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Paths to
Peace Protecting life from womb to tomb
By CLAIRE
SCHAEFFER-DUFFY
No organization offers a broader, more inclusive definition of
peace work than the Seamless Garment Network. Established in the late
80s, this loose coalition embraces individuals and organizations with
diverse political and religious affiliations. Their common denominator? A
public commitment to uphold the sanctity of human life in all
circumstances.
Our intent is to call people to take a deeper look at
violence and how respect for life must be from the womb to the tomb, said
Mary Rider, executive director of the Seamless Garment Network since 1998.
The phrase seamless garment refers to the cloak Christ
wore to his crucifixion as described in the Gospel of John. The noted Catholic
pacifist Eileen Egan, who died last year, used St. Johns phrase in 1971
to articulate a holistic reverence for life. The protection of
life, said Egan, is a seamless garment. You cant protect some
life and not others.
The Seamless Garment Networks mission statement identifies
war, the arms race, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment and
euthanasia as the prevalent forms of violence threatening the world
today. We believe that these issues are linked under a consistent
ethic of life, the statement says. We challenge those
working on all or some of these issues to maintain a cooperative spirit of
peace, reconciliation and respect in protecting the unprotected.
The networks membership requirements are an annual fee of
$50 and your signature endorsing the mission statement. Signing on to the
statement is a big deal and not a big deal, said Carol Crossed,
former executive director of the network. The document is primarily a statement
of belief and the first step to doing something is saying that we believe
this. Few groups work on all the issues, she said. I dont
know how practical that is. Were all limited by our resources.
Crossed said that belonging to the network means being
hospitable to all the issues, and member organizations express that
hospitality in a variety of ways. For example, a pro-life
group will advertise a workshop on economic justice at their literature
table, she said. There are ways of incorporating the vision into
your mission without a lot of effort.
The network began as an outgrowth of Pro-Lifers for Survival, a
splinter group of the anti-nuclear coalition Mobilization for Survival.
Initiated in the early 1980s, Pro-Lifers for Survival left Mobilization for
Survival because of its refusal to include an antiabortion group.
In March 1987, 23 members of Pro-Lifers for Survival met in Chapel
Hill, N.C., and drafted the Seamless Garment Networks mission statement.
The original version listed six issues of concern: war, the arms race,
abortion, poverty, capital punishment and euthanasia. In 1992, racism was
added. Participants at the Chapel Hill gathering included representatives from
Feminists for Life, Pax Christi USA, the Committee of Southern Churchmen and
Evangelicals for Social Action.
We were Episcopalians, Quakers, Catholics, Buddhists,
Mennonites and Baptists, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives
trying to make sense out of this irrational disconnect between life and
peace, Crossed said.
Claire Schaeffer-Duffy is a freelance writer living in
Worcester, Mass.
Peace in history
- 1976: 60,000 join Peace People demonstrations in Belfast and
Dublin. Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams receive the Nobel Peace Prize for
their efforts at nonviolent reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
- 1977: Mothers of the Plaza buys a newspaper ad in
Argentina to publish the names of mothers and pictures of 230
disappeared, that is, people kidnapped, tortured and killed by the
military.
National Catholic Reporter, April 26,
2002
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