Discussion Question: Entertaining Angels

At their beach party, Forster, baiting Dorothy, accuses the Church of "sucking all the joy right out of life." When he says this, he is referring to what he thinks of as fun: partying, smoking, and drinking. He looks at all of the material items and the beliefs of sacrificing for others as looking "joy."  However, Forster does not understand what Dorothy does.  The "joy" and happiness offered by the Church is through what you give back.  The amazing feeling one has after helping others.  I personally truly enjoyed this movie because of the wonderful look at Dorothy's life it gave.

The Land of Invisible Women

After reading the article "In the Land of Invisible Women," by Janine DiGiovanni I was surprised at how young the women are when they are married.  By the time a girl in Yemen is approximately our age, she is most likely married with children and does not have an education.  On the contrary, 17-18 year olds in our culture are preparing to leave for college and looking towards their future with an education.  In addition, I found it interesting about the way they dressed.  Underneath their traditional garb, they wear modern street clothes and also go to salons. It is strange to think just how different things are for women just across the world.

Hotel Rwanda

In my opinion, this is unfortunately correct.  We constantly see horrors happening in our world on the news, if it is even terrible enough for news stations to consider playing it.  I think that people are so indifferent to the suffering because of how much suffering there truly is.  People also think there is not much they can do so why even try.  If I was placed in that situation, I would like to think I would help.  Forming and working with organizations to raise awareness and supplies for these horrors would be the best way to go about helping.

Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice

It is sad to think about how prevalent crime is in our society today.  The idea of "Restorative Justice" is a better way, in my opinion for the offender to make amends to those s/he has harmed.  In the case of the article we read, "Forgiven" by Paul Tullis, murder is the crime in question.  With the instance of murder, I do not feel that "restorative justice" is the best solution.  The criminal physically removed a life from the earth.  I do not think it is realistic because terrible people may take advantage of kind-hearted peopled who could easily forgive them.  Keeping criminals on the streets in this capacity is dangerous, especially since many would lie and state that they are "reformed" when they are, in fact, not.  It does keep closer to Catholic Social teaching because it puts faith in the accused and the accuser to reconcile and work together towards a common ground.