FAMVIN: The International Vincentian Family

Taking seriously the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of achieving “improvement in the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2015,” the Open Architecture Network is an online, open source community dedicated to improving living conditions through innovative and sustainable design.

Fr. Gregory Gay, CM, Superior General of the Association of the Miraculous Medal writes a letter “One hundred years journeying with Mary untied with Jesus in the Poor by way of the Miraculous Medal”

The May issue of NUNTIA of the Congregation of the Mission is online with reports about the activities of the Superior General and the various members of the Curia; the Provinces of Spain, Paris, Poland and Portugal; Fr. Tri Duong on TV as “New Yorker of the Week”

CBS News has begun a series about how working people are struggling with hard choices: heat the house or gas the car or buy groceries. In this installment, the reporter’s guide is a volunteer at a the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul food pantry in Greenville, Mississippi USA. Read the story.

The Office of the Superior General asked that this notice soliciting input on Food Security for group of Catholic-inspired NGO’s and Religious Institutes be placed on the famvin web site. Please note that they request input by May 14.

Sister of Charity Patricia Wittberg, professor of sociology of religion at Indiana-Purdue, is quoted in an article about trends in religious orders. Read the article.

The contributing editor of the Orangeville Citizen in Ontario, Canada this week ran a column determined, he said, by the date of publication: September 27. He offers a brief meditation on the life of Vincent. Read it here.

Are we “the first generation that can eradicate poverty”? St. John’s University thinks so. On October 13 the Vincentian Center for Church and Society at St. John’s invites you to explore “The Just and Moral Society: From Ideal to Reality”. Learn more.

Tomorrow at the United Nations the 60th Annual Department of Public Information/Non-Governmental Organizations Conference kicks off. Some 2000 representatives of NGOs from more than 80 countries will attend presentations and roundtables on the impact of climate change. Check out the conference’s very interactive site.

Oxfam has made available a .pdf of a map of areas affected by the quake; it was provided to them by the Sistema Nacional de Defensa Civil Perú. Also, Catholic News
Service has a round-up of stories of life after the disaster.

Bishop Guido Breña López of the Diocese of Ica is quoted extensively in a report about the crisis in Perú; read the story.

In Palmerston North, New Zealand the Ozanam House has two things to celebrate: forty years of service to cancer patients and rebuilding from an arson attack. Read the story of service at their site and take a look at coverage of Sunday’s celebration.

After Dorothy Day visited Nova Scotia in 1938, she wrote about miners and steel workers who told her of their decision to start a Saint Vincent De Paul Society to, in their words, “build up the idea of mutual charity and mutual aid.” Read more here.