OUR GLOBAL FAMILY During the new year, many of us adopt new resolutions to improve ourselves. I suggest that we first take a step back to connect with mindsets that drive us to act. Mindsets are basic beliefs we hold about attributes such as our temperaments or capacity for change and learning. The work of […]
Carolyn Woo: ‘Fearfully, wonderfully made’
OUR GLOBAL FAMILY During a lecture at an Asian university on how businesses and the students’ future careers in this sector can bring about constructive social and environmental change, a question shot out of the blue: “Dr. Woo, I have problem engaging on this macro question when I feel like I am unable to move […]
Carolyn Woo: Plea from the brokenhearted
OUR GLOBAL FAMILY At the opening of the Fifth National Encuentro in Grapevine, Texas, San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller said, “You are right to be heartbroken.” Much attention by church leaders, as it should be, is directed at new promises to take abuse seriously, encourage reporting, care for victims and establish safeguards. Yet little […]
Sex abuse crisis: Carolyn Woo | You have let us down!
OUR GLOBAL FAMILY The McCarrick breaches and the Pennsylvania grand jury report of criminal child sexual abuse by the church drew anger, disgust, sorrow, disappointment and sadness for the “collateral damage.” I think of the priests who made God’s love real for my husband David and me, bishops who stood up for peace and justice, […]
Carolyn Woo: A woman of uncompromising faith
OUR GLOBAL FAMILY Preparation for the 75th anniversary of Catholic Relief Services calls to mind a truly remarkable woman whose work has informed the Catholic social tradition, particularly in the United States during the last century. In my own case, I owe her a special debt. Though she is not well-known beyond the peace movement […]
Carolyn Woo: Plan B and some more
OUR GLOBAL FAMILY As the new year is often the season for making plans, my attention was captured in a gift shop by a plaque that offers the wisdom, “There is no Plan B.” I wanted it for my studio (my craft and workspace that I refuse to call an office). As strategy and planning […]
Carolyn Woo: Raise our voice
OUR GLOBAL FAMILY The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, gave me many reasons for pause. The hatred spewed by people in white hoods with flaming torches jumped from the safety of books, movies or some isolated places to permeate the news in my home and puncture my perception that such sentiments are only on the fringe. […]
Carolyn Woo: Who put Christ on the cross?
OUR GLOBAL FAMILY The crucifixion of Our Lord is almost always depicted in art showing the torture from asphyxiation on the cross, the nails, the wound made by the spear, the crown of thorns or the beating on the way to Calvary. While these are indeed the implements that took the life of Jesus, they […]
Carolyn Woo: Embrace our reality
In mid-January, my husband and I attended the New York Encounter sponsored by the lay Catholic movement Communion and Liberation. The theme was “Reality has never betrayed me,” among the last words of the movement’s founder, Father Luigi Giussani at whose funeral in 2005 then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger delivered the homily. I am intrigued by this […]
Carolyn Woo: Retirement, an invitation
OUR GLOBAL FAMILY Hello. I feel like I should re-introduce myself to you as I have just finished my five-year term of service at Catholic Relief Services and now write to you in my status as “me” and not president and CEO, or dean, or professor or whatever titles I have held since starting my […]