Working for justice starts on the streets, say interns

Published: 2004-08-18

CHICAGO (CNS) -- This summer Brian Reichart gave some change to a panhandler on the "L," Chicago's transit system, and then turned around and registered him to vote. Michael O'Connell found himself getting kicked out of a festival in Northbrook for asking people to register to vote. The two University of Notre Dame juniors spent the summer trying to register voters and work with congregations of various faiths on social justice issues as interns in the program on Catholic social teaching at the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice in Chicago. For working 10 40-hour weeks, doing some assigned reading and writing papers to be turned in this fall, they will receive a tuition credit and credit hours from Notre Dame. But more important, the pair said, is what they have learned about the realities faced by low-wage workers and what the Catholic Church says society's responsibility is. O'Connell attended Catholic elementary and high schools in Midland and Saginaw, Mich. Reichart grew up in the Jefferson Park area of Chicago and studied with the Jesuits at St. Ignatius.

Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .