Welcome to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish

Welcome to the webpage of the Social Justice Commission at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton! We contribute to the parish’s efforts to call people everywhere, and of every faith, to work toward the elimination of poverty, to speak out against injustices and to actively shape a more peaceful and just world. We strive to bring the Gospel to the world by developing social justice and service related opportunities for growth in faith and spirituality for all parishioners. The Social Justice Commission works with local, regional and international organizations and agencies to provide financial support, solicit contributions, and coordinate volunteer involvement. Our efforts are faith-based and consistent with Catholic Social Teaching. If you see a ministry below and would like to be involved, please contact the parish office.

St. Elizabeth's Social Justice Commission generally meets the first Thursday of the month; the next meeting will be held Thursday, March 1, 2012 @ 7 pm in the large conference room.

The Metro Catholic Outreach (MCO) is a collaborative project of the Catholic Parishes of the Cedar Rapids, IA metro area. It is located at the Sister Mary Lawrence Center, 420 6th St. SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52401. This outreach will provide a food pantry, call center for referrals and assistance and emergency financial assistance to those in need in our area. Learn more about it and how you can help as a member of our parish here. Click here to download a volunteer form if you are interested in volunteering at MCO.

Click here to read the document entitled Communities of Salt and Light: Reflections on the Social Mission of a Parish. This document has "reflections (which) offer a basic resource for pastors, parish leaders, and parishioners seeking to strengthen the social ministry of their parish.

Operation Rice Bowl: sponsored by Catholic Relief Services, challenges us to put our faith into action and walk in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in need around the world. The cardboard Rice Bowls are distributed during Lent and represents the hunger and hardship faced by others in the developing world. Parishioners are asked to fill the Bowls with contributions for those in need throughout the world.

Urban Plunge: Urban Plunge provides participants with the opportunity to share their faith by helping others in an Urban Area. A weekend trip is scheduled where participants do various projects at a Chicago inner city organization. A tithe is donated to the organization for a specific need.

Advent Giving Tree: The parish works with Hawkeye Area Community Action Program (HACAP) to provide for approximately thirty-five families at Christmas through the Advent Giving Tree project. Parishioners provide specific gifts along with food parcels which are delivered to families in need.

Christmas in July: Christmas in July is our summer parish food drive which provides food for approximately thirty-five families in the metro area. Parishioners donate non-perishable food items and we purchase boxes of groceries containing fresh fruits, vegetables, and personal hygiene items and cleaning products. The items are delivered to the families by the parishioners.

Panera Bread Delivery: The local Panera Bread restaurant donates bread, bagels, and pastries left over for the day's business to area organizations assisting populations in need. Two days a week St. Elizabeth parishioners pick up the bags of bread in them evening and distribute the to selected organizations the following morning.

Food Pantry: In the coat room opposite the parish offices, there are cabinets where donations may be left to serve those in need of basic food items. On occasion, some of these items are taken to St. Pius X to help support their ongoing Food Pantry. Below is a list of the groceries which are stocked on the pantry's shelves:

Soups, Canned Vegetables, Canned Fruit, Peanut Butter, Jelly, Jam, Pancake Mix/Syrup, Spaghetti, Spaghetti Sauce, Pasta Mixes, Instant Potatoes, Canned Meats (tuna, chicken), Stew/Chili, Macaroni and Cheese, Ramen Noodles, Cereal, Crackers, Jello or Pudding Mixes, Cake Mixes.

School Supply Drive "Fill-the-Backpack": Each summer there is an opportunity to donate school supplies. These donations are taken to area oragnizations to help local children start the school year with the supplies they need. Organizations served by this ministry include Henry Davison Youth Center, Tanager Place, and Waypoint.

Respect Life Sub-Commission

Respect Life is a sub-committee operating through the Social Justice Commission. Our Mission Statement is "We believe that all human life is valuable because we are created by God in His Image and God has a plan for each human life." Our mission is to provide opportunities to educate the community about current life issues and to inform them of activities pertaining to life issues. Secondly, we support and celebrate all stages of human life through prayer and sponsored activities.

St. Elizabeth's RESPECT LIFE COMMISSION is looking for new members! Contact the parish office if you are interested in supporting the following ministries or would like to discuss new ministries! The next Respect Life meeting will be held Sunday, September 11th @ 9:45 am, in the parish workroom. All are welcome to attend!

October is Respect Life Month. Look for a flier in the Sunday bulletin October 1st and 2nd. Also, the Respect Life Office of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has published articles that focus on the basic elements of life. These articles will be available in the parish office in our Respect Life lending library. Just ask to check out one of the binders. Articles from previous years are also available and cover a wide variety of the life issues.

Respect Life materials: Each year the Pro-Life Secretariat of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issues a packet to promote life from conception to natural death. Within the packet are materials parishes are able to order and distribute for the purpose of educating members of the parish on the various life issues. Here at St. Elizabeth's, we order an insert for the bulletin which is distributed the first weekend of October known as Respect Life Sunday. We also purchase and have available in the parish office the articles published by the USCCB; this is our Respect Life Lending Library. Each year there are five or six articles focused on specific topics. Articles have touched on a range of subjects including stem cell research, abortion, contraception, living wills, suicide, capital punishment and many more. Stop by the parish office to check out available Respect Life materials or visit www.usccb.org [follow the links to the Respect Life Program].

Baby Shower: Each October we kick off Respect Life month with a baby shower to support the ministries of the crisis pregnancy centers at BirthRight and Aid to Women. Wishlists of specific items needed can be found at the crib display, which is set up from October 1st - October 30th. Donations from parishioners are collected throughout the month and are distributed the first of November.

Treasure Bottle Ministry: In conjunction with the four-year-old preschool program and the University of Iowa's Children's Hospital's Rehabilitation Unit, we have the preschool families put together kits which resemble a treasure bottle. The treasure bottle kit has a clean, empty 16 -20 oz. bottle, enough white rice to fill the bottle 2/3 full, a variety of trinkets (penny, paper clip, buttons, beads, etc, anything interesting that will fit in the bottle) and a sheet of paper. The preschool children, as a part of their curriculum between Thanksgiving and just before Christmas, are asked to think about the children who are hospitalized during the holidays and the giftedness we received in the Incarnation of Jesus. The kits are collected and taken to the UIHC for a session with the children in the unit. When assembled, the children can turn their treasure bottle and watch as the trinkets appear and disappear in the rice. When discharged, they can then take their treasure bottle home with them.

Mass for Peace and Justice: The Bishops of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has directed that the 22nd of January be "observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through the acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life."

Spiritual Adoption Program: New to St. Elizabeth's, this program encourages us to pray daily for a child who is in danger of being aborted. From February through October, posters following the progress of a child's development en utero will be displayed on the bulletin board in the "Committee" section. Prayer cards with a brief prayer will also be available. More information about this ministry is available on their website, www.spiritualadoption.org.

Tiny Tots' Treasures Barrel: In conjunction with the preschool families we are currently holding a drive for new and gently used clothing and bedding items for "little ones" (new born through preschool). These items will be collected through the end of the school year and distributed to local organizations who serve families in need. The barrel is always in the lower level if you would like to make a donation at any time.

May 12, 2009 - The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a new “Oppose Destructive Stem Cell Research” campaign today, equipping citizens to contact Congress and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to oppose embryonic stem cell research and support ethical cures and treatments “we can all live with.” The campaign is facilitated by the USCCB’s partner organization, the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment.

Following President Obama’s March 9 executive order, the NIH proposed guidelines for federally funded research that will require destroying live human embryos for their stem cells. The draft guidelines are open for public comment through May 26.

While the latest adult stem cell research has shown promising progress, our leadership in Washington, D.C., has chosen to fund research on embryonic stem cells. On Monday, March 9, 2009, President Obama signed an order to lift restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Many researchers hold the belief that there are many avenues of research including adult stem cell research that hold so much more promise. Adult stem cell research is leading to therapies which help heart ailments, diabetes, cancer and even Parkinson's Disease. Want to read more? Click the following link to read an article posted by the Catholic News Agency on ewtn.com: Obama Still Doesn’t "Get" Adult Stem Cell Research, Congressman Says.

Recently the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a document entitled “Dignitas Personae: On Certain Bioethical Questions”. In part one, this document addresses the dignity of the human person from anthropological, theological and ethical aspects. In the second part it discusses the issues of infertility including in vitro fertilization, the freezing of embryos, embryo reduction, and intraception/contragestation techniques. The third part of the document addresses the treatments which involve the use of embryos including gene therapy, human cloning, therapeutic use of stem cells amongst other topics. The document concludes by underscoring man’s stewardship role in safeguarding all human life. As participants in the creative process we have a special responsibility to use the knowledge God has given for the good of humanity and to defend the “weakest and most defenseless” from “various forms of unjust discrimination and oppression.”

If you would like to read this document in its entirety, it is available at http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/cdfdigpersbio.HTM or a hard copy is available in the Respect Life Lending Library in the parish office. Feel free to contact Barbara Ptacek at 378-8417 if you have any questions.

Below is an article which ran in the February/March/April 2009 St. Elizabeth's Ink newsletter.

“Do we recognize that the innate dignity of very individual rests on his or her deepest identity – as image of the Creator – and therefore that human rights are universal, based on the natural law, and not something dependent upon negotiation or patronage, let alone compromise?...How can it be that the most wonderous and sacred human space – the womb – has become a place of unutterable violence?” Pope Benedict XVI, World Youth Day, July 17, 2008

As those who live in a country where our founding fathers wrote that all were created equal to pursue the right to life, liberty and happiness the Holy Father’s words have a special meaning and must motivate us to action. In a time when our country is embracing policies that make the culture of death a part of our fabric we cannot stand idly by, we must speak out, now. Abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research, capital punishment, contraception all have continued to become accepted parts of our culture. There are those who lead you to believe they are acceptable and the Teachings of the Church are not. When we let popular culture dictate what we should believe and ignore the Tradition of the Church and the understanding that flows from the Magisterium we allow the culture of death to expand. We need to better understand the Church and her Teachings. Why does it find these things reprehensible? How do one person’s actions impact anyone else? Isn’t it my body and my right? If we truly believe what Christ taught, and His disciples after Him, then we are not entities unto ourselves. We are interconnected in the Body of Christ. When anyone of us does anything that is contrary to His Body, ie, the Church, it harms all of us. We become less than what we could be. The beauty of the Church is that when we do err, we can come to the Sacraments for healing. At the same time, we must grow in our understanding through prayer, reception of the Sacraments, Scripture study, and expanding our knowledge of the Teachings of the Church. Reading the Catechism and publications offered by the USCCB’s (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) Respect Life Office will help form a better understanding about why the Church teaches what it does on these issues and more. Each year in October the Respect Life Secretariat sends out a set of articles on selected issues regarding life. This year the theme is “Hope and Trust in Life”. The articles touch on the subjects of the African American family, how men are affected by abortion, pornography, living wills, faithful citizenship, and stem cell research. The articles are available in the office to be checked out and read in the Respect Life Lending Library. They are also available online at www.usccb.org. Follow the links to the Respect Life Program. Once we form our minds we can then live lives which unite the Body of Christ. We must take to heart the words of the Holy Pontiff and not compromise.

In knowing what the Church teaches we can illuminate the world with the Truth. In knowing the Truth we can transform the world.

Click here to read an article published in the Dec 2004/Jan 2005 newsletter dealing with abortion.

Rachel's Vineyard

Rachel's Vineyard is a safe place to renew, rebuild, and redeem hearts broken by abortion. Weekend retreats offer a supportive, confidential and non-judgemental environment where women and men can express, release and reconconcile painful post-abortive emotions to begin the process of restoration, renewal and healing.

Retreats are held throughout the world, including a location in the Cedar Falls, IA area. More information can be found at http://rachelsvineyard.org or by calling 877 HOPE 4 ME (877-467-3463).

Iowa Catholic Conference

More information about these and other life issues is available at www.iowacatholicconference.org. The Iowa Catholic Conference has a link on its site for Action Alerts. These are items which are pending in the legislature. Information is easily accessed about your senate and house representatives to contact them. Did you know that as few as six calls can sway the vote of a legislator? It is important that we are respresented and voice our is heard!

Coalition for Life is a group dedicated to educating the public on issues pertaining to life. They have a calendar of events. Click here to view their calendar of events.