Deacon works to ease veterans’ pain

Deacon Gerald Ladouceur, a retired U.S. Navy commander who served three tours in the Middle East, ministers to veterans at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center and The Community Hospice. His work was the subject of an article in the most recent issue of The Evangelist.

"Nine out of 10 people don't even know we're at war," laments Deacon Gerald Ladouceur. "These guys come back broken and [civilians are] like, 'Don't remind me there's a war going on.'"

Deacon Ladouceur encounters living reminders every day through his ministry to veterans at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center and The Community Hospice. He said civilians should take note of veterans' struggles - whether those veterans are young men returning home to a sour job market and a slow benefits system or senior citizens still grappling with the effects of war.

"When I meet with a vet [at the VA], I don't know what that need is going to be," the deacon said. His responsibilities range from counseling and pastoral care to patient advocacy; sometimes he even finds veterans a place to live when they're discharged from the hospital.

"I consider the work sacred. I see it as a very big responsibility that, for whatever reasons, this [person] is in front of me and needs my help," he added.

You can read more here.

Bishops Write to Secretary Clinton

On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Chairman of their Committee on International Justice and Peace has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops shares the hopes expressed by Pope Benedict XVI earlier this year: “In the Holy Land, where tensions between Palestinians and Israelis affect the stability of the entire Middle East, it is necessary that the leaders of these two peoples adopt courageous and farsighted decisions in favor of peace. … I express my hope that [negotiations] … will lead to a lasting peace which guarantees the right of the two peoples to dwell in security in sovereign states and within secure and internationally recognized borders.”

The entire letter is here.

A Bishop's Diary, Part 2

The second part of a diary Bishop Howard Hubbard kept during his recent trip to the Middle East is in this week's Evangelist; the first half appeared in The Evangelist’s Jan. 7 issue. Here is an excerpt:

On Monday evening, we met with two members of the Parents Circle Family Forum, an organization of more than 500 people who have lost a relative in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first speaker, an Israeli woman, lost her son, David, as a result of a sniper attack while he was teaching philosophy at Tel Aviv University. Subsequently, the sniper was captured. The woman has now forgiven her son’s killer and has advocated with the Israeli government for his release from prison.

The mother of the second woman who presented, a Palestinian, was a leader of Fatah in Hebron who was incarcerated several times during this woman’s youth. Consequently, she had to become the mother for her younger brothers and sisters. One brother was shot by an Israeli settler and another by an Israeli soldier.

Both of these women are victims and have the same taste of tears. They are in agreement, however, that if we give people a chance to know each other as human beings, having the same hopes, desires and basic needs, there can be peace.

The work of the Parents Circle is primarily education. Last year, they made more than 1,000 presentations in both Israeli and Palestinian classrooms, telling their stories and entering into dialogue about how to break the vicious cycle of violence. Members tell stories about pregnant mothers or children who died on the way to the hospital because the ambulances couldn’t get them through the checkpoints quickly.

The rest of the article is here.