Sister Antona Ebo. On Sunday March 7, 1965, Alabama state troopers and local police beat and bloodied civil rights activists who had begun a 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital. Immediately following the “Bloody Sunday” attack, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. issued a call for church leaders around the country to come to Selma and to join in the struggle for civil rights. On March 10th, Sister Antona Ebo, a Franciscan Sister of Mary, took off from Saint Louis, Missouri to Selma on a chartered plane that she jokes had been pulled out of mothballs. On March 11th the cover of The New York Times featured a photo of Sister Antona marching alongside other protesters. That photo would become an iconic image of the struggle for voting rights.

Download our resource to learn more. Resources included in this download:

• Educational resources: A Biography of Sister Antona Ebo with questions for reflection and discussion; More Black Catholic Women Witnesses of Mercy with questions for reflection and discussion; A brief history of African-American Catholics; The Black Lives Matter Movement and Catholics: Two Scholars Speak Out; Black Catholic Sisters in the United States: A Historical Reflection by Shannen Dee Williams; and Excerpts from Catholic Social Teaching on Race and Racism with questions for discussion and reflection
• Be a Witness of Mercy: Resources for learning and doing
• Prayer Resources: Stations of the Cross: Black Catholic Women Give Witness
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

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Sister Helen Prejean is perhaps the world’s most widely known opponent of the death penalty. Her book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States remained on the New York Times best-seller list for 31 weeks and was an international best seller, having been translated into ten languages. The book would also become the basis for a major motion picture and an opera. Prejean’s work has taken her around the world for speaking engagements, earned her numerous awards, and brought her into personal conversation with presidents, U.S. Supreme Court justices, prime ministers and popes.

Download this resource packet to learn more. Includes:

• Educational resources: A Biography of Sister Helen Prejean, Death Penalty Fact Sheet, The Death Penalty in Recent Catholic Thought, Excerpts from a letter to Pope John Paul II by Helen Prejean, Discussion/Reflection Questions on Helen Prejean’s Ministry and the Death Penalty, Movie Discussion Guide for Dead Man Walking
• Prayer Resources: Prayer for Justice by Sister Helen Prejean and an entire Prayer Service, inspired by Sister Helen, for transforming society
• Be a Witness of Mercy: Resources and Ways to Get Involved
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

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The destinies of Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan and Dorothy Kazel were joined together in just the last months of their lives. Murdered together by National Guardsmen in El Salvador in 1980, their deaths became a martyrdom for the church of the poor in El Salvador and for thousands of Christians in the United States.

Learn from and about these extraordinary Witnesses of Mercy who gave their lives in service to and solidarity with the poor of El Salvador during a vicious and unjust civil war

Download includes:

• Educational Resources: The stories Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Jean Donovan and Dorothy Kazel, “What is Mercy? Lessons from El Salvador” with discussion questions, Article on solidarity with connections to Scripture and Catholic Social teaching as well as discussion questions
• Prayer Service Honoring Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Jean Donovan and Dorothy Kazel
• Original Art by Marcy Hall, commissioned by FutureChurch

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