Due to Winter weather conditions, this event has been postponed.  --- Editor, Tuesday Feb 26 2pm

"Peace Soup" - the annual supper and discussion series held on Tuesday evenings throughout Lent will feature former Iowa State Senator Maggie Tinsman on Tuesday, February 26th, at 6 pm in St. Boniface Hall, 2520 Pershing Blvd., Clinton.

On February 26th, former Iowa State Senator, Maggie Tinsman will lead a discussion on "Human Trafficking" which is among the largest and fastest growing criminal enterprises in the world.  While active in the State Senate, Ms. Tinsman introduced the legislation that made human trafficking a felony in Iowa.

Tinsman, currently operates a consultant business, "Maggie Tinsman, LLC", specializing in early childhood education development, lobbying for health and human services issues, and promoting elected public service for women.  She and Jean Lloyd-Jones, also a former Iowa State Senator, founded an organization called 50/50 in 2020 to recruit, train, and mentor women for elected positions.  Currently, Tinsman has become a major speaker on the "Global and Local Problems of Human Trafficking".

Tinsman's past experiences include serving as an elected official for the Scott County Board of Supervisors for eleven years and then going on to serve as an Iowa State Senator for 18 years.  Honors include recognition as Quad Cities Woman of the Year, Citizen of the Year, Iowa Social Worker of the Year, Child Abuse Council Priorities Award, and Coalition of Family and Children Services Award, among others.

Tinsman earned her BA in Sociology from the University of Colorado, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and later received her Master of Social Work Degree from the University of Iowa.  In 2008, she received an Honorary Doctor of Public Service Degree from St. Ambrose University. Currently, she serves on the Boards of Iowa Public Health, Prevention of Disabilities Policy Council, American Lung Association of Iowa, Iowa Legal Aid Foundation, SAL Families and Community Services, and Scott County KIDS Board.

For the 7^th year, Prince of Peace Parish Pax Christi and the Clinton Franciscan Center for Active Nonviolence and Peacemaking are co-sponsoring the free series which includes a simple supper of homemade soup and bread followed by a program and discussion.  This year the programs center on the topic of faith's response to violence.  And this year, the series is being held on Tuesday evenings.

"Everyone is welcome," said Pax Christi chair, Gabriela Egging, "All anyone need bring is an appetite for good conversation and for good soup."

Details on the 2013 Peace Soup series are available at www.jcpop.org and at www.clintonfranciscans.com or by calling Prince of Peace Parish at 563-242-3311 or Sisters of St. Francis, 563-242-7611.  The series is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

The Sisters of St. Francis, their Associates and Sojourners, and students from Ashford University are inviting the public to join in a prayer vigil in solidarity with the thousands of persons who will gather at the gates of the U.S. Army base at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, this month.  Fort Benning is home to the Army's infamous "School of the Americas" (SOA).

The vigil will be held in the chapel at The Canticle, home of the Franciscan Sisters, 841-13th Ave. No., Clinton, and begins at 6 pm, Thursday evening, Nov. 15.

November 16 marks the 23rd anniversary of the 1989 massacre of 6 Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the University of San Salvador, El Salvador.  A U.S. Congressional Task Force reported that those responsible were trained at the SOA.  Since 1990, the organization SOA WATCH has been holding prayer vigils outside the gates of the base to draw attention to the evils perpetrated by SOA graduates and to lobby for an end to US funding for the program.

Clinton Franciscans have been participating in the vigil since 1996.  Over 20 Sisters plus Associates, friends and students have travelled to Georgia in the ensuing years to join the 10,000 + people from around the world who gather annually to pray and work for change through creative nonviolence.

The Pentagon has responded to the growing movement and Congress' near closure of the SOA with a PR campaign to give the SOA a new image. In an attempt to disassociate the school with its horrific past, the SOA was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in January of 2001

News reached the public earlier this month that one of the perpetrators of the 1989 massacre has been located in the U.S. and is being deported to Spain for trial on murder charges.

Thousands of other Latin Americans and North Americans including four American church women and two bishops have been killed by forces linked to the SOA.  Several bills have been introduced in Congress to halt funding for the SOA, only to be narrowly defeated,

"We hope many people will join us for this brief prayer vigil of solidarity," said Anne Martin Phelan OSF, president of the Clinton Franciscans who has participated in the vigil at Fort Benning many times.  On one trip, she joined hundreds who "crossed the line" onto Army property in nonviolent civil disobedience.

"It is vital that we not participate in the training of those who are terrorizing their fellow citizens in Central American, Mexico, Peru and Columbia.  By holding a vigil in Clinton, we hope to involve more citizens in this form of prayerful, peaceful protest," she said.