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2010 Retreat brings Kyriacos and Emily Markides to the Living Water Spiritual Center
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Pax Christi Maine, the Catholic and ecumenical peace and social justice movement, welcomes you to our website. We hope it will continue to interest you and that you will contribute to it. And we invite you to join us - to join Pax Christi Maine - in this work, contributing whatever talents you can bring to the common effort, working individually, in a community group, or with the umbrella state organization. There are more than enough challenges to occupy all.
Our constant reference is the nonviolent Jesus who championed the human dignity of all. You will see reports here on a range of injustices and discussions on overcoming them as well as good news celebrating the creativity and commitment of workers for peace and justice. All are welcome at our table.
We also report events of interest to justice and peacemakers, planned actions, news of Pax Christi Maine (PCM) activities. We offer photographs, recommended resources, and links to other justice and peace organizations. We welcome your contributions-- event and action information, news, comments, photos, resources, and links. Click here for application form to send with your membership dues.
Pax Christi Maine is a region of Pax Christi USA, which is a section of Pax Christi International, the Catholic movement for peace.
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PAX CHRISTI USA OFFICIAL STATEMENT
ON THE DEATH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
The killing of Osama bin Laden is an occasion for deep reflection. It must become a turning point in our nation's nearly decade-long wars in response to the tragedy of 9/11. As people of faith, and as Catholics who, only days ago, celebrated Christ's victory over condemnation, torture and death, we pause in this moment in a posture of prayer and repentance. As Christians we are troubled by the displays of celebration and call upon all people of good will to pause and reflect rather than rejoice and exalt. We pray for the victims of that terrible day in September: for their families and loved ones, whose lives were changed forever; we pray for the first responders whose sacrifice and heroism inspired a shocked and grieving nation and who laid down their lives in an effort to save others; and for the countless volunteers who spent weeks amidst the rubble, dust and death at Ground Zero and who continue to suffer serious health effects today. However, we also mourn our nation's misguided response to the events of 9/11, the carnage and mayhem unleashed, the distortion of our deepest values, the abandonment of our highest principles and ultimate subversion of our national character. And so our prayers extend beyond those victims of September 11th and focus also on the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and across the globe as a direct result of our response.
The spiral of violence of which Pax Christi warned in September 2001 has sadly remained unbroken. The killing of bin Laden becomes one more waypoint in a quest for vengeance that will, as all acts of violence do, lead to ever more violence and death. The cycle must be broken. To do so will take much courage and sustained effort. Our prayers for the victims, both of bin Laden's violence and our militarized response, must give way to true repentance-a turning away from violence as a path to national redemption...
To read this statement in its entirety, click here.