Christian Heroes

MOTHER TERESA

Poverty is a global problem in the world today against which one woman dared to confront. She inspired millions through her deeds and words. She had the courage to care for those who had been left in the dark by the world. She has left a lasting mark on this world and has changed it for the better. She is a hero. She is Mother Teresa. Some of the qualities of being a hero are bravery, generosity, selflessness, and determination. Mother Teresa embodied these in every way.

At the age of 17, Mother Teresa felt as though she had a calling to be a Catholic missionary nun. She wanted to help the world. She took her vows as a Sister of Loretto, an Irish order that worked in India. She took the name of Teresa at her vocation. While in India she contracted tuberculosis. She was sent to Darjeeling in 1946 to rest and recuperate. While getting on the train to go to Darjeeling she heard a calling from God. This calling told her to leave the convent and live amongst the poor while helping them. In 1948 she was granted permission to leave the convent and begin her work.

She began her work in the slums by teaching at a school. She taught the children the things she knew. She began learning about medicine on her own and put it to use by treating the poor for their sicknesses. When her former colleagues heard of her work, they left the convent and joined her. They rescued those who had been rejected by the healthcare system and treated them themselves. They rented a room to help the people who were left to die on the streets of Calcutta. The group was soon known as the Missionaries of Charity. With this group she aided the dying and sick at their last moments, trying to comfort them so they could have a peaceful death.

She and her sisters opened homes and orphanages to help the care for the sick at their dying moments. They also saved many lives as well. She opened orphanages for the homeless children that lived on the streets of Calcutta. Since then, more orphanages and homes for the sick have been opened around the world. She saw everyone as being a beautiful person and never left anyone behind. She tried with all of her heart to end the poverty and sickness, starting in the slums of Calcutta and working her way around the world. She was awarded many prizes and awards for her amazing work including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

At the worst of times she was able to see the best in people. In poor health, due to a sicknesses she had caught from those she helped, she never gave up on the goals she had. She wanted to help those who had been abandoned by the world. She was humble, brave, and an all-out amazing human being. She was able to bring light into the eyes of those whose light had been put out. She was able to see beauty in the poorest of the poor. With all of her effort she was able to make the lives of many, better. She was able to make the world a better place and her legacy of goodness is still being carried out today by the Missionaries of Charity. All the work she did not go to waste after her death. Her work is still being spread by all those inspired by her goodness. Today her missionaries and words of goodness have spread through out the world and will continue to live on.

BROTHER ROGER OF TAIZÉ

He wanted to help refugees of the war, just like his grandmother had done some 25 years earlier. So he moved from Switzerland to France to a little village known as Taizé in the south of Burgandy. Along with his sister, he offered a place of food, shelter, safety and compassion for those who managed to escape the reach of Nazi Germany. This conviction to help the needy grew out of his strong faith.

Understanding that many who sought refuge in Taizé were Jews or agnostics, he never prayed or worshipped in front of his guests. Instead he opted to go into the woods alone to pray and sing.

In the autumn of 1942, his little refugee community was discovered and all involved were advised to flee. However, he was able to return to his community in 1944 – this time with companions.

After the war, a local man created an association to care for young boys orphaned by the war. The long-term mission of Taizé had begun to take shape. The community was committed to serving the “least of these” in whatever way possible.

On Easter Sunday, 1949, the first brothers took the vows of celibacy, material and spiritual sharing and to a great simplicity of life. The monastic community of Taizé was born. And Brother Roger led them.

Since then, the Taizé monastic community – along with the Sisters of Saint Andrew – has welcomed and served all who traveled to the countryside of France to connect with God and with other pilgrims from all over the world. Thousands of people between the ages of 17-30 travel to Taizé each year.

As an ecumenical community, Taizé (with Catholic brothers, some Protestant brothers and actively seeking Orthodox brothers) has sought to assist the Church Universal in reconnecting with itself. This is evidenced not only in the mission work done all over the world (specifically Africa, Asia and South America), but even in its church building – the Church of Reconciliation.

I visited Taizé in July of 2001 with a group of youth and young adults from the north Texas area. My time there changed me forever. Not only have I learned the importance of contemplative study and solitary prayer – I have a better view of global Christianity.

During each evening prayer, Brother Roger would pray over those sitting around him (he would move around the large sanctuary throughout the week). I could feel the love of Christ emanating from his face as he prayed over me. I never knew him, but I know he was a great man.

Brother Roger was a close friend of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa, the latter of which he co-authored a handful of books. Brother Roger was a man of peace fighting for peace.

Brother Roger died last night in a place he loved dearly – the sanctuary of the Church of Reconciliation. He died surrounded by the Community of Brothers and many pilgrims to Taizé. Despite his recent illnesses, he did not die peacefully.

Brother Roger was stabbed to death by a woman described as “probably mentally disturbed” during evening prayer on August 16, 2005.

This prayer was offered at morning prayer on August 17th:


“Christ of compassion, you enable us to be in communion with those who have gone before us, and who can remain so close to us. We confide into your hands our Brother Roger. He already contemplates the invisible. In his footsteps, you are preparing us to welcome a radiance of your brightness.”
The global Church has lost a great hero of the Faith. The global poor have lost an important advocate. The community of Taizé lost its founding leader. Heaven has gained a favorite son.

Driven to Defiance - Martin Luther

\"I would never have thought that such a storm would rise from Rome over one simple scrap of paper...\" (Martin Luther)

Few if any men have changed the course of history like Martin Luther. In less than ten years, this fevered German monk plunged a knife into the heart of an empire that had ruled for a thousand years, and set in motion a train of revolution, war and conflict that would reshape Western civilization, and lift it out of the Dark Ages.

Luther's is a drama that still resonates half a millennium on. It's an epic tale that stretches from the gilded corridors of the Vatican to the weathered church door of a small South German town; from the barbarous pyres of heretics to the technological triumph of printing. It is the story of the birth of the modern age, of the collapse of medieval feudalism, and the first shaping of ideals of freedom and liberty that lie at the heart of the 21st century.

But this is also an intensely human tale, a story that hurtles from the depths of despair to the heights of triumph and back again. This is the story of a man who ultimately found himself a lightning conductor of history, crackling with forces he could not quite comprehend or control.

For Luther, in a life full of irony, would find himself overwhelmed by his own achievements. As his followers sought to build a new and just Europe around him, he could only turn on them in frustration, declaring that his - and their - only goal should be Heaven.

Martin Luther stands as a hero, the man who built the bridge between the two halves of the last millennium, the Medieval and the Modern. His tragedy was that he would never find the courage to cross it himself.

Martin Luther was born into a world dominated by the Catholic Church, which holds spiritual dominion over all the nations of Europe. For the keenly spiritual Luther, the Church's promise of salvation is irresistible - caught in a thunderstorm, terrified by the possibility of imminent death, he vows to become a monk.

Selling indulgences
Selling indulgences

But after entering the monastery, Luther becomes increasingly doubtful that the Church can actually offer him salvation at all. His views crystallize even further with a trip to Rome, where he finds that the capital of Catholicism is swamped in corruption.

Wracked by despair, Luther finally finds release in the pages of the Bible, when he discovers that it is not the Church, but his own individual faith that will guarantee his salvation.

With this revelation, he turns on the Church, attacking its practice of selling Indulgences in the famous 95 Theses. The key points of Luther's theses were simple, but devastating: a criticism of the Pope's purpose in raising the money, \"he is richer than Croesus, he would do better to sell St Peters and give the money to the poor people...\", and a straightforward concern for his flock, \"indulgences are most pernicious because they induce complacency and thereby imperil salvation\".

Luther was not only a revolutionary thinker, he would also benefit from a revolutionary technology: the newly invented machinery of printing. A single pamphlet would be carried from one town to another, where it would be duplicated in a further print run of thousands. Within three months, all Europe was awash with copies of Luther's 95 Theses.

Martin Luther had inadvertently chosen unavoidable conflict with what was the most powerful institution of the day, the Catholic Church.

\"Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me, Amen...\" (Martin Luther)

When an obscure monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses - 95 stinging rebukes - attacking the mighty Catholic Church, and its head, Pope Leo X to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral he unleashed a tornado.

It was a hurricane of violence and revolution that raged across Europe, and changed the face of a continent forever.

The Catholic Church brought all its considerable power to bear to try and muzzle Luther, including accusations of heresy and excommunication. But protected by his local ruler, Frederick the Wise, Luther continued to write ever more radical critiques of the Church, and to develop a whole new system of faith, one that puts the freedom of the individual believer above the rituals of the Church.

His ideas spread like wildfire, aided by the newly invented printing press. Finally he's called before the German imperial parliament, in the city of Worms, and told he must recant. Risking torture and execution, Luther nevertheless refused and proclaimed his inalienable right to believe what he wished.

Convinced he would not survive the trip to Worms but with absolute faith he declared, \"I am not afraid, for God's Will will (sic) be done, and I rejoice to suffer in so noble a cause.\"

Diet of Worms
Diet of Worms
His stand became a legend that then inspired a continent-wide revolution, overturning the thousand-year old domination of the Church. But as the reformation expanded into a movement for social freedom, Luther found himself overwhelmed by the pace of change. His theological reformation had become a social revolution.

The epicenter of reform now moved swiftly away from Germany to Switzerland and Holland where Calvin and Knox founded societies based on Luther's principles. To England, where it would take a bloody civil war before Cromwell could establish his Protestant democratic state and finally, to the newly discovered lands of America, where the Pilgrim Fathers would found their new nation on Luther's foundations of religious freedom.

But Luther never left his province in Germany again. Instead he married, an ex-nun named Katharine von Bora, whom he had helped to escape from her nunnery and they had a large family together, Luther was able to devote himself to the simpler pleasures of life, gardening, music and of course, writing.

Luther finally died in the year 1543, seized by a crippling heart attack but he held onto his righteousness and rage until the very end.

\"When I die, I want to be a ghost...So I can continue to pester the bishops, priests and godless monks until that they have more trouble with a dead Luther than they could have had before with a thousand living ones.\"

ARCH-BISHOP OSCAR ROMERO

\"I have often been threatened with death,\" Archbishop Oscar Romero told a Guatemalan reporter two weeks before his assassination on March 24, 1980. \"If they kill me, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people. If the threats come to be fulfilled, from this moment I offer my blood to God for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador. Let my blood be a seed of freedom and the sign that hope will soon be reality.\"
Oscar Romero was killed twenty-five years ago today, but he lives on in El Salvador, Latin America and even in the United States, wherever people give their lives in the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace. He gave his life for that struggle in the hope that the outcome was inevitable, that justice would be done, that war would be abolished, that truth will overcome, and that love and life are stronger than hate and death.
Romero's journey took him from the spoiled life of a quiet, conservative pious cleric whose silence blessed decades of poverty into a prophet of justice, \"the voice of the voiceless\" in war-torn, politically explosive El Salvador. He represented no political party or ideology, only the suffering people of El Salvador, and became a stunning sign of God's active presence in the world, of the struggle for justice itself.
After his friend Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande was brutally killed for speaking out against injustice on March 12, 1977, Romero was transformed overnight into one of the world's great champions for the poor and oppressed. At the local mass the next day, Romero preached a sermon that stunned El Salvador. Like the sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr., Romero defended the work of Grande, demanded justice for the poor, and called everyone to take up Grande's prophetic stand for justice. In protest against the government's suspected participation in the murders, Romero closed the parish schools for three days and canceled all masses in the country the following week. Over one hundred thousand people attended the Mass at the Cathedral in a bold call for justice. While the government and military were concerned, the campesinos were inspired to stand up for a new El Salvador.
As more priests and church workers were assassinated, Romero spoke out more intensely, even publicly criticizing the president on several occasions. As the government death squads began to take over villages, attack churches, and massacre campesinos, Romero's protest became loud. In the growing climate of fear and war, his word of truth in a culture of violence and lies was nothing less than a subversive act of nonviolent civil disobedience.
Within a period of months, everywhere Romero went he was greeted with applause. His Sunday homilies were broadcast nationwide on live radio and heard by nearly everyone in the country. Letters poured in from every village, thanking him for his prophetic voice and confessing their own new found courage.
As Romero gained strength in his role as spokesperson for justice and truth, and as he exhorted the Salvadoran people to the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace, he never lost his simple faith and pious devotion. From this devotional piety which he shared with all Salvadorans, he paved a new way into active Gospel peacemaking. He preached about God's preferential option for the poor, justice and peace. In his opposition to the government's silence, he refused to attend the inauguration of the new Salvadoran president. The church, he announced, is \"not to be measured by the government's support but rather by its own authenticity, its evangelical spirit of prayer, trust, sincerity and justice, its opposition to abuses.\"
As more and more people were arrested, tortured, disappeared and murdered, Romero made two prophetic institutional decisions which stand out for their rare Gospel vision. First, on Easter Monday, 1978, he opened the seminary in downtown San Salvador to all displaced victims of violence. Hundreds of homeless, hungry and brutalized people moved into the seminary, transforming the quiet religious retreat into a crowded, noisy shelter, make-shift hospital, and playground. Second, he stopped construction on the Cathedral until, he said, when justice and peace are established. When the war was over and the hungry were fed, he announced, then we can resume building our cathedral. Both moves were unprecedented and historic and cast judgment on the Salvadoran government.
Romero's preaching escalated each month to new biblical heights. \"Like a voice crying in the desert,\" he said, \"we must continually say No to violence and Yes to peace.\" His August 1978 pastoral letter outlined the evils of \"institutional violence\" and repression, and advocated \"the power of nonviolence that today has conspicuous students and followersThe counsel of the Gospel to turn the other cheek to an unjust aggressor, far from being passive or cowardly,\" he wrote, \"shows great moral force that leaves the aggressor morally overcome and humiliated. The Christian always prefers peace to war.\"
Romero lived simply in a three room hermitage on the grounds of a hospital run by a community of nuns. He associated on a daily basis with hundreds of the poorest of the poor. He traveled the countryside constantly, and assisted those who suffered most. He frequently commented that his duty as pastor had become the task of claiming the dead bodies of priests and campesinos and to defend the poor by calling for an end to the killing. One Salvadoran told me, on one of my many visits to El Salvador, how Romero drove out whenever necessary to a large garbage dump where bodies were often discarded by the government death squads. He looked among the trash and the dead bodies for relatives of family members whom he accompanied. \"These days I walk the roads gathering up dead friends, listening to widows and orphans, and trying to spread hope,\" he said.
His last few Sunday sermons in late 1979 and early 1980 issued strong calls for conversion to justice and bold denunciations of the daily massacres and assassinations. His plea to the wealthy elite who supported the death squads was pointed and prophetic. \"To those who bear in their hands or in their conscience, the burden of bloodshed, of outrages, of the victimized, innocent or guilty, but still victimized in their human dignity, I say: Be converted. You cannot find God on the path of torture. God is found on the way of justice, conversion and truth.\"
Every day, Romero took time to speak with dozens of persons threatened by government death squads. People came to him to ask for the help or protection, to complain about harassment or murders, or to find some guidance and support in their time of grief and struggle. Romero received and listened to everyone of them. His prophetic voice became stronger and angrier as he learned of their pain and suffering.
In February 1980, when Romero heard that President Jimmy Carter was considering sending millions of dollars a day in military aid to El Salvador, Romero was shocked. Deeply distressed, he wrote a long public letter to Carter, asking the United States to cancel all military aid. Carter never responded to Romero, and sent the aid.
On March 23, Romero exploded with his most direct appeal to the members of the armed forces:
\"I would like to make an appeal in a special way to the men of the army, to the police, to those in the barracks. Brothers, you are part of our own people. You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters. And before an order to kill that a man may give, the law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God. No one has to fulfill an immoral law. It is time to recover your consciences and to obey your consciences rather than the orders of sin. The church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, the dignity of the person, cannot remain silent before such abomination. We want the government to take seriously that reforms are worth nothing when they come about stained with so much blood. In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people whose laments rise to heaven each day more tumultuously, I beg you, I ask you, I order you in the name of God: Stop the repression!\"
The next day, March 24, 1980, Romero presided at a special evening mass in the chapel of the hospital compound where he lived, in honor of someone who had died one year before. He read from John's Gospel: \"Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains only a grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit \"(Jn. 12:23-26). Then he preached about the need to give one's life for others as Christ did. Just as he concluded his sermon, he was shot in the heart by a man standing in the back of the church. Romero fell behind the altar and collapsed at the foot of a huge crucifix depicting a bloody and bruised Christ. Blood covered Romero's vestments and the floor of the church, and he gasped for breath. He died within minutes.
Romero's funeral was the largest demonstration in Salvadoran history, some say in the history of Latin America. The government was so afraid that they threw bombs into the crowd and opened fire, killing some thirty people and injuring hundreds. The funeral Mass was never completed and Romero was hastily buried.
Today, we remember Oscar Romero as a saint and a martyr, but also as a prophet of justice, a friend of the poor, and a peacemaker. He became the martyred shepherd of the Third World, the spokesperson of the poor and oppressed, not only of El Salvador, but all of Latin America, calling us all to conversion, disarmament, and justice.
Romero calls us to live in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, to think with them, feel with them, walk with them, stand with them, and become one with them. From that preferential solidarity, he summons us to join his prophetic pursuit of justice.
Romero denounced violence on all sides and called for a new culture of justice and peace where there is no more killing, no more hunger, no more bombings, no more poverty, and no more guns. He said the most important task we can undertake in a culture of war is to publicly announce the good news of peace, even if that announcement disrupts our lives, even costs us our lives.

LEONARDO BOFF

Leonardo Boff has been preaching an activist gospel in Brazil for decades. Although no longer a priest, Boff is still a theologian and an active member of a Christian community in Brazil. He was more or less forced out nearly four years ago after a battle with the Vatican over his penchant for mixing politics with religion.

Boff says the Catholic Church is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the poor. The people he works with now are committed to building a better world not because they are Christians but because they are profoundly human. The poor in Brazil are now finding a vision of social justice and community in the 'comunidades de base' or 'Base Christian Communities'. There are more than 100,000 of these grassroots Christian groups in Brazil which attempt to fuse the teachings of Christ with a liberating social gospel.

Boff believes these are the places where liberation theology is lived concretely and where the political dimensions of a liberating faith come into play. He says that the poor must understand that poverty is not natural. The 'communidades de base' continue to spawn leaders who work on behalf of the poor - in trade unions, political parties and in community organizations.

Boff admits the world has changed dramatically since the birth of liberation theology 20 years ago in Latin America. He says that today the problem is no longer marginalization of the poor but complete exclusion. The question now is how to survive. That's why liberation theology deals with fundamental issues like work, health, food, and shelter.

Economic globalization and the spread of poverty is of particular concern to Boff, who says the poor are much worse off today than 30 or 40 years ago. He says that in Brazil the excluded don't believe in the old myths of development anymore. They feel that development has been at their cost and not for their benefit. \"Brazil has 150 million inhabitants, and for a third of them the system functions well, but for the other 100 million it is a disaster.\"

The ex-cleric is especially attuned to the ecological costs of industrial development. \"The earth has arrived at the limits of its sustainability. Our task is not to create sustainable development, but a sustainable society - human beings and nature together.\"

In the meantime, Boff argues, the first step toward change is for the poor to take charge of their own lives. \"The institutional Church counts on the support of the economic and political powers.\" As far as Boff is concerned, \"the Pope's approach to the world is feudalistic. He wants a Church of the rich for the poor, but not with the poor.\"

MARTIN SHEEN

Martin Sheen is a pacifist, a social and political activist who has not shied away from putting his body on the front lines, and a devout Roman Catholic. After rediscovering his faith twenty years ago, he began his activist work in earnest. \"I learned I had to stand for something so I could stand to be me,\" he said as we talked.
The star of The West Wing and a winner of a Golden Globe award for his role on that show, where he plays U.S. President Josiah Bartlet, Sheen has used his fame to call attention to many causes. Recently, he was one of the most visible celebrities against the U.S. war against Iraq. \"I am not the President. Instead, I hold an even higher office, that of citizen of the United States,\" Sheen wrote in The Los Angeles Times on March 17. \"War at this time and in this place is unwelcome, unwise, and simply wrong.\" Sheen says that NBC executives have told him they're \"very uncomfortable\" with his activism, although NBC denies this.
Sincere, modest, down to earth, Sheen is a reformed drug and alcohol abuser. The heart attack he endured during the filming of Apocalypse Now in the Philippines led him on a four-year spiritual journey that culminated in his return to Catholicism. He carries a rosary in his pocket (\"Keeps me from cursing,\" he says) and is an almost daily communicant. Known worldwide by his stage name, this son of immigrant parents (his father was from Spain, his mother, Ireland) was baptized Ramón Estevez. His early years were spent in Dayton, Ohio. The Estevez family was poor and, from an early age, instilled Sheen with strong Catholic morals and working class values. By age nine, he was earning extra money as a golf caddie at a local country club, with hopes of becoming a pro. In 1958, at eighteen, he borrowed bus fare from his local parish priest and headed for New York to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. To avoid ethnic bias in hiring, he chose the first name Martin after a good friend, and Sheen after Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who had a popular TV show in the 1950s. He remains proud of his Hispanic heritage and is quick to say that he never legally changed his name.
Sheen has created an impressive body of work, from his acclaimed 1964 Broadway performance in The Subject Was Roses, through extraordinary parts on television (he starred in the first TV movie about homosexuality, That Certain Summer, in 1972, and in The Execution of Private Slovik in 1974, and portrayed both Robert F. Kennedy in The Missiles of October and JFK in Kennedy). His films include Badlands, Catch-22, Apocalypse Now, Gandhi, and Wall Street. He's been married to his wife, Janet, for more than forty years and is father to four children, Charlie, Emilio, Renee, and Ramón, all thespians.
Over the past twenty years, Sheen has repeatedly protested political repression in Central America, promoted more liberal political asylum policies in the United States, publicized the atrocities of the Salvadoran death squads, supported the closing of the nuclear test sites, and marched with the Reverend Jesse Jackson to protest so-called immigration reform legislation in 1993. He was also an early demonstrator against abuses by the Israeli army in the Occupied Territories in the late 1980s.
Sheen was a featured speaker at an anti-war rally January 18 in San Francisco. His stirring oratory was met with thunderous applause. He delivered similar mini-sermons at subsequent peace gatherings in Los Angeles and in San Francisco prior to the bombing of Iraq. For this interview, I met up with him at the annual National Religious Education Congress in Anaheim following his talk before 900 Catholics in a workshop on spirituality and justice.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked \"insufficient funds.\" But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, \"When will you be satisfied?\" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: \"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.\" I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, \"My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.\" And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, \"Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!\"

DIEDRICH BONHOEFFER


Bonhoeffer was born into a family of seven children in Breslau, Germany. He grew up in Berlin, where his father worked as a prominent professor of psychiatry and neurology; his mother was one of the few women of her generation to obtain a university degree. Bonhoeffer faced ethical dilemmas most junior high students cannot imagine. He lived in Nazi Germany during a time in which both the faithful Confessing Church and the Jewish people were being persecuted. Bonhoeffer was not a man of perfect or model theology. One has to evaluate him in the cultural context of the German theologians of his time. Thankfully, he left a legacy of books that are genuine Christian classics. The Cost of Discipleship with its ringing declaration of the difference between cheap grace and costly grace illustrates his theology at its best and serves as a commentary of his life and martyrdom. Life Together strongly emphasizes the sense of communion Christians should have. Bonhoeffer was a theologian, a college teacher, a pastor, and a writer. But he is mainly remembered for being a martyr.

The easier course for Bonhoeffer would have been to stay quiet, minister discreetly, pray for the Nazis to lose, and bide his time until the war ended. He struggled with the ethical implications of how Christians should react when living in an evil regime. His conclusions forced him from a position of pacifism to involvement in efforts to remove (which came to mean kill) Adolph Hitler. He was the first of the German theologians to speak out clearly against the persecution of the Jews. Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943. Two years later, he was hanged. Only a few days after his death, Allied armies liberated the prison where he spent his last hours. He was 39 years old when he was taken out of his prison and hanged as a Nazi traitor in 1945. As he left his cell he said to his companion, \"This is the end -- but for me, the beginning of life.\"

In his struggles and writings, Bonhoeffer had asked the question, “Who stands fast?” Mrs. Miller wrote, “The ones who ‘stand fast’ spend their entire lives answering the call of God, in whatever form it takes.”

ARCH-BISHOP DESMOND TUTU


Born October 7, 1931 in Klerksdorp, a town in the Western Transvaal, 70 miles west of Johannesburg, Tutu grew up \"in a country where legality and morality are compromised by institutionalized racism.\" Under the segregation laws of apartheid, Tutu was educated at inadequate and grossly inferior all black Bantu schools. He received his Teacher's Diploma from Pretoria Bantu College in 1953, then a BA degree from the University of South Africa in 1958. After teaching for a short period, he was called to enter the ministry. He received his licentiate in Theology at St. Peter's Theological College in Rossettenville, Johannesburg, in 1960. He became an ordained deacon in 1960, and an ordained priest in 1961. He then attended King's College, University of London, from 1962-1965. After returning to South Africa, he was a lecturer from 1970-1974 at the Universities of Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland.

1975-he was appointed Anglican Dean of Johannesburg, the first black person ever appointed to that position.

1976-he was named Bishop of Lesotho.

1978 - Tutu is appointed the first black general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, becoming one of the leading critics of apartheid both in South Africa and on the international stage.

He describes the apartheid system as \"evil and unchristian\" and calls for \"a democratic and just society without racial divisions\" where there are equal civil rights for all. He advocates the use of nonviolent resistance by black South Africans and encourages the world community to apply economic sanctions against the regime. The apartheid government responds by cancelling his passport.

1979 - With capital leaving the country because of political instability, and with the economy beginning to slow, the government attempts to reduce industrial unrest by allowing black workers to form unions. The first chink in the apartheid system has appeared.

1983 - The United Democratic Front (UDF), a coalition of nearly 600 organisations, is formed to persuade the government to abolish apartheid. Tutu emerges as one of the front's prime spokesmen. By 1984 the front has a membership of more than three million.

1984 - Tutu receives the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of \"the courage and heroism shown by black South Africans in their use of peaceful methods in the struggle against apartheid.\"

The Nobel Committee asks that the awarding of the prize to Tutu be regarded \"not only as a gesture of support to him and to the South African Council of Churches of which he is leader, but also to all individuals and groups in South Africa who, with their concern for human dignity, fraternity and democracy, incite the admiration of the world.\"

At the award presentation held in Norway in December the chairman of the Nobel Committee says, \"Some time ago television enabled us to see this year's laureate in a suburb of Johannesburg. A massacre of the black population had just taken place - the camera showed ruined houses, mutilated human beings and crushed children's toys. Innocent people had been murdered. Women and children mortally wounded. But, after the police vehicles had driven away with their prisoners, Desmond Tutu stood and spoke to a frightened and bitter congregation: 'Do not hate', he said, 'let us choose the peaceful way to freedom'.\"

Full copy of the presentation speech.

The apartheid regime refuses to acknowledge the award.

Meanwhile, the National Party introduces a new constitution in an attempt to stem dissent. However, the constitution, which establishes three racially segregated houses of parliament, for whites, Asians, and coloureds, but excludes blacks from full citizenship, has the opposite effect and is denounced as a continuation of apartheid.

1985 - Tutu is installed as Johannesburg's first black Anglican bishop.

Conflict and violence escalate. In 1984 there are 174 fatalities linked to political unrest. In 1985 the number rises to 879. Capital begins to flee the country. Forty US companies pull out of South Africa in 1984. Another 50 leave in 1985. Inflation rises and standards of living drop.

The government declares states of emergency in various parts of the country; the first time the emergency laws have been used since the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. The laws allow police to arrest without warrant and to detain people indefinitely without charge and without notification to lawyers or next of kin. Censorship of the media is also extended.

1986 - Tutu is elected the first black archbishop of Cape Town, becoming the head of the Anglican church in South Africa and leader of South Africa's 1.6 million Anglicans. While serving in this position he intensifies his criticism of apartheid.

In October the US Congress passes legislation implementing mandatory sanctions against South Africa. All new investments and bank loans are banned, air links between the US and South Africa are terminated and the importation of many South African products is stopped.

1987 - While the union movement exercises its muscle, with the number of days lost to strikes reaching 5.8 million in 1987, armed members of the ANC and PAC stage raids on South Africa from their bases in Angola, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. The regime responds by renewing a series of states of emergency, unleashing its police, and sending its military forces on counter-strike raids.

Media restrictions are tightened and the UDF and other activist organisations are effectively banned. As a result, the regime's opprobrium grows around the world, more foreign investors withdraw, banks call in loans, the currency collapses, economic production declines and inflation becomes chronic.

Meanwhile, Tutu is elected as president of the All Africa Conference of Churches. The following year he is made chancellor of the University of the Western Cape.

1988 - In May South African President P.W. Botha, a National Party hardliner, directs the head of his intelligence service, Niel Barnard, to meet secretly with Mandela in prison to discuss the possibility of a peace settlement. More than 60 similar meetings will follow.

On 31 August the Johannesburg headquarters of South African Council of Churches is bombed. The building, which is also a base for several other antiapartheid groups, is destroyed and 21 people injured. It is later revealed that the bombing was carried out by the police on the orders of Botha.

1989 - The \"secret\" talks between Mandela and the government culminate with a face-to-face meeting between Mandela and Botha at the presidential office on 5 July.

Botha subsequently resigns following a stroke and is replaced by F.W. de Klerk, a moderate within the National Party. Mandela meets with de Klerk in December. Negotiations on the terms and conditions for Mandela's release begin.

1990 - On 2 February de Klerk announces that Mandela will be released. He also rescinds the orders banning the ANC, the PAC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and other previously illegal organisations. Restrictions on the UDF and the media are lifted. Mandela is finally released from prison on Sunday 11 February.

In June Mandela and de Klerk met officially for the first time. In August Mandela announces the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle. In October the government repeals the law requiring the races to use separate amenities.

1991 - By April 933 of the country's estimated 2,500 political prisoners have been released. On 5 June the government repeals the law making it illegal for Africans to own land in urban areas and the law segregating people by race. A new law allows all races equal rights to own property anywhere in the country. The law assigning every resident of South Africa to a specific racial group is repealed on 17 June. The international community responds by lifting most of the sanctions on South Africa.

A National Peace Accord setting codes of conduct for formal negotiations on the transition is signed in September. The negotiations begin on 20 December.

1992 - White South African's overwhelmingly vote \"yes\" in a referendum asking if the reform of apartheid should be continued. In September, following a request by Mandela, 400 political prisoners are released.

1993 - The negotiations on the transition conclude towards the end of the year. It is agreed that a five-year 'Government of National Unity' with a majority-rule constitution will be formed following South Africa's first truly multiracial democratic election, scheduled for April 1994.

The new constitution guarantees all South Africans \"equality before the law and equal protection of the law\", full political rights, freedom of expression and assembly, and the right to \"choose a place of residence anywhere in the national territory.\"

1994 - The ANC wins the country's first all-race elections.

Over four days beginning on 26 April more than 22 million South Africans, or about 91% of registered voters, go to the polls.

The ANC secures nearly 63% of the vote, missing the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally change the constitution. The National Party gets about 20% of the vote, becoming the second largest party in the parliament. On 9 May the National Assembly unanimously elects Mandela president.

Mandela is inaugurated on 10 May at a ceremony in Pretoria, the South African capital. In his inaugural address he stresses the need for reconciliation and reaffirms his determination to create a peaceful, nonracial society.

The ministry of the new government includes blacks, whites, Afrikaners, Indians, coloureds, Muslims, Christians, communists, liberals and conservatives.

In June the government announces that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission will investigate human rights abuses and political crimes committed by both supporters and opponents of apartheid between 1960 and 10 May 1994. The commission is also empowered to consider amnesty for those who confess their participation in atrocities and to recommend compensation to survivors and their dependants.

1995 - Guidelines are set for the operation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Tutu is appointed as the commission's chair. \"I hope that the work of the commission, by opening wounds to cleanse them, will thereby stop them from festering,\" he says.

\"We cannot be facile and say bygones will be bygones, because they will not be bygones and will return to haunt us. True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness, which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgement of what was done wrong, and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know.\"

1996 - In March the commission begins hearing testimony by both victims and perpetrators of apartheid-era violence. Tutu retires as archbishop in June to devote himself to his role on the commission, although he remains archbishop emeritus. He presides over the commission as it hears about 20,000 testimonials and receives nearly 4,000 applications for amnesty.

A new South African constitution that bars discrimination against the country's minorities, including whites, is signed into law by Mandela on 10 December. The new constitution contains a bill of rights and ends the Government of National Unity. The ANC takes government in its own right. The National Party becomes the opposition.

1998 - The Truth and Reconciliation Commission issues its interim report in October. The report states that apartheid is a crime against humanity but also criticises the ANC for human rights abuses.

Tutu steps down as the commission's chair.

With his wife he sets up the Desmond Tutu Peace Trust to research and establish a nondenominational Peace Centre.

1999 - The ANC wins the general election held on 2 June, increasing its majority.

2002 - In January Tutu weighs in on the debate about the political situation in Zimbabwe, saying President Robert Mugabe \"seems to have gone bonkers in a big way.\"

\"It is very dangerous when you subvert the rule of law in your country, when you don't even respect the judgements of your judges ... then you are on the slippery slope of perdition,\" Tutu says.

\"It is a great sadness what has happened to President Mugabe. He was one of Africa's best leaders, a bright spark, a debonair, well-spoken and well-read person.\"

During the year Tutu also accuses Israel of using apartheid policies against the Palestinians, saying that he was \"very deeply distressed\" and that the situation reminded him \"so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa.\"

2003 - On 5 January Tutu joins the growing number of world figures critical of plans by the administrations of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to launch a preemptive, unilateral attack on Iraq.

Blair's support for the Bush administration is \"mind-boggling\" and it is saddening to see the US being \"aided and abetted\" by Britain, Tutu says.

\"When does compassion, when does morality, when does caring come in?\" Tutu asks, \"I just hope that one day people will realise that peace is a far better path to follow.\"

The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is handed down on 21 March.

In April the government announces that victims of apartheid who testified before the commission will receive a once-off compensation payment of about US$4,000.

2004 - At the end of January Tutu appeals to the US court system to allow victims of apartheid to lodge claims for compensation against foreign companies that continued to operate in South Africa after the UN and the US imposed sanctions against the country.

In an eight-page affidavit Tutu says he would \"support the rights of victims to seek redress in any country in the world where courts do have such jurisdiction.\"

\"It makes no sense to suppose that suits filed in foreign jurisdictions that seek to hold foreign companies accountable for their collaborations with a prior regime, would discourage foreign investors from sending capital into that country in the future,\" he says.

The South African Government and former President Nelson Mandela oppose the proposed lawsuits.

On 16 February, delivering the Longford Lecture in Britain, Tutu adds to his earlier criticism of the US and British invasion of Iraq, saying that a dangerous principle had been produced where preemptive attacks could be launched \"on the basis of intelligence reports that in one particular instance have been shown can be dangerously flawed.\"

\"An immoral war was thus waged and the world is a great deal less safe place than before,\" he says.

Tutu calls for \"restorative justice\" in Iraq, pointing to the experience of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Presenting the second Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture on 23 November, Tutu warns that the South African Government's policy of black economic empowerment, under which black businessmen and politicians are given large shares of South African corporations, could be \"building up much resentment which we may rue later.\"

\"What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?\" he asks.

\"We were involved in the struggle (against apartheid) because we believed we would evolve a new kind of society: a caring, a compassionate society. At the moment many, too many, of our people live in gruelling, demeaning and dehumanising poverty. We are sitting on a powder keg.\"

Tutu says that while South Africa continues to be seen as a \"beacon of hope\" by the international community, more needs to be done to redress social inequalities.

He also criticises the South African Government for stifling political debate. \"We should debate more openly, not using emotive language, issues such as affirmative action, transformation in sport, racism, xenophobia, security, crime, violence against women and children,\" he says.

\"We want our society to be characterised by vigorous debate and dissent, where to disagree is part and parcel of a vibrant community ... and not think that those who disagree, who express dissent, are disloyal or unpatriotic.\"

In response South African President Thabo Mebeki says, \"It would be good if those that present themselves as the greatest defenders of the poor should also demonstrate decent respect for the truth, rather than resort to empty rhetoric.\"

Tutu replies, \"Thank you, Mr President, for telling me what you think of me. That I am a liar with scant regard for the truth, and a charlatan posing with his concern for the poor, the hungry, the oppressed and the voiceless.\"

2005 - The National Party, which introduced the apartheid system after coming to government in 1948, officially disbands on 9 April. The party had received less than two percent of the vote at general elections held in 2004.

In September Tutu and former Czech President Vaclav Havel release a report detailing reasons why the UN Security Council should pressure the military government of Burma to implement political reforms.

\"Based on our review of this report and its recommendations, we strongly urge the UN Security Council to take up the situation of Burma immediately,\" the two leaders jointly state in the foreword to the 70-page report.

\"Quiet, closed-door meetings among countries in New York are no longer enough. It is time for the UN Security Council to act,\" Tutu says.

On 16 December Tutu marks South Africa's official reconciliation day and the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by saying that too many human rights abusers from the apartheid era were allowed to escape justice.

According to Tutu, the failure to prosecute abusers who boycotted the commission left a legacy of impunity. \"It does mean that there are those who are able to say, 'Ha ha ha, what can you do to us?', and it makes people possibly have slightly less regard for the rule of law,\" Tutu says.

2006 - At the start of March Tutu and six others, including Vaclav Havel, publish a denunciation of Russian policy in a Czech daily newspaper. Publication of the article is timed to coincide with a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Czech Republic.

\"How much longer will we play blind as the Russian Government, raising the bogeyman of terrorism, obliterates the freedoms gained after the fall of the Soviet empire?\" the article asks.

\"A capital (Grozny, the capital of Chechnya) has been destroyed before out eyes, for the first time since Hitler punished Warsaw in 1944. ...

\"Such an inhumane act cannot be disguised with the 'war against terrorism' label.\"

2007 - On 31 January Tutu is presented with the International Gandhi Peace Prize for 2005. The prize, which is awarded by the Government of India, is considered to be India's highest international honour.


\"Many people think that Christians should be neutral, or that the Church must be neutral. But in a situation of injustice and oppression such as we have in South Africa, not to choose to oppose, is in fact to have chosen to side with the powerful, with the exploiter, with the oppressor.... The Church in South Africa must be the prophetic church, which cries out 'Thus saith the Lord', speaking up against injustice and violence, against oppression and exploitation, against all that dehumanizes God's children and makes them less than what God intended them to be.... For my part, the day will never come when apartheid will be acceptable. It is an evil system and it is at variance with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is why I oppose it and can never compromise with it-not for political reasons but because I am a Christian.\"

THE UNSUNG HEROES OF NORTHERN IRELAND

On a recent morning, a petrol bomb was planted at the door of a welfare office in West Belfast. British troops and RUC police officers with armored personnel carriers and a bomb truck cordoned off the area and dismantled the device.

The bomb scare didn't seem to faze local residents.

\"When you grow up in it, you get used to it,\" said Geraldine, a middle-aged Catholic woman who was en route to meet her husband and children. \"I don't think there are many families (here) who haven't lost loved ones in the fighting.\"

She was 11 years old when the latest round of the \"troubles\" began in 1969.

\"I joined all the boys and carried the bombs and the bullets,\" she said. \"I'd carry big bands of bullets around my waist. If my children did now what I did then, I'd have a fit.\"

Two years later, her brother was killed when an IRA bomb he was carrying exploded prematurely. When she was 15, her sister was shot in the neck, arm and finger.

\"In my opinion, the country is dead. Most people emigrate,\" said Geraldine, adding that her hope is to educate her children well so that they can find jobs in Europe or America and build a new life outside their homeland.

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Patricia Crooks, a Protestant, described how her cousin, Karen McKeown, was shot dead 11 years ago coming out of church. It was a random drive-by shooting.

\"She used to sing in the choir. (The murderers) were never found,\" Crooks said. \"There's a lot of people killed here like that.\"

In September, a 47-year-old Protestant man was stabbed to death with a screwdriver by a Catholic teenager because he tried to stop him and some friends taking down a Loyalist emblem: the St. Andrew's flag of Scotland.

The violence has touched all layers of society in Northern Ireland.

In 1987, the 21-year-old daughter of Gordon Wilson, a Protestant Unionist senator, was killed in an IRA bomb attack in the town of Enniskillen. Instead of vowing to avenge his daughter's death, Wilson appealed to both sides to stop fighting.

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Sometimes, it pays to camouflage your identity.

When they were in primary school, Sean Mulcahy and her sisters changed their Catholic-sounding names to ones like Heather and Penny so that they could sneak into fancy swimming pools that had big slides and waves on the Protestant side of town.

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President Bill Clinton succeeded in bringing the strife-torn factions together for a short time when he visited Belfast and Derry a year ago. He was the first sitting U.S. president to visit Northern Ireland.

About 80,000 people turned out to hear Clinton speak in the City cq Centre of Belfast. He delivered a highly crafted speech … carefully designed to recognize the competing and shared values of both sides.

It was a joyful occasion punctuated by Belfast native singer-songwriter Van Morrison performing an inspired rendition of \"\"Days Like This...'' Morrison is one of the few locals who can bring Catholics and Protestants together at least for a few hours of good music.

There are plenty of unsung heroes in Northern Ireland.

Since 1983, the Belfast Exposed Community Photography Group has documented the \"troubles'' with images of both the conflict and reasons for hope.

Padraic cq Fiacc, one of the finest poets from Northern Ireland since World War II, has written a series of poems about the \"\"troubles.''

\"His poems expose the skull beneath the skin,'' said publisher Patrick Ramsey of Lagan Press. \"\"They provide us with the catharsis to remember what we are and what we have been, and to know how to live with ourselves. They show us a Belfast we can weep for.\"

John Hume, whose popular Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP) commands the most support from Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland, is also an unheralded voice. He espouses nonviolence and a peaceful solution to the Irish conflict. In recent years, he has worked tirelessly to help bring Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and the IRA to the bargaining table.

A handful of Unionists have renounced their violent ways, including David Irvine, who heads the Progressive Union Party (PUP). Irvine, who was elected to the so-called Forum, which is preparing for peace talks, spent 13 years in prison for his terrorist-related crimes.

Belfast activist Martin O'Brien, who heads the Committee for the Administration of Justice, has pressed for reform of Northern Ireland's justice system.

The Pat Finucane cq Centre in the city of Derry has pushed for the dismantling of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police force. The organization was named after Pat Finucane, a Belfast attorney who defended a number of men accused of IRA terrorist crimes. In 1989, he was murdered in front of his wife and children by a Loyalist paramilitary unit.

International Voluntary Service Northern Ireland has set up exchange programs for Catholic and Protestant youths providing dozens each summer with opportunities to work and study abroad. \"We put Protestant and Catholic kids together for a few weeks so they can get out of the claustrophobic situation here,\" said George Thompson, an IVS coordinator in Belfast.

Since 1965, the Corrymeela cq Community, an interfaith organization, has worked toward reconciliation by supporting local programs that build trust between people of different Christian faiths.

Several groups on the Protestant and Catholic sides have sprung up to speak out against political killings, including Families Against Intimidation and Terror, Outcry, WAVE (Women Against Violence), and the Shankill Women's Center.

Still others, like the Springvale Center in West Belfast, are providing job training programs including business administration and computer classes for young men and women.

The Community Relations Council and related organizations are trying to provide better housing in depressed Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. A number of U.S. architects have donated their services.

In addition, the Boston-based American Ireland Fund has raised millions of dollars to aid nonprofit programs working toward education, culture, peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. -- Jim Doyle