By Ralph E. Moore Jr.
A good gathering in my opinion of good people
The Social Ministry Convocation was recently held at Mercy High School on East Northern Parkway. The event has been held in late winter for 44 years, but was live for the first time in person in three years. It was a fantastic gathering sponsored by the Campaign for Human Development, Catholic Charities and the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Hundreds of people signed up in advance to attend and enthusiastically showed up.
Workshops included: “Who Lives Where: Systemic Racism and the Housing Crisis,””The Relentless Pace of Murder in Baltimore Continues.What Can One Person Do to Help?” and “The Catholic Church’s Response to Racism: How to be Anti-Racist.”
Adrienne Curry, the fairly new director of office of Black Catholic Ministries for the Archdiocese, who gave the workshop on the response to racism has an article in the February 2023 edition of the Catholic Review Magazine. Entitled, “Memories of a Saint,” it is the story of her kitchen table conversation with saint-to-be Sister Thea Bowman over thirty years ago. They spoke of being the only Catholic in their families and how complicated and lonely it felt being a convert to a faith on the Black side and being rejected by white supremacy in the institutional Catholic Church.
Our “Black Six Saints Matter” table at the convocation provided letters to Pope Francis, available to sign calling for the immediate canonization of Sister Thea Bowman, Mother Mary Lange, Father Augustus Tolton, Pierre Toussaint, Mother Henriette DeLille and Ms. Julia Greeley. The Social Justice Committee of Saint Ann (of which I am a member) has been collecting letters and mailing them to the Pope for two years. A subcommittee is fundraising and seeking appointments to hand deliver letters and conversation to the leaders at Vatican City in Rome. Watch this space.
Opinions on the matters of global warming and climate change
There are some folks who deny climate change and global warming. But they must rethink their doubts with the weather week we’ve had: forty degrees of separation between Wednesday’s nearly 80 degrees to Friday’s 35 degrees. And Baltimore, to date, has not used a snow plow all winter (with spring less than a month away by the calendar).
Our moderate winter is in sharp contrast to the blizzards in the Midwest and the severe rain and snow out west. Sure, the weather has always been unpredictable, but this weather is crazy. I worry about global warming’s impact on the children and the grandchildren: melting snowcaps, droughts, earthquakes and tornados. The weather is in our faces. We have neglected the environment for decades and it is coming back to haunt us and our children.
Check out the new Lexington Market
My wife, Dana, and I took a trip to see the new Lexington Market a couple of Saturdays ago. It was an impressive tour we gave ourselves. The place is completely redone! The second floor is filled with new vendors: prepared foods, poultry to cook at home, pies, cakes and pastries, chicken boxes galore. At noon on a Saturday the market was packed. Black folks, Brown people and Whites were all there. And everyone was getting along and enjoying themselves. There was even a marching band that came through. Baltimore loves its marching bands.
“The Baltimore Public Market System is the oldest Public Market System in the United States,” according to the Lexington Market’s website. The market was established in 1782. Seawall Development led by Thibault Manekin (Donald Manekin is his dad) had worked on restoring the market starting in 2018. And his team did a great job.
Go see for yourself!
The post The Moore Report: A few thoughts here and there to think about… in my opinion appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers .
