At my parish, we have just ordered a consignment of Fair Trade craft items from Catholic Relief Services. My Social Concerns Committee will hold a craft sale at the end of October so people can do some Christmas shopping with a conscience. We are not doing this to raise money, but rather, to raise awareness of Fair Trade crafts, coffee and chocolate.
The sale will literally help the artisans help themselves up and out of poverty, and with dignity.
As American consumers, we can use our purchases to help people who are poor around the world lift themselves, their families, and their communities up and out of poverty. I think the key is that Catholic Relief Services is on the ground in communities around the world, helping people learn better farming methods, gain money management skills, establish schools, etc. CRS eliminates the middle man, bringing gifts, chocolate, coffee, etc., direct from the artisans and farmers to us, the consumer, and guaranteeing that the artisans and farmers get a living wage.
I have personally bought Fair Trade gifts for all of my out-of-town relatives for four years now, and everyone is very happy with the quality. The Divine Chocolate is wonderful (and the women of my family are connoisseurs). Fair Trade coffee and teas are available in stores all around my town (Target, Safeway, Trader Joe's, Peet's Coffee & Tea, etc).
The Catholic Relief Services Fair Trade website explains it all very well: http://www.crsfairtrade.org/
If you want to hold a gift, chocolate or coffee sale yourself, it is very, very easy. The CRS website has step-by-step instructions with beautiful flyers and posters to help you promote your sale.
If you want to do some Christmas shopping for yourself, you can buy products online at the CRS Fair Trade website.
I put this article in my parish's bulletin to underscore how deeply concerned the Vatican is regarding the environment and the poorest among us. Those without resources are always hit hardest by environmental problems.
Pope Benedict urged all people to remember the duty we have today to safeguard the future for generations to come. Speaking in support of the Day for Safeguarding Creation (a tradition in Italy and in the Greek Orthodox Church), the Holy Father said, “There can be no peace in the world without respecting the environment.” Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople echoed these sentiments, calling efforts to address the environmental crisis, “This titanic and just fight.”
Read more at the Catholic News Service website for August 30th: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1003496.htm
Here is the Vatican website with the Pope's full address:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20090826_en.html
You probably already know this, but today I finally understood what the "Catholic News Service" (CNS) is all about.
This agency was founded in 1920 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, yet is financially self sustaining, and editorially independent. Their mission is to bring the good, the bad and ugly to us regarding the Catholic world -- great! You can subscribe to their RSS feed, and they also are probably providing much of the news coverage you hear on your local Catholic radio stations. What a terrific organization!
CNS homepage: http://www.catholicnews.com/
Here's what CNS says about itself:
The mission of Catholic News Service is the mission of the Church itself -- to spread the Gospel through contemporary means of communication. Our mission is to perform this task by reporting the news which affects Catholics in their everyday lives.
Some of that news is good and some is bad, but it is what readers need to know in order to work for salvation. They need to know that there are saints in the making in the Church today and they need to know that there are sinners too.
Our mission is to report fully, fairly and freely about the involvement of the Church in the world today.
