By Rita McInerney

Woman’s ancient need to stitch garments for her brood and her maternal compassion for suffering children everywhere are essential to the growing success of a humanitarian project begun by Catholic women involved in peace and justice issues.

Mrs. Lillian Corrigan, a member of Holy Family parish in Marietta, says her idea for “PJ’s for Peace and Justice” came “out of the blue” last September while she and Mrs. Kathy Rivers, of St. Thomas Aquinas parish in Roswell, were “trying to think of a way to raise consciousness about Central America in this area, which is really very conservative. We didn’t think leafletting would work.”

The two, Mrs. Rivers said, has been concerned about the “tremendous disparity about what we heard from our government and what we read in various publications and heard from Fernando Garcia, a refugee from Guatemala now in sanctuary with the Quakers and Clifton Presbyterian Church. On my part there was a compulsion to get the truth out about the innocent people being killed in the name of counter-insurgency.”

“We felt strongly that children should have the right to sleep in peace (Duerme En Paz),” Mrs. Corrigan said. This basic right was being denied them “because our government is involved in this terrible hypocrisy.”

The two called a meeting of the people who had signed the Pledge of Resistance, a movement dedicated to nonviolent civil disobedience if the United States significantly escalates its intervention in Central America. The Pledge unit is affiliated with the Cobb Interfaith Peace Study whose membership is made up of worshipers from churches in Marietta.

The project is an expression of opposition to the militarization of Central America, Mrs. Rivers explained. "We don’t support various countries but we are opposed to our government’s policy of militarization in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. A policy that is creating destabilization and undermining the Contadora peace process.”

“How could we make this war visible? How could we witness to the suffering?” were the questions they pondered. “Everyone got excited when Lil came up with the idea of making pajamas,” Mrs. Rivers said.

After being well received by associates in the Pledge group and CIPs, the pajama project got underway. “We found we had a lot of talent,” Mrs. Corrigan said. “About three of us made the pattern. Kathy Rivers worked on the brochures.” The motto, “Duerme En Paz,” came together with enthusiastic cooperation from Dr. David Wayland, rector of St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church in Marietta. St. Catherine’s was one of the three churches starting CIPS. Holy Family and John Knox Presbyterian were the others.

They assembled kits which include patterns and directions for two-piece pajama sets for boys and nightshirt/dresses for girls. A brochure explaining what the project is about completes the kit. A large display board telling a tragic pictorial story of children whose lives are stunted by fear, hunger, oppression and death, further illustrates the project.

They were ready to go public. Their first witness, on the square in Marietta in late September, was non-productive. “Most people just hurried on by,” Mrs. Corrigan said. “But it was good for us.”

A display at the Hunger Walk in Atlanta resulted in one woman signing up. The woman and her mother “have been making the pj’s ever since,” Mrs. Corrigan said. Then the project was presented to Church Women United, accompanied by a film strip, “Born From the People,” detailing the U.S. role in Central American, the people, and base Christian communities being organized there. Millie Hankla of John Knox Presbyterian was responsible for this part of the presentation.

The project appealed to Joan Lucas, a member of Holy Family in Marietta who attended the CWU meeting as president of the Atlanta Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women. She saw “PJ’s” as something AACCW might be interested in and invited Mrs. Corrigan to bring the program to a board meeting.

Presentations were given at the board meting at the Cathedral of Christ the King and a deanery meeting at Our Lady of the Assumption by Mrs. Corrigan, Mrs. Rivers, Mary Lou Mulligan of Holy Family and Maureen Smith of St. Ann in Marietta. Now, along with an ever growing number of their sisters in other denominations, sewing groups in parishes including Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Ann, St. Oliver Plunkett, and Sacred Heart in Griffin, have the pattern kits and are sewing together small garments that will carry a big message of love and caring to children in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Mrs. Corrigan said women making the “PJ’s” are asked to write notes to the children, “so they will know there are people here who really care.”

She also gets notes from grateful churchwomen: “thank you so much for putting me in touch with this wonderful mission project,” is one example.

The first collection of garments, valued at approximately $400 for labor and material, was exhibited and readied for shipment to Nicaragua at a service bearing witness to the suffering of the people in Central America held Tuesday, March 8, at Zion Baptist Church in Marietta. The garments will be shipped under the auspices of “Quest for Peace,” in Mount Rainier, Md., a national campaign formed in December, 1985 by Father William Callahan, S.J. An ecumenical coalition, it seeks to raise $27 million in humanitarian aid for the Nicaraguans.

Lillian Corrigan and Kathy Rivers share a confidence that “PJ’s for Peace and Justice,” an idea as American as motherhood and apple pie, will help show neighbors in Central America that many people in this country are concerned about the innocent victims of war and injustice; want to affirm the right of children to sleep in peace, and seek to promote understanding about the root causes of conflict in Central America.

As women of faith they point out that their concerns have been nurtured by their Church. “All the experiences for growth that we have had, that brought us where we are now, have come from within the Catholic community,” Kathy Rivers acknowledged.

Mrs. Corrigan, a native of Connecticut, came to Atlanta when she was 12 and later attended Sacred Heart High School. Two of the events that shaped her philosophy and actions were Vatican II and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

With her husband Bill, soon to retire from Lockheed in Marietta, she participated in the Poor People’s campaign in Washington, D.C. in 1968. Her involvement in the Community of Christ Our Brother, a “parish without boundaries” in Atlanta in the late 1960s was “an experience in growth” she cherishes.

Kathy and Bob Rivers and their four children came to the area from Kansas City just about a year ago. She connects her activism to her need to re-evaluate her role at mid-life. The bishops’ letter on peace and the economy helped her do this.

“There was a Catholics for Justice group supported by the Archdiocese of Kansas City and I was peace and justice coordinator for my parish.” This put her in touch with people who went to Central America with Witness for Peace.

Here, she said, “We’re getting involved with the St. Vincent de Paul (society). But I don’t find a vehicle within the parish community (for peace and justice activism.) I find it more on an ecumenical basis.”

“We get our strength because we are interfaith. We forget all our differences and really get down to the core of what we have in common," she affirmed. “We get so much more back,” Lillian Corrigan agreed.

(Anyone wishing to participate in “PJ’s for Peace and Justice” can call Mrs. Corrigan at 973-8260 or Mrs. Rivers at 641-9630)