Dorothy Day; Aravind Reddy and Kayla Wilmoth

Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn, New York, but was raised in Chicago. She went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1914, but dropped out and moved back to her hometown in New York City. There she started working at the newspaper The Call covering rallies and demonstrations that interested her. Following this job, started working at another newspaper, The Masses, a magazine that caused controversy by opposing American involvement in the European war. She also went to prison in 1914 for protesting women’s exclusion from the electorate, but they were soon freed. Here religious development was a slow process that came after gradual realization. As a child in Chicago, she would attend an Episcopal Church, but she stopped going to it. In New York, she would occasionally make late night visits to the nearby church because the idea of catholic worship appealed to her. She may not have known much about Catholic belief, but she was still extremely fascinated by it. In 2933, she began to go to mass every Sunday and said that worship, adoration, thanksgiving, and supplication were the noblest acts of which we are capable in this life. She had two marriages, one resulting in an abortion that caused her to later write the book, The Eleventh Virgin. This abortion, she said, made her feel barren and couldn’t bear the thought of having another child. Yet she did have a daughter, Tamar, who helped her embrace Catholicism. After this, she soon meat a man by the name of Peter Maurin. Maurin influenced Day to start a paper that would publicize catholic social teaching and promote steps to bring a more peaceful transformation of society. As a result, she founded The Catholic Writer which was met with much applause. By the end of the year, The Catholic Writer was selling a hundred thousand copies per month. This newspaper began to affect many people, especially the homeless, because it advocated their rights and the dignity of a human being, one of the seven pillars of social justice. She began setting up charitable houses that the unfortunate people could live in and soon it became a national movement. Due to the great depression, this was the exact need the people wanted and they were buying this newspaper nonstop. Day also got in trouble because she was a complete pacifist. She said a nonviolent life was the heart of the gospel. She was said, “Put away your sword, for whoever lives by the sword shall perish the sword.” After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Day used her paper to try to prevent the war, but she was having trouble to find the help to do it. Her civil disobedience later in the following wars cause her to be jailed two times, yet both times he was set free after a short period of time. Her last time jailed was when she was seventy five. She was jailed for taking part in a banned picket line in support of farm workers. After that, she became honored by receiving Communion from the hands of Pope Paul IV. Notre Dame University also awarded the Laetare medal, thanking for her kindness. Mother Teresa also came to honor her because of her great accomplishments. Of old age, Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980.

Dorothy day’s life at first seemed controversial, but then people grew to adore her. She never resorted to violence even when she was facing the prospect of being jailed numerous times. He extensively convinced people to follow in the way of God through her newspaper The Catholic Writer. She did everything to advocate Catholicism and people will always remember her for being an idol in their hearts. She helped the poor and the vulnerable, advocated the dignity of the human being, and followed the rights and responsibilities of God. She is the perfect symbol for the meaning of Social Justice.

Nelson Mandela by: Kylie E., Neal R.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1928. Mandela was educated at a University College and was qualified for law in 1948. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party's apartheid policies after 1948.
Nelson Mandela was a firm believer in equality. Since childhood he had grown up watching his people being suppressed, banned, imprisoned , and arrested. As a young adult he knew it was up to him to make a difference, but he also knew the consequences that come along with making a stand for whats right. Just as Moses, Mandela was nervous and a little fearful of what may occur but knew without a doubt that he was meant to do it.
Throughout the whole of the fifties Mandela was the victim of much racism. He spent the later half of the decade, he was one of many accused in the mammoth Treason Trial. This affected his law practice and political career in a very negative way. After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, the ANC was outlawed, and Mandela, still on trial, was detained.
For Mandela's part in the Defiance Campaign, he was accused of interfering with the Suppression of Communism Act and was slapped with a suspended prison sentence. Closely after the campaign ended, Mandela was prohibited from attending gatherings and confined to Johannesburg for six months. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to a life of imprisonment.
Released on February 11, 1991, after almost twenty years of imprisonment, Mandela plunged wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after being banned for decades, Nelson Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organization's National Chairperson. Mandela then went on to win the first ever democratic election of South Africa, which ended the racist apartheid regime that had reigned over South Africa for 46 years.
Nelson Mandela has never wavered in his devotion to democracy, education, and equality. In spite of obvious provoking and many opportunities, he has never answered racism with racism. Through a life that symbolizes the triumph of the human spirit over man's inhumanity to man, Mandela has brought hope to the oppressed, the weak, and the helpless. Nelson Mandela accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in the town of Porbander, India. His father died a couple years later when he was about six and then got married at the age of thirteen because this was the custom. He went into law when he came of age at University College. After he got his degree in Law he went back to India but was not very successful in his practices there. A couple years later he was offered a job at a firm, which was focused on the interests of South Africa, in Durban, South Africa. Once he arrived in Durban he found out that he was treated as a member of an inferior race. He became very angry with the mistreatment of Indian to South Africa and started a campaign for political rights and and civil liberties of Indians to South Africa. This is when his awareness of the racial problems and the conversion of the same problems began.
Gandhi believed in a passive form of resistance. He unlike other people of the time believed violence was not the answer. Throughout his twenty year stay in South Africa he was imprisoned several times for his speaking out against South African injustices. He never used force though. He was beat up by white South Africans several times and still taught and practiced his passive resistance view. this view and the practice of it became known as Satyagraha. Satyagraha grew throughout India and soon Gandhi followers became numerous. His revolution soon spilled over into Great Britain. Great Britain did not take lightly to this passive resistance and passed the Rowlatt Acts. These gave Indian Colonial Authorities the right to act in emergencies as they see fit. This led to a Massacre of many Indians in Great Britain. This led to Gandhi's proclamation of the non-cooperation of Indians. This led to the resigning of many Indian officials, The boycott of many Indian agencies and the withdrawal of many children from British schools.
Like Moses, Gandhi took over a whole group of people and led them out of what was a type of slavery. Gandhi led the people out of Discrimination and he did so in the ways God would have wanted him too by doing it peacefully. Gandhi really put forth third of the seven pillars. The first is Life and dignity of a human person. This pillar states that a persons dignity should be protected and saved. He made sure that his people were kept equal and their dignity protected. The second pillar is the Rights and Responsibility. He believed as the pillar states that human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if the rights and responsibilities of that community are met. He pushed for this to happen in place around the world. The third and final pillar is option for the poor and vulnerable. Gandhi traveled to places in his life where he saw his people being forced to live poor and were vulnerable because of it. He saw this as a huge problem and work to help these people.

Liberation Theology- Contemporary People, Kevan and Daniel

Oscar Romero became the archbishop of El Salvador in 19the late 1970s. El Salvador was in the midst of a government supported civil war. The police, the army and paramilitary militias throuought the country had executed tens of thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands were homeless and even more were fleeing the country. To understand Oscar Romero, we must first understand El Salvador.

El Salvador had been a part of the Spain’s American empire until revolutionaries began the liberation of South and Central America. Initially, El Salvador was a democracy modeled upon the United States, at least until coffee and other cash crops dominated the Salvadorian economy. Private corporate interests began to seize huge tracts of land, expelling and enslaving the previous occupants. By the beginning of the 20^th century, fourteen families controlled El Salvador. Over 90% of the population were virtual serfs, forced to work on plantations, or were starving urban poor.

Labor disputes flared throughout El Salvador; the government suppressed these strikes and attempted revolutions brutally. Dissidents were labeled Communists, and by the 1970s the United States was giving El Salvador millions of dollars to combat Communist influence both in El Salvador and in nearby Nicaragua. The government of El Salvador sanctioned kidnapping, assassination, bombings, disappearances, massacres and other brutal methods to suppress the people.

Oscar Romero was born in El Salvador. Desiring to be a priest, he studied in Italy and the Vatican. He returned to El Salvador, but was forced to spend several months in a detention camp in Cuba due to security considerations. Romero rose swiftly in the ranks of the Church, eventually becoming the Archbishop of San Salvador.

Initially, Romero ignored the social disaster that plagued his country. One of the main reasons the government allowed him to rise in the church was due to his outspoken conservatism. Romero mainly focused on the problems of drinking, gambling, pornography and prostitution in El Salvador, and turned a blind eye to the massacres in the city and country.

He didn’t stay silent for long.

The first shock came when the National Guard attacked a village in Romero’s diocese, butchering people with machetes and executing others. The next blow came when the Army opened fire on unarmed protesters. The final strike came when a militia assassinated a personal friend, Father Rutilio Grande, and a young boy and an old man. Grande had been trying to organize the peasants.

Romero’s first act was to excommunicate the killers and to deliver a message condemning the violence in El Salvador. Romero spent the last years of his life working to aid the people of El Salvador. Romero’s final message was to the men in the army, telling them that the government was violating God’s law, begging them to mutiny and join the peasants.

Romero was assassinated in his church, after morning mass. The gunman was never captured. A bomb exploded at Romero’s funeral, and sharpshooters fired on the large crowd of mourners

Romero’s life at first seems a failure. Nothing really changed and he was killed in the end. Romero died the death of a martyr, giving aid and comfort to the people. Romero never resorted to violence in the face of massive injustice; he spoke comfort to those that had been hurt by the government. Romero did everything in his power to bring the aid of the Church to the people. He even went as far as to write President Carter a letter, asking him to cut off funding to the El Salvadorian government. Above all, Romero did everything he could to restore hope to a bleak El Salvador, defending the poor and vulnerable

Liberation Theology - Contemporary People

In the assigned groups, explore the individual assigned, mapping their personal journeys from denial to awareness to conversion. Be sure to accentuate their ultimate responses, the related impact on society, risks and consequences each endured for the sake of justice. Connections to the Moses journey and the 7 Pillars would be a plus.
Nelson Mandella
Mahatma Gandhi
Dorothy Day
Oscar Romero