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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2016
My own beliefs about human rights have always been grounded on very concrete icons and images. Around my neck, for example, I wear a pendant made by a political prisoner in Chile. I have been privileged to meet, through Amnesty International or church connections, prisoners of conscience such as Mr. Babu, the former vice-president of Tanzania, who testify to the efficacy of human rights advocacy from a center in the first world. In Zambia and Peru, I have seen little children, whose subsistence rights have been denied, being treated for malnutrition by staff from missionary clinics. These human images and icons have led me to concrete commitments which include active membership in two international human rights organizations: Amnesty International and the Roman Catholic church as a transnational human rights network of advocacy (I am referring not only to the Vatican's participation in the United Nations and its world-wide orchestration of refugee services through Catholic Relief Services but also to more local human rights networks such as, for example, the Vicariate of Solidarity in Santiago, Chile, or, in our country, the church-sponsored sanctuary movement for refugees from El Salvador and Guatamala).
This essay was originally delivered as part of series at Immaculate Conception Seminary, Long Island, New York. It was subsequently presented at a faculty seminar of the Project on Religion and American Public Life at the University of Chicago.
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