From time to time, an event etches an image on the mind and psyche that has the power to change a belief, an attitude or a behavior.
Years ago, a movie showed such an image: A leader in a fictional clan, which was living close to the edge of survival, had been killed.
Short on food, the members put the man`s widow outside the village gates in winter because no other man would take her into his family.
The woman had no sons, and her daughter could not save her. The young woman stood clutching the fence, watching her mother die in a blizzard, afraid to ask her husband to take her mother in for fear of losing his favor.
The image was not of any one culture`s cruelty, but of women`s powerlessness when society forces them to be, or when they allow themselves to be, entirely dependent upon men.
There are many ways of being shut out in the cold today-poverty, an inadequate education, a childhood of abuse, unemployment, lack of medical care.
Diverse groups of women have decided they must build their own warm tents if they wish to bring their abandoned mothers, sisters and daughters inside the gates of society. Not only do they want to help those on the margin, but they wish to make sure that women`s creative ideas will get a fair chance to work.
One such group is Mary`s Pence, a nationwide group of Catholic women that was founded in Chicago in 1987.
Maureen Gallagher, national coordinator, remembers the germinal event that pushed her and a group of women into taking matters into their own hands. In 1986, a group of Catholic women working with incarcerated women at Cook County Jail asked the jail inmates what they needed most.
The inmates asked for a spiritual director, and the volunteers set about hiring one. Once they had raised all but $5,000 of the amount needed, they asked Catholic Charities for the rest.
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”They got a letter saying, `Keep up the good work, but we have no money,` ” Gallagher recalled. ”A week later, they saw a newspaper story that Catholic Charities had given $250,000 for another project.
”I was standing with the group when they got the news. We were incensed. We decided that we had to do something positive for ourselves.”
It cannot be argued that the cold evils of rejection don`t harm men as well as women. And some would argue the poorest men are worse off than the poorest women because few social welfare programs are available to males.
But men still make most decisions about how the big money of taxes and foundation grants will be spent, and there are many more poor women than poor men.
The women in the jail project found their positive approach. They thought of the annual church collection called Peter`s Pence, a tradition dating to the Middle Ages in which Catholics help finance the running of the Vatican and the charitable work of the pope.
”We thought, `Why not a Mary`s Pence-a penny for Peter and a penny for Mary?` ” Gallagher said.
”We didn`t want to bash any priest or cardinal, but we also didn`t want to wait for the institutional church to recognize the needs of women.”
The original founders of Mary`s Pence met in each others` kitchens in Chicago and the suburbs for more than a year. In 1987, they hit upon the strategy of obtaining mailing lists from other Catholic organizations, especially those involved with women`s or social justice issues.
Those first letters tapped a rich source of frustration and generosity, and Mary`s Pence has collected and distributed $126,000 to Catholic women and agencies they run in 31 states, the District of Columbia and six Latin American countries.
The average contribution is $25 a month. The smallest, $1 every month, is sent by a woman in New York. The largest, $100 a month, comes from a woman in Texas.
Mary`s Pence has allowed an Elmhurst mother of five to take advanced music training in order to write hymns that include women`s contributions, including ”Her Holy Bread.”
Mary`s Pence funds a program on the West Side for pregnant teens and a halfway house for women coming out of prison.
A former Maryknoll sister in Wisconsin runs a group called The Welfare Warriors, which teaches women how to speak up for themselves and to be aware of legislation that can help or hurt them.
Despite the recession, contributions were up 20 percent in 1991 over 1990.
In 1992, Mary`s Pence published a calendar of forgotten women as part of its fundraising efforts, including the women who most likely cooked the food for the Last Supper.
”Often we are angry at the slowness of the Roman Catholic Church to recognize the gifts of women,” Gallagher said. ”This is a way to channel that anger, to take responsibility for our own lives.”