6/8/07
year:
2007
1000 Religious Congregations Agree to Showings of Documentary
Aston, PA — The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia will host a showing of Rory Kennedy’s HBO documentary, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. The film will be shown on Wednesday, June 13, at 7 P.M. at Our Lady of Angels Convent, 609 S. Convent Road, Aston. Working in collaboration with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), the Franciscan sisters are one of 1,000 religious congregations that have agreed to show the film between June 10-17 and October 21-28.
The 80-minute HBO film features the familiar and disturbing photos of torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Acclaimed filmmaker Rory Kennedy digs beneath the headlines to investigate the psychological and political context in which torture occurred. Using a series of in-depth interviews, the film asks critical questions about how the torture happened and how it affects America’s credibility as a defender of freedom and human rights. Sister Dominica LoBianco, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis’ Advocacy for Peace and Justice Committee, sees the congregation’s collaboration with NRCAT as a logical step in the congregations other advocacy endeavors. “In light of our corporate stand against the Iraq War and our work as a congregation for many years to close the School of the Americas (now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) because of its promulgation of torture, we now join with other religious congregations in calling for an end to torture,” she said. “We’re sponsoring this film to educate ourselves and others about the issue and to consider specific action steps toward stopping the use of torture by our government.”
The film showing is free and open to the public. Contact Sister Dominica LoBianco, dlobianco@osfphila.org, (610) 306-7370, to register.
For more information about the documentary, visit www.tortureisamoralissue.org and http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/ghostsofabughraib/synopsis.html.
To learn more about the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, visit their website at www.osfphila.org.
