Celebrating 50 years | God • World • Human Family • Church
Faces and Places of Catholic Near East
Our Association’s “consultant at large” takes us on a tour of our world.
Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.
Muslim students in southern India begin math classes; their school is a cattle stall. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
Decisions are difficult — which piece of candy to buy? What suit to wear to school? (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
Sister Helen with her students, Andhra Pradesh, India. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
Ethiopian seminarians dance during the liturgy; and leap for joy when it is over. Then they’re free to play soccer. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
In Syria, while a baby’s parents picked olives, she rocked peacefully unaware of the war around her. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
Lebanon’s fierce civil war left scars more painful than the destruction of buildings. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
Children at Dbayeh, Camp in Beirut. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
This blond Jordanian is a reminder of a medieval crusader; together, the two young men remind us of our future. (photo: Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M.)
The media surround us with dismal images that capture all the horrors of war, clinics, inadequate schools, slums; the hunger and pain of women and children, the enslavement of men. It is harder to show the strength and dignity of the human spirit.
I try to tell the truth with my camera. I do not disguise nor hide the tragedies and privations of the people served by Catholic Near East Welfare Association. But, please God, the photographs never destroy their dignity, nor their courageous, contagious hope.
Sister Christian Molidor, R.S.M., a professional photographer and former programs director at CNEWA, served the agency for nearly 30 years. She entered into eternal life in 2013.
