Catholic clergy and rabbis who marched<\/a> along with 1000 peaceful protestors to decry the working conditions at the meat packing plant in Iowa which federal authorities raided last May and detained nearly 400 illegal immigrants mostly from Guatemala. Over the last few months, evidence of exploitation, child labor and unsafe working conditions has emerged. Sixteen year old working 15 hour days six days a week.<\/p>\nThe clergy who led this protest walk the great tradition of religious leaders who have fought for the justice and the common good. Our sense of solidarity with these women and men who have been detained in Pottsville helps us realize that they like us want a better life for themselves and their family.<\/p>\n
Commitment to the common good reminds us that we are connected to one another and that our well being is based on the community and country in which we live.<\/p>\n
Yesterday’s protest is yet another example that those in the progressive religious tradition are raising our voices and our visibility. Religious politics is changing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the last quarter century, religious has almost become synonymous with Republican and right wing. Religion has been limited to abortion, homosexuality and stem cell research. But that is changing. People of faith are reviving the movements that helped to make America a more just nation–care for the immigrant, the children and those who labor.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholics","category-jews"],"yoast_head":"\n
The Immigrant March in Iowa - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/07\/the-immigrant-march-in-iowa-by.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Immigrant March in Iowa - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the last quarter century, religious has almost become synonymous with Republican and right wing. Religion has been limited to abortion, homosexuality and stem cell research. But that is changing. People of faith are reviving the movements that helped to make America a more just nation–care for the immigrant, the children and those who labor.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/07\/the-immigrant-march-in-iowa-by.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-28T12:21:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kathleen Kennedy Townsend\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Immigrant March in Iowa - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/07\/the-immigrant-march-in-iowa-by.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Immigrant March in Iowa - Progressive Revival","og_description":"Over the last quarter century, religious has almost become synonymous with Republican and right wing. Religion has been limited to abortion, homosexuality and stem cell research. But that is changing. 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The eldest child of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, she saw her parents make the connection between faith and justice, between faith and the common good. Civil rights was a moral issue - poverty unacceptable. Her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s article \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Suppose God is Black?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d highlighted for her the notion that our religious beliefs were intimately connected to our public actions. In the early eighties, Kathleen wrote a number of articles connecting faith to the fight for a fairer society. She founded the Maryland Student Service Alliance to make Maryland the first, and still only state that requires young people to engage in community service as a condition of graduation. And, as Maryland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first woman Lt. Governor, she instituted the office of Character Education - to provide a focal point for the teaching of responsibility and respect to the next generation. Kathleen serves on a number of non-profit boards. She is the chairman of the Institute for Human Virology at the University of Maryland and serves on the board of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the Points of Light Foundation, National Catholic Reporter, and the Character Education Partnership, among others. While serving as the chairman of the board of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, she created the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Mrs. Townsend is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Before being elected Lt. Governor, Mrs. Townsend served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States. She helped design and launch the nationally acclaimed Police Corps, a program that gives college scholarships to young people who pledge to work as police officers for four years after graduating Kathleen has been appointed an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s School of Public Policy and has been a Visiting Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government where she focused her efforts on faith and public life. Mrs. Townsend is an honors graduate of Harvard University, and holds a law degree from the University of New Mexico where she was a member of the law review. She has received ten honorary degrees and has published several articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Washington Monthly, among others. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend lives outside Baltimore, Maryland with her husband, David, a professor at St. John\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s College in Annapolis. They have four daughters Meaghan, Maeve, Kate and Kerry.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/kktownsend"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}