Grass-Roots Leaders to Gather in California at Invitation of Vatican

Crux ^ | 1/26/17 | Dennis Sadowski

[marshmallow]

Pope Francis has called for a World Meeting of Popular Movements February 16-19 in Modesto, California. More than 600 people -- whom the pope calls protagonists, meaning people facing everyday struggles -- from throughout the United States will be attending to discuss poverty, racism, housing and immigration.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - For 27 years, Pat Campbell-Williams has worked on Detroit’s West Side, organizing her neighbors to tackle tough economic justice issues. It’s good work, she acknowledged, but she didn’t know if anyone cared beyond the city limits.

Pope Francis changed her outlook.

Campbell-Williams, 60, co-founder of MOSES - Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength, rooted in the city’s churches - had the chance to hear the pope in November at the Vatican when he addressed the most recent gathering of the World Meeting of Popular Movements.

Pope Francis applauded the work of several hundred people from more than 60 countries working in grass-roots organizations of the poor, the underemployed, indigenous communities and farmworkers. His words energized the longtime activist.

“It’s what I’ve been working for in all of my life, grass-roots organizing,” Campbell-Williams told Catholic News Service, “and to have the pope to be in the forefront of what we’re doing is just amazing. We’ve got a man of God that’s pushing things. The fact that he’s doing this got me excited.”

Campbell-Williams will be one of 600 people - whom the pope calls protagonists, meaning people facing everyday struggles - from throughout the United States attending a regional World Meeting of Popular Movements February 16-19 in Modesto, California.

The meeting is co-sponsored by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops’ domestic anti-poverty program; and PICO National Network, which engages in religious congregation-based community organizing.

The U.S. meeting is being planned at the......

[silverleaf]

Why didn’t he hold his political rally in Venezuela?
The pope as SJW
This will be a rodeo of leftists and anarchists, very little to do with the church

[ebb tide]

Pope Francis applauded the work of several hundred people from more than 60 countries working in grass-roots organizations of the poor, the underemployed, indigenous communities and farmworkers. His words energized the longtime activist.

That's laughable, considering Francis has just incapacitated the Order of Malta for not distributing condoms.

[BlessedBeGod]

Francis, the community organizer.

[Roman_War_Criminal]

And still some folks here think the Pope is their ally.

[vetvetdoug]

I thought Rob Grill died three years ago?

[Bigg Red]

Yep.
Prayersfor Holy Mother Church.