PRESENTATION OUTLINE
She is responding to the world as it is
"I came to St. Thomas as part of a reform movement in the Catholic Church, seeking to harness religious faith to social justice...The mandate to practice social justice is unsettling because taking on the struggles of the poor invariably means challenging the wealthy and those who serve their interests." (5)
[The Poor] were not to meekly accept their poverty and suffering as God's will, but, instead, struggle to obtain the necessities of life which were rightfully theirs. And Jesus' challenge to the nonpoor, she emphasized, was to relinquish their affluence and to share their resources with the dispossessd.
"But poor people occupied a land somewhere out there with Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel. I did not have any direct experience with poor people." (6)
"My parents never acted *mean* to black people, even though they never questioned the system of racial discrimination that permeated every aspect of life" (7)
"She wanted a baby so she could have 'something of my very own'..." (8)
"What's it like to live on Waiting for Death Street? And what's it like to have done something really bad, really evil, something irreparable? I can't bear myself when I hurt someone." (11)
"His life is lived thwenty-three out of twenty four hours a day in a space six feeet wide and eight feet long. On one wall is a bunk, on the back wall, a stainless steel toilet and washbasin, a stainless steel plate above the washbowl instead of a mirror. He keeps all of his stuff in a footlocker under his bunk." (13)
"But I am not meeting him on the streets. I am meeting him in a crucible, and I am surprised by how human, even likable, he is. Despite his friendly letters, I had half expected Charles Manson -- brutish, self-absorbed, paranoid, incapable of normal human encounter." (31)
