people who earn their daily bread each day - perhaps by selling vegetables and fruits on the street or making tortillas. They make a little each day so that their family can have something to eat the next day. Also, one woman noted, the people in this area are not accustomed to buy food for more than the day and so they did not have food stored up. This confirms what I have been thinking. The curfew hurts the poor!
http://honduraschurchdocuments.blogspot.com/
Cosponsored By:
- Catholic Student Community
- St Thomas Aquinas Church & Catholic Student Center
- World Affairs
- Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)
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