Mary Ann McGivern, a Sister of Loretto, works with people who have felony convictions and advocates for criminal justice. She lived at a Catholic Worker house for 28 years. She has been a public radio commentator and written plays and a cookbook. She lives in St. Louis.
NCR Today: On Ash Wednesday, I drove the two and a half hours to Missouri's State Capitol in Jefferson City to advocate for some criminal justice legislation.
NCR Today: Local police who attacked 43 Mexican students in 2014 carried U.S., German and Italian weapons. What are ways to resist such legal gun transfers?
Life is full of pain and sorrow and loss. And it's too short. The only thought I have to offer is that death is a problem. That's my conclusion from observing a lot of people dying.
NCR Today: The CBS drama "Madam Secretary" presented a military, diplomatic and commercial crisis about a fictional fighter plane, based on the very real F-35 fighter plane.
NCR Today: The sentences that come from mandatory minimums don't rehabilitate or prepare the person for work and family reunification. They just punish and punish and punish.
NCR Today: I have a meeting tomorrow with the chief of staff of the newly elected speaker of the Missouri House. What ideas for criminal justice reform have a chance?
NCR Today: The first recommendation for turning a New Year's resolution into a habit is to think big. Frame it as a theme for the year. So I'm resolving to be generous.
NCR Today: In May, delegates from Native American nations asked for a meeting with the Holy See to develop a process of retracting, removing, dismantling and rejecting all use of case law that relies on the Doctrine of Discovery.
NCR Today: I have a Jewish friend who occasionally comments on a Christian oddity — that we seem to be generous only at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.
This year I'm startled that decorations seem to be up a week or so earlier than past years. It's as if everybody said together, "Light up the night with brilliant color. Say no to fear and darkness."
NCR Today: It is two days before Thanksgiving and I am just home from the School of the Americas Watch demonstration at Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico.
NCR Today - The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee is asking people to speak up on conditions at South Carolina's Lieber Correctional Institution. I made the call.
NCR Today: Choose life, says God. That's the invitation to us all, especially with regard to banning weapons directed by artificial intelligence, as well as advocating pro-life public policies.
NCR Today: As I write, an estimated 5,000 people are trudging from Honduras to the U.S. border, fleeing from danger and poverty, hoping for a better future, and finding safety in numbers to make the journey.
NCR Today: I went to a meeting where we chanted that we demand power. Then I went to a meeting where a prayer called for resisting temptations to power. It sets a person to thinking.
