LOUIS (CNS) — People are seeking an understanding of why race is such a contentious subject in St. Louis, wanting to get to the “underlying issue” of why it is “so embedded” in its history, said Laura Downing, a student at St. Louis University.

The senior social work major from Decatur, Illinois, was a volunteer when the university’s campus church, St. Francis Xavier, offered a “safe space” the night the grand jury decision in the Ferguson case was handed down.

More than 100 people came to the basement of the parish center Nov. 24 during the turmoil following the announcement that a grand jury did not indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown.

The place of prayer and comfort was open for 48 hours as people stopped in to talk about the issues involved in the protests and violence that followed, with volunteers facilitating the discussion.

The Jesuit-run university’s campus ministry program led a prayer vigil at the clock tower on campus, and some students attended a protest south of the main campus and the school’s medical campus.

Downing said students reacted with questions, curiosity and confusion.

She was with a group of primarily students who wondered why protesters were burning buildings, what the meaning of it was, and why people were so mad, Downing told the St. Louis Review, the archdiocesan newspaper.

“We also talked a lot about the need to see people as people, drawing on empathy — of course people are mad, and when they are mad they do stuff like this. It doesn’t justify it,” she said, but it offers an explanation.

Downing, who attends St. Francis Xavier (College) Church and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, got involved because “everyone is made in the image and likeness of God. As a Christian, Jesus wants me to love all people. It really, really hurts him deeply when his children are being hurt and oppressed.”

St. Louis puzzles her, as she sees churches that are predominantly African-American and others that are predominantly white but few that are fully integrated. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. We let our human nature — of wanting to separate ourselves because we’re afraid of people who are different — we let that idea permeate ourselves and the Church. And that’s not what the Church is supposed to be about.”

Instead, she said, people need to come together because “we are the body of Christ.”

Downing does not want Catholics to be afraid of others or the issues. “It’s like JPII (St. John Paul II) or Jesus — they said, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ And what do we do? We get afraid. I do it myself. I get afraid. But it’s really just about trusting in God. Telling God, ‘I’m afraid right now, but I’m going to submit to you, really try to do your will, to reach out to this person because you made this human being, you love this human being.'”

Patty Libby, a senior political science and women’s studies major from St. Louis, said the campus ministry program made an impact by highlighting the human issues and social justice issues involved. Others praised the leadership of the university’s president, Fred Pestello, for promoting conversation.

Nebu Kolenchery, a senior public health major from Arlington Heights, Illinois, said that the safe space was a response to “a very trying time.” He was one of six people who took charge of the effort, with an overwhelming response from volunteers.

They wanted “to be present to our reality instead of pretending we’re not part of the city,” Kolenchery said. “It was very good to see people coming together here. … The majority were seeking dialogue with people different than themselves. I’d like to think that cultural change is happening.”

— By Joseph Kenny, Catholic News Service. 

MANCHESTER, England (CNS) — Young Africans are being seduced into modern slavery by the promise of a dream that never comes true, an English cardinal told a conference on human trafficking.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster said “there seems to be no enticement that isn’t being used” by human traffickers to entrap children.

The cardinal told the conference Dec. 6 that he was shocked to learn of the “extent and type of enticement and abuse of people that goes on in Africa” in particular. He cited as an example the offer to play soccer in the English Premier League to children who appear to excel at the sport.

“As soon as they get to England they are enslaved,” said Cardinal Nichols, president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. His remarks were reported by the British Broadcasting Corp.

“They come in search of a dream, but of course don’t find it,” he said.

“There are plenty of people who are willing to entice them and sell them the dream in order to get them here,” he added.

Cardinal Nichols made his comments during the second international conference of the Santa Marta Group, which met in London Dec. 5-6.

The conference, “Taking the Lead on Human Trafficking,” involved a gathering of senior politicians, police, and Church representatives with the aim of “developing strategies to combat human trafficking,” said a pre-conference statement by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

It was attended by Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, London police commissioner; British Home Secretary Theresa May; and Karen Bradley, minister for modern slavery and organized crime.

In a Dec. 5 message of support to the conference, Pope Francis said he was “deeply grateful” for the resolve of the participants “in combating this evil.”

“Your labors to promote ongoing dialogue on the legal remedies to human trafficking and on the essential care of those who suffer this enslavement are especially important because of the hidden nature of this crime,” the pope said.

“We must never forget, nor may we ignore, the suffering of so many men, women and children whose human dignity is violated through this exploitation,” he said, adding that he could assure the conference that the Catholic Church “remains steadfast in her pledge to combat human trafficking and to care for the victims of this scourge.”

The Santa Marta initiative was launched by Pope Francis at the Vatican April 10, when he described human trafficking as a “crime against humanity … an open wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ.”

The conference in London sought to build on the joint police and Church initiative in England that has been running for three years in the hope that good practice will be copied, developed and adapted around the world.

In a Dec. 3 statement, Cardinal Nichols said: “There is much to be done, but the emergence of the Santa Marta Group’s international network is an important step toward helping the victims and fighting this crime.”

The conference heard that there had been a fourfold rise in victims of human trafficking seeking help from British authorities over the past four years.

According to the BBC, Sir Bernard said: “Often, people are trafficked at a young age believing that they are entering a better world, when in reality they are entering a far worse world from which they cannot escape.”

The British government’s Home Office has estimated that about 13,000 people have been trafficked in the U.K. into activities ranging from prostitution to domestic service and work on fishing boats.

— By Simon Caldwell, Catholic News Service. 

VIENNA (CNS) — Pope Francis called on world leaders, activists and people of faith to pull together to rid the world of the threat of nuclear weapons.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent representative to U.N. agencies in Geneva, read the pope’s statement in Vienna Dec. 8 at the opening of Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.

In his message, Pope Francis restated the Vatican’s long-standing advocacy for the global elimination of nuclear weapons and said peace is not just a balance of power, “but true justice.”

The pope’s statement said nuclear nations should move beyond the mere ideal of the abolition of atomic weapons stressed in The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons and take the next steps toward meeting that objective.

“The humanitarian consequences are predictable and planetary,” the pope said in the statement, read before representatives of more than 150 countries gathered for conference.

More attention should be given to the unnecessary suffering that would result from the use of nuclear weapons, the pope’s statement said. He encouraged open dialogue between nuclear and non-nuclear states, with the inclusion of religious communities and civil society.

The pope’s statement was one of several during the opening remarks of the two-day conference, in which experts have been dispatched to discuss the short- and long-term consequences of nuclear weapons explosions, especially in the areas of health, environment, climate, food security and infrastructure.

Possession of nuclear weapons does not provide safety or security, but increases the likelihood of accidents and mistrust among nations, said Angela Kane, the U.N. high representative for disarmament affairs.

A nuclear strike would cause devastating effects beyond the borders of the nation targeted for the attack, said Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s foreign minister.

“It would have regional and global consequences,” Kurz told the audience. “No one would win, everyone would lose. It’s high time we move from words to action.”

Scientific experts said nuclear strikes between two nations like the U.S. and Russia would initially kill thousands of civilians and would reduce targeted cities to rubble.

The same experts also said the long-term environmental impact of such an engagement would decrease global temperatures, halt agricultural production and potentially cause billions to die of starvation.

“The risk is high, the danger is real,” said Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. “Let’s bring the era of nuclear weapons to an end.”

He said no team on the planet could launch an adequate response if one or more nuclear bombs were detonated, either intentionally or by accident.

Not all was doom and gloom during the opening of the government-sponsored conference.

While there are currently 17,000 nuclear bombs worldwide in a high-alert status, experts told participants that figure is far less than the 70,000 weapons that were combat-ready at the end of the Cold War.

However, the 85 percent reduction in nuclear weapons has created a false sense of security among the masses, who see nuclear destruction as an abstract threat, Kurz said.

In his message, Pope Francis warned of such complacency and encouraged participants of the conference to remind the world of the risks of nations possessing any nuclear weapons.

“I’m convinced the desire for peace will bear fruit in concrete ways,” the pope said in the statement, adding that it was his hope that “a world without nuclear weapons is possible.”

—By Chaz Muth, Catholic News Service.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — “Everyday saints” are those for whom faith is not just about appearances, who do not go around strutting like peacocks, but who live God’s love even in the midst of struggle, Pope Francis said.

Those who are only “apparent Christians,” who put on the faith as if it were makeup, will see that with the first rain the facade will be washed away, the pope said Dec. 4 at his morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae where he lives.

“Many ‘apparent Christians’ crumble with the first temptation,” he said, because “there’s no substance there.” They have built their faith on sand, like the person in the day’s Gospel reading from the seventh chapter of Luke.

Those who built on the rock of Jesus are the many saints — “not necessarily canonized, but saints — men and women who put into practice the love of Jesus.”

The “everyday saints,” he said, are “the sick who offer their suffering for the church and for others,” they are the elderly who pray for others and “the many moms and dads who keep their families going in the midst of struggle, raising their children, working, facing problems, but always with hope in Jesus. They don’t strut, but they do what they can.”

Pope Francis said the “everyday saints” include “many priests who are hidden away, but work in their parishes with a lot of love: catechesis for children, caring for the elderly and the sick, preparing people for marriage. And every day is the same, the same, the same, but they do not get bored because their foundation is the rock, Jesus.”

The holiness of everyday saints, he said, “gives holiness to the church and that gives hope!”

The fact that those same people make mistakes and sin, the pope said, does not destroy their witness. “If sometimes one of these Christians commits a serious sin, but repents and asks forgiveness,” that too is a sign of having a faith founded on the rock of Christ.

The pope ended his homily praying that as Christians prepare for Christmas God would help them build their faith more solidly on Jesus. “We are all sinners, we are weak, but if we put our hope in him we can move forward. This is the joy of a Christian: knowing that in him there is hope, forgiveness, peace and joy.”

Faith in Jesus, he said, is the source of hope, not “things that are here today and gone tomorrow.”

— By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service.