Religious Experts Discuss Role of Catholic Values in 2008 Presidential Election

Panelists at a discussion held at the Intercultural Center Auditorium yesterday addressed the role Catholic values play in the major political parties in the 2008 presidential election, agreeing that the Church’s values do not fit within the beliefs of any one political party.

The panel featured Republican Thomas Melady, senior diplomat in residence at the Institute of World Politics and former American ambassador, and Democrat John Kelly, the Catholic Outreach Liaison for the Democratic National Committee. Fr. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center, moderated the event.

elady and Kelly also discussed the role of Catholics in their respective political parties.

“The goals of the Catholic Democrats are to organize people of faith around sharing common values, securing [the] economic well-being of all, promoting dignity of work and pursuing common good,” Kelly said.

He also noted the danger of mixing politics and faith, through a discussion of the misuse and misdirection of votes from religious people for purposes that have nothing to do with religious agendas.

A question-and-answer session followed the forum, during which some attendees raised questions about Catholicism, politics and abortion.

“Pro-life and pro-choice movements have achieved two things – electing Democrats and electing Republicans,” Kelly said.

The forum was inspired by a recent bulletin issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, that called “for a different kind of political engagement . shaped by moral convictions of well-formed consciences . focused on the dignity of every human being, the pursuit of the common good, and the protection of the weak and vulnerable.”

“Civility does not require fanatic beliefs but rather requires respect and listening to dialogue in order to build a better world,” Melady said.

The forum was sponsored by the Georgetown University Woodstock Theological Center.

– Maria Kefala

SSTOP Hosts Anti-Human Traficking Conference

Students Stopping the Trafficking of People hosted its annual anti-human trafficking conference Saturday in the Intercultural Center.

“The conference serves mainly to raise awareness about human trafficking, an issue that doesn’t get a lot of attention at Georgetown,” said Emily Stiles (SFS ’09), the event coordinator for SSTOP.

About 50 people attended the conference to hear the remarks of two speakers: Mark Lagon, deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, and Mohamed Mattar, Georgetown Law faculty member and executive director of the Protection Project and research professor of law at Johns Hopkins University.

Lagon addressed State Department policies in his keynote speech that addressed human trafficking. He previously served as the director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the State Department.

attar also delivered remarks on recent international developments concerning human trafficking.

Conference leaders held an NGO fair with a number of participating organizations, including the Polaris Project, Shared Hope International, Free the Slaves, LINK and the Redlight Children Campaign.

Participants talked about the impact of trafficking around the globe, by taking part regionally-based workshops intended to focus on human trafficking in different parts of the world.

A panel about sex trafficking discussed the trafficking of women and children, as well as male labor trafficking.

According to the organization’s Web site, SSTOP was founded in 2004 by Georgetown students with the intention of deepening community understanding and outreach for human trafficking.

Saturday’s convention demonstrates the organization’s involvement with NGOs that have political influence, as well as important figures in the field. SSTOP is not directly involved in political affairs off-campus, but learns of developments in human trade from the organizations and applies them at Georgetown.

“Right now we’re focusing mostly on spreading on-campus awareness,” Stiles said.

One of SSTOP’s on-campus goals is to make trafficking an object of discussion in Georgetown’s undergraduate courses. The group’s leaders insist that the topic is of particular importance in the nursing and business schools, as trafficking poses serious threats to human health and is rooted in the economy. As SSTOP works to instill this understanding of human trafficking in Georgetown students, they are also making an impact on the future of world affairs as students incorporate their studies into their future careers.

– Danielle Calleja

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