Catholic Women’s Organization Lends Support to Field of Peace Project

The Catholic Herald, By Nancy Westlund, Herald staff

July 2, 2005

The Sacramento Diocesan Council of Catholic Women is raising funds for an international project to remove of land mines in Croatia and create a field of peace in memory of the late Pope John Paul II. 

At the SDCCW convention on April 8, members were inspired to join the campaign by keynote speaker Heidi Kuhn, founder of Roots of Peace, who challenged them to “remove seeds of destruction and plant seeds of hope.”

During her presentation to the Catholic women’s organization, which occurred the same day as the late pope’s funeral, Kuhn, who is Catholic, told the story of the mission of Roots of Peace, a California-based nonprofit organization dedicated to turning fields of land mines into productive agricultural use.

“The message of Roots of Peace was received so positively because this project is trying to bring fields back to normalcy so children can play and farmers can farm,” said Toni Malik, SDCCW international concerns committee chair and its liaison to Roots of Peace.

“A field planted in memory of the pope keeps his wonderful message of peace alive.”

Just weeks after announcing the new Roots of Peace Project, Kuhn arrived in Vukovar, a city in Croatia where she visited the future site of the Pope John Paul II field of peace on May 11.

The site is located in Ilok by the Danube River, a region previously planted in vineyards prior to becoming a Croatian-Serbian battlefront riddled with land mines.

While in Vukovar, Kuhn presented a $100,000 donation from Roots of Peace to the International Trust Fund to start de-mining thousands of acres in the area. 

The U.S. State Department matched funding for the field of peace which brought total funding to $200,000, far short of what is required to fund the project.

Since the SDCCW convention, nearly 100 “Pennies for Peace” buckets have been distributed to affiliates and organizations throughout the diocese. 

Evangelina del Rey da Rosa, president of the SDCCW, delivered the buckets to several diocesan deanery meeting during the month of May.  She said the response was “very encouraging” as members embraced the cause of peace.

“We are honoring the legacy of Pope John Paul II and joining the National Council of Catholic women in support of removing land mines,” she said.

Bev Obermiller is treasurer for the Siskiyou Deanery and a member of St. Anthony Parish in Mount Shasta.

“What really touched us was realizing all the maiming and trauma that occurs with land mines,” said Obermiller, who reported the Siskiyou Deanery collected $297 for the field of peace project in one day.  “We were inspired that one woman has stepped out in faith doing this work and called upon the rest of us to follow.”

During a May 15 meeting of members of SDCCW’s Solano Deanery in Dixon, Betty Longquist, a parishioner of St. Mary Church in Vacaville, said the peace buckets “were just inhaled” by people wanting to take them back to their parish communities for distribution.

“This (project) is environmentally sound with a lot of spiritual overtones,” she said.  “Everyone wants to step on the band wagon and run with it.”

Plans call for SDCCW affiliates and parish organizations to return their Pennies for Peace bucket collections to deanery meetings in September and continue the project through the coming year.