Daily Archives: June 12, 2011

Water

Water fight: A new Catholic issue emerges in Italy

By John Thavis

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A referendum in Italy has spotlighted an emerging social justice issue for the Catholic Church: access to safe water as a basic human right.Italians were going to the polls June 12-13 to decide whether to revoke a decree that imposed the privatization of water resources. The issue has stirred an unusually intense debate, with church leaders arguing that water is the archetypal “gift from God” that should not be polluted by the profit motive.  On June 9, a group of more than 100 missionary priests and nuns fasted and prayed in St. Peter’s Square to underline their support for the referendum and their opposition to the privatization of water. Beneath Pope Benedict XVI’s windows, they unfurled a giant banner reading: “Lord, help us save the water!” Continue reading Water fight: A new Catholic issue emerges in Italy →

Migration, USA

Alabama’s Immigration Bill “Turns Back Clock” on Civil Liberties

By Kanya D’Almeida

 WASHINGTON, Jun 10, 2011 (IPS) – On Dec. 1, 1955, at the height of racial segregation in the United States, a little-known middle-aged seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery City bus in the southern state of Alabama.  Her small act of civil disobedience sparked the now-legendary Montgomery bus boycott, which has become an iconic moment in the Civil Rights Movement that marked the beginning of the end of the racist Jim Crow laws in 1968.  Now activists say the signing of a draconian piece of anti- immigration legislature on Thursday has turned the once-historic site in the struggle for civil liberties and racial justice into the most dangerous place in the country for immigrants and people of colour. Continue reading Alabama’s Immigration Bill “Turns Back Clock” on Civil Liberties →