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Cathy Cornell and Paul Knitter will receive the Peter Hinde CRISPAZ Peace Award 2023 for their adherence to nonviolent resistance in the accompaniment of the people of El Salvador.

On Tuesday, October 25, 2022, Marie Dennis  will receive the Peter Hinde CRISPAZ Peace Award 2022 for her work in promotion of Peace through non-violence around the world.  She will be recognized at Caldwell Auditorium, Caldwell Hall at Catholic University of America, DC at a 6pm – 8pm event. 

On Tuesday, October 26, 2021, the Casa de la Solidaridad (usually referred to simply as “Casa”) will receive the Peter Hinde CRISPAZ Peace Award 2021 for its work in solidarity with Salvadoran communities from 1999 to 2017. Trena & Kevin Yonkers-Talz, who were the co-directors of Casa, will receive the award on behalf of the program.

Read more here

The Office of Campus Ministry offered a new immersion experience this May to explore the realities, causes, and effects of migration. A 10-person delegation, led by Associate Campus Minister Kaitlyn Buehlmann ’14, along with President John Hurley and his wife, Maureen, began their immersion in El Salvador, learning about the root causes and effects of migration. They then traveled to the U.S./Mexico border in Nogales, AZ, and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico to see the work being done by the Kino Border Initiative (KBI). Canisius partnered with faith-based organization CRISPAZ for both legs of their journey. The group was challenged by its Executive Director Francisco Mena Ugarte to “remember the importance of listening to understand instead of listening to respond.” Buehlmann said this idea “was a powerful conversation that helped set the tone for the week.”

Read highlights from the group’s experiences here

By John J. Hurley

Man’s inhumanity to man is a recurrent theme in literature and sadly, in real life. From the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible to the present day atrocities in Syria, humans continue to exhibit an astonishing depravity when it comes to their fellow man.

I recalled this unfortunate theme recently as my wife and I accompanied Canisius College students to El Salvador and the Kino Border Initiative on the Arizona-Mexico border. The purpose of the trip was to give our students deeper insights into the immigration debate raging in the United States. We wanted them to learn about the Central American migrants’ experience upon arriving at the U.S. border, but also about the conditions in their home countries that cause so many to pull up stakes, leave families behind and embark on a treacherous journey northward.

Read the entire piece here

Access to the Internet, as you might imagine, is somewhat limited in El Salvador.

And so a group of John Carroll University students visiting the tiny Central American nation in early January were lacking their usual lines of communication, and as such were unaware of the latest happenings back home.

“We saw a newspaper as we were in the grocery store with Donald Trump’s face blown up,” sophomore Julie Booth recalled. “Our translator read us the article, and at least personally, I was enraged. I have always been proud that I’m an American, and in that moment, I immediately felt embarrassed and ashamed.”

The article, of course, ran in the wake of the disparaging, vulgar language attributed to the U.S. president about the relative merits of certain countries, El Salvador chief among them.

Read the entire piece here