Julie Titone

For six decades, Catholic Relief Services, the world’s largest private distributor of food aid, has focused on meeting basic material needs. In the last five years, its mission has expanded to meet another need: peace. The Kroc Institute has helped by providing training in conflict resolution and post-conflict reconciliation.

An important part of Kroc’s evolving relationship with CRS is the annual Summer Institute on Peacebuilding, held at Notre Dame. This year’s institute, the fifth, took place May 22-27. It was attended by three dozen church leaders, CRS partners and CRS staff members from 20 countries. They came from South Africa, where the end of apartheid didn’t end the need for non-violent social change. They came from Nigeria, where reformists want to change a constitution that promotes tension among cultural groups. They came from Pakistan, where the seeds of improved Muslim-Christian relations have been planted.

“Building a culture of peace is basic to development,” said Joan Neal, CRS vice president for U.S. operations. People who feel their lives are in danger will find it hard to feed and educate their children, she added.

Gerard Powers, Kroc’s director of policy studies, coordinated the summer institute. He was assisted by Kroc staffer Colette Sgambati, a recently returned Peace Corps volunteer. Training was provided by Kroc faculty members John Paul Lederach, Scott Appleby, Rashied Omar, Larissa Fast and George Lopez.

America’s bishops founded CRS in 1943 to help the poor and disadvantaged outside the United States. In recent years, it has also worked to educate American Catholics about the need to promote social justice. Although CRS has been involved in peacebuilding for a decade, the bishops officially added it to the agency’s mission in 2000. The need to do so became even clearer after September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the United States.

CRS has peacebuilding projects in 60 of the 99 countries that it serves. Five hundred staff members, as well as people in partner organizations, have been trained in peacebuilding so far. The training is reaching the highest levels of the church and the agency. The 2005 summer institute included two bishops from Pakistan, as well as archbishops from Burma (Myanmar) and Senegal. CRS regional directors from around the world attended, as did senior executives from its Baltimore headquarters.

Bishop Anthony Lobo of Pakistan remarked that the summer institute classes provided an almost overwhelming amount of information. “My mind is all stuffed!” He especially appreciated the chance to reflect on the peacebuilding work already under way in his Muslim-dominated country, where the president recently declared a “Year of Interfaith Dialogue.”

Education is Lobo’s peace priority. He won applause at Notre Dame after announcing that a new Catholic college, set to open in Pakistan, will incorporate peacebuilding into all courses of study. CRS staff members in Islamabad are already working with the Muslim schools, called madrasas, to institute curriculum reform. “Terrorists are brainwashed into hating. This is not education,” Lobo said. “We need to create lots of people who are tolerant.”

Bishops from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland have created a new peace institute. It is named after Bishop Denis Hurley, known for his pastoral letters decrying the state-mandated racism called apartheid. Hurley Institute director Allison Lazarus, who attended the Notre Dame meeting, said the emphasis will be on faith-based negotiations. Secular conflict-resolution groups strongly support the effort.

The southern African bishops have already responded to requests for peacebuilding assistance from the Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda.

“There is a long history of this work,” Lazarus said. “It’s just that the vehicle is new.”

Father Patrick Eyinla of Nigeria also is looking for ways to strengthen work that is under way in his native land. Eyinla oversees church operations in Lagos that deal with social issues: justice and peace, health, family life, HIV/AIDS and charitable work.

Eyinla’s interests range from environmental justice (helping residents of the Niger River delta whose lives have been damaged by oil company operations) to political reform (amending Nigeria’s constitution to remove cultural bias).

“When I go back, I will look at how to apply peacebuilding to the entire nation,” Eyinla said as the summer institute drew to a close. “I have a responsibility not just for my church, but for my whole country.”

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