By Catherine Larson|Published Date: November 04, 2009
I'm a huge fan of the movie Bella. The film shows the intersection of a young waitress who finds out she is pregnant with a child she doesn't want to keep, and a former soccer star turned cook after a driving accident he was involved in left a young girl dead. As these lives intersect, redemption and hope follow.
Since the movie won the People's Choice Award in 2007 at the Toronto Film Festival, and was released later that year, efforts have been underway to get the movie into all crisis pregnancy centers across America. But according to an article in the National Catholic Register, new efforts are underway to get this life-changing film into prisons across America. The cook, Jose, is a great example of a man whose life has been devastated by a mistake, but who has used that mistake to turn his life around and do something redemptive with the days he has left. I think this film could have just as big an impact in the prison community as it has in the community of crisis care, where initial reports say that over 100 people have contacted the Bella production company to say that they decided to keep their baby as a result of seeing the film.
There's a reason the production company calls itself Metanoia, I guess. Let's hope for some of that metanoia to flare up in our prisons.
The Church's Role in Social Justice
By: Kim Moreland|Published: March 19, 2010 11:12 AM
I made a slight blunder that has been brought home to me by two Grove City College professors, Dr. Gary Scott Smith and Dr. J.D. Wyneken, in their article “The Church and the Social Gospel.” I failed to articulate the Church's role in promoting social justice in my recent article “The Social Gospel and Eternity.” Their question is, “Should churches and individual Christians seek to help people with material problems and social needs, remedy social ills, and improve social institutions?”
Many are working to bring the disparity in sentencing between cocaine and crack to an end. Pharmacologically they are almost the exact same substance. Personally, I think the disparity should be reduced a bit, but I also think that community-based treatment for non-violent offenders should be used on a much larger scale.
