What gives me some hope

I’m visiting Ames, where I worked for 24 years at St. Thomas Aquinas Church and Catholic Student Center and where I taught occasionally at Iowa State university in philosophy and religious studies.

I visiting friends, talking with the committee at St. Thomas that is promoting the ministry of solidarity with the church in the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras, and speaking to a few groups.

Thursday night in Ames, Iowa, though, I went to listen to a lecture, “U.S. Leadership in the Global Fight Against Slavery,” by Luis CdeBaca – Louie, as I knew him when he was a high school student in religious ed at St. Thomas and a college student at ISU. He went on to law school and then worked with the justice department, eventually specially in human trafficking cases. Now he is director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the US Department of State and has some title like Ambassador at Large on Human Trafficking.

It was amazing to hear him speak with such passion of his work to end slavery and human trafficking around the globe. He recognized the role that St. Thomas played in the 1980s in his life in terms of the commitment to justice and also acknowledged his mother who did early research on women in Argentina as well as Mary Richards, a local lawyer.

He mentioned an ancestor who walked across the Americas in the 1500s and held a public office in Argentina; but after he called for an end to the enslavement of women as concubines for the Spanish found himself relieved of his office in ten days and sent back to Spain in chains.

He also spoke about the Vietnamese and Chinese women who were enslaved in a factory on American Samoa and how one woman just decided to sit on top of her sewing machine and not continue to work. Her beating was among the events there that eventually led to a conviction of the owner and the freedom of these brave women.

I was near tears a few times – starting when he recommended my talk at Iowa State next Monday and spoke kindly of me. He is a lawyer with a passion for justice - and is not afraid to do something.

I made sure I got a picture of me with him and his mother, Mary de Baca.

After the lecture and reception I went to St. Thomas for the 10:00 pm Thursday Night Liturgy where there were probably more than 130 students gathered for Mass. I knew a few of them - but many have come to ISU since I left in June 2007. It is great to see young people taking their faith seriously.

Seeing Louie after all these years, making a difference in the lives of people throughout the world, and then praying with so many students – who I hope will find the courage and the vision to make a difference as Louie is doing – fill me with hope.

For this I am grateful and rejoice, even as I worry about Honduras as it seems to spin ever deeper into a morass.

ADDENDUM:
A nice bio of Luis is at http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Luis_C._de_Baca