Susan Walp was chosen by the Newfoundland-Labrador Provincial Assembly as its delegate to the Development and Peace Orientation Assembly. Susan is originally from BC but has lived in Labrador City for the past number of years. She is the parish representative for the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Lab City and is in touch with other parish reps throughout the Labrador.
Susan writes this summary of the discussions at the N-L Assembly:
Introduction
The Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Development and Peace meeting took place on 15 and 16 May in St. John's. There were about 20 of us at the meeting, most from St. John's Diocese. Three of us came from the Diocese of Corner Brook and Labrador. Nobody represented central Newfoundland [Grand Falls-Windsor, Gander, etc.]. Pat Hogan, president and our national council representative; Jasmine Fortin of Advancement and Danny Gillis, an animator for the Atlantic provinces, were there. Pat Kennedy is Rapporteur, and Synthesis committee consists of Danny Gillis, Pat Hogan, Pat Kennedy [also our newly-elected NC representative] and Susan Walp.
Section I: Development and Peace in the Church and in Canada
Facing the reality of declining church attendance, we need to find extra means of promoting our message. We were encouraged to hear of ongoing efforts by the Advancement Department in the way of direct mail and web-based information.
We hope that changes in clergy formation [in these post-Vatican II times] can help correct the questioning of Development and Peace's social mandate by some priests and bishops. After all, everybody agrees that clergy support is essential.
There is no doubt that a political element is part of social justice, of Development and Peace's work. None of us has expertise in this area, so we don't know how hard we should push political structures in order to get what we need, funding, for example. The most we could do was pass a resolution in favor of developing an advocacy policy.
Section II: Strategic orientations for international programs
Our meeting agreed that environmental issues must be included in our programs. Development and Peace already does that and should continue to do that. Although stating explicitly that we promote wise use of the earth's resources might draw in more people, we felt that it might confuse the issue. [One person asked, can you have two preferential options?] However, we should stress the fact that a "preferential option for the earth" is part of the "preferential option for the poor".
We considered dividing the environment theme into five sub-themes to be emphasized during five years, but none of us came up with any such "priority angles". In fact, we felt it would be better to leave ourselves open to cover separate issues within the environment theme as they arose during the five years. We felt it was very important to root ourselves in the spirituality of these interconnected themes when we launch our new program.
Final comments:
Our meeting felt that environmental issues should indeed be a part of our mandate, because they are integral to human rights. Development and Peace should continue to cover these issues without necessarily stating that we now have a "preferential option for the earth".
Evaluation:
The discussions we had during this meeting were valuable. Everyone seemed to listen intently and respond thoughtfully. I feel we honestly got some productive work done.
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