[aid and comfort] Prayers and compassion offered for Haitian earthquake victims by Ryan T. Blystone he overwhelming damage left in the wake of Haiti’s January 12 earthquake and subsequent aftershocks is staggering. Tens of thousands are dead, untold numbers are injured, and survivors face unbelievable hardship. While the news of the tragedy is distressing in the extreme to all of us, it hit one retired University of San Diego employee on a deeply personal level. “I’m devastated,” Sister Virginia McMonagle RSCJ, a former assistant vice president for University Relations, said. “My heart has been there ever since it happened.” McMonagle, now 88 and living in Atherton, Calif., traveled to Haiti six months out of each year for 21 years, dating back to the late 1970s. In 1987, she was part of a group service project that ultimately resulted in the creation of a mountain orphanage in Kenscoff and a hospital in Petionville, now operated by Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH). January’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake caused the collapse of the hospital in Petionville and resulted in the death of at least two volunteers. McMonagle is still mightily concerned about other friends that she knew were in Haiti at the time of the earthquake. She finds some comfort in the knowledge that one of her friends is not only alive and well, but is on the ground providing aid and comfort to the afflicted. Father Rick Frechette, regional director for NPH, was in the U.S. visiting his terminally-ill mother at the time of the earthquake. With her blessing, Frechette returned to Haiti to care for the injured. Frechette first met McMonagle when he was able to complete some courses through USD while working abroad in Haiti doing mission work prior to being accepted into medical school. “He’s my best friend,” McMonagle said of Frechette, who speaks with her via phone regularly and visits once a year. Her admiration for the physician Frechette runs deep. “Haiti means the land of mountains. I think he’s a saint in those mountains.”
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cated to the study and implementation of war, and we’re quite expert at it, actually. We have tremendous military power. And we haven’t thought systematically about peace — not peace in the fluffy sense, but how do you achieve coexistence? What is authentic representation and accountability for the disparate groups in society and their grievances? Those are tough questions. They’re not just questions for Afghanistan — these are questions for governing cities in the United States.” Beyond our borders, Line is passionate about Guatemala and excited about the prospects of USD projects in that country he knows so well. Although a peace agreement has technically ended the conflict, Line says Guatemala still needs help.
“The institute tries to do a mix of conflict prevention, trying to be involved in some of the ongoing conflicts and post-conflicts. Guatemala is really almost not a post-conflict country — it’s a terribly unsafe and insecure place to be now.” With a surprising number of people at the University of San Diego with strong ties to that country — including Elaine Elliott of the Center for Community Service-Learning — momentum is building for a sustained, multidisciplinary effort from USD. The aim is to “really build a long-term relationship on a variety of issues, not just any single peace and justice issue or any single community service-learning project,” Line says. “If we pick a regional area, we might be able to have a larger package and more impact.” Line also wants to nurture some of the IPJ’s most well-known programs, like the Distinguished Lecture Series, WorldLink for youth and Women PeaceMakers. Each fall, the last of these brings four women to USD from various countries to document their stories and share information. “We now have this core of 28 women, and we want to see how we can project them into gender empowerment processes around the world,” Line says. As he settles into his job, living in the United States again for the first prolonged time in two decades, Line is also exploring life as a father to his new daughter, born in 2008. She and his wife often come to events at the IPJ, and a stroller is at the ready in Line’s office. But it doesn’t take long for the topic to turn from the child he calls “our youngest peacemaker” back to the business of making peace. “The thing that’s exciting about this is it’s kind of a new field, and it’s kind of a field where we’re trying to learn and think about the sustained well-being of our species — a biological, hard-sciences view of peace.”
SPRING 2010
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