Announcing the Pax Christi USA National Council 2023 election results

The Pax Christi USA National Council has validated the results for the 2023 National Council election which concluded earlier this month. Charlene Howard and Manuel Padilla were re-elected to three-year terms while Kathy O’Leary was elected for the first time to a three-year term. We had an extraordinary slate of candidates and every candidate received significant support from within our membership. 

Pax Christi USA is thankful for all of the ways each of our candidates has already been demonstrating and exercising leadership within our community. Our movement is as strong as it is because of their contributions and all the work each of them has already done.

Our congratulations go out to Charlene and Manuel as returning members of the National Council and Kathy as an incoming member, beginning her term in October 2022. We are grateful for the time and talents they now commit towards our common effort of supporting Pax Christi USA’s mission. 

Below you can find a short bio of each of the new council members and the vision statement they shared for the ballot.

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Charlene Howard
66 | African-American | Lanham, MD

I am a cradle Catholic with a longstanding love for the faith manifested in my matriculation through Catholic schools from 1st grade to graduate school. As a catechist and Catholic School educator, I see my vocation as one that elevates people and shares with them the truth of God’s love for them. I continue to bring my energy; my skills as an educator and catechist; and my faith to the work of peace. I especially want to be a bridge to building more ties within the African-American community to Pax Christi and Pax Christi’s message of peace to my community. Vision: Peace and justice are intertwined with each having their roots in love. I firmly believe that Pax Christi, as the Peace Movement of the Catholic Church, has a responsibility to continue working to bring about peace in all forms to counter the violence and evil that exists. We need love of neighbor and self as images of God are the motivation for treating all people with dignity, respect, and value. It is for this reason that we must strive to cultivate an anti-racist ethic in our movement to be a champion in partnership with other like-minded organizations to bring the beloved community into reality.

VISION: Peace and justice are intertwined with each having their roots in love. I firmly believe that Pax Christi, as the Peace Movement of the Catholic Church, has a responsibility to continue working to bring about peace in all forms to counter the violence and evil that exists. We need love of neighbor and self as images of God are the motivation for treating all people with dignity, respect, and value. It is for this reason that we must strive to cultivate an anti-racist ethic in our movement to be a champion in partnership with other like-minded organizations to bring the beloved community into reality..”

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Manuel Padilla  
43 | White/Native-American/LatinX | Portland, OR

My connection with PCUSA extends back to being a program associate between January 2010 and December 2013 helping to open the DC office, focusing on nuclear disarmament, and creating a special project partnership between PCUSA and PC Port-au-Prince (SAKALA) in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. At present, I have served on the PCUSA National council for the last 3 years and am the PCUSA National Council Secretary. In addition to Haiti, I have lived and worked internationally doing peace, conflict, and development work in Chad and Cameroon and worked extensively with immigrant and refugee communities internationally and locally. Currently I am a project manager with Oregon Solutions, the State of Oregon’s program for collaborative governance and community problem solving for collective action through the Governor’s office. I’m a skilled mediator, facilitator, have helped as a guide through intercultural and anti-racism processes, and have done restorative justice dialogue facilitation between those that have caused harm and those who have been harmed. Having built up and run a small 501c3 previously, as well as serving on the PCUSA National Council for the last 3 years, I am familiar with grant writing, development, program creation, and all aspects of organizational capacity building and the needs of PCUSA as an organization.

VISION: During my 3 years on the National Council, I have had the pleasure to see and experience PCUSA strategically, methodically, and intentionally make new and essential commitments and actions towards the call of Christian non-violence and anti-racism. I would be delighted to continue to work with PCUSA to achieve these efforts. At the 50th Anniversary National Conference, PCUSA honored the past and brought together a diverse mix of inspiring leaders to highlight our current challenges; we sang and danced our aspirations for the future. We are already seeing these aspirations begin to blossom: a focus on revitalizing local chapters and seeding new ones; creating intergenerational spaces of dialogue and peace building; providing new and important mentorship and leadership opportunities for youth; bringing together members from all over the country, virtually, for study and organizing sessions, and writing the next chapter for PCART, anti-racism, and its impact both inside and outside of PCUSA organizationally. The growing diversity and energy of and for PCUSA is the result of the hard work PCUSA is doing internally and on the ground out in a community it is simultaneously creating. Deepening and strengthening what is already now underway is the next phase for PCUSA in living out its commitments. It is creating a path for sustainability for all these important initiatives, while discerning where best to be flexible and responsive to emerging needs. With regard to this, one area PCUSA should explore (as a Catholic peace and justice organization) is its relationship with indigenous-identifying people, tribally-affiliated people, and Sovereign Tribal Governments towards understanding and working, in our own way, to healing the wounds the Church has inflicted on them. With PCUSA’s hallmarks of courage, humility, grace, and calls for justice and accountability kindled by the enduring hope and love of Jesus, this can be done. I believe PCUSA is in the midst of living out its commitments with the freshness and renewed energy I hoped to see when I first joined the National Council. I have a deep love for and commitment to the work of PCUSA and would be honored to serve another term as a National Council Member.

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Kathy O’Leary
55 | White/Irish-Polish-Eastern European | Millington, NJ

I am a graduate of St. Elizabeth University, where I studied Art, which I incorporate often in my work as a peacemaker often designing social media graphics and various media for street protests. In the early 2000s, after the invasion of Iraq, I was drawn to Pax Christi USA, founded a local group and began helping to organize regular peace vigils in Summit, NJ where I was living at the time. In 2007, I began focusing on the issue of immigration detention. I have since written and contributed to reports, articles, and op-eds on ICE detention, organized local, state-wide, and regional protests and vigils, and offered testimony to state legislative committees. I was a member of the board of First Friends, an organization that visits people in ICE detention and advocates for humane immigration policy, and served for a time as its Vice President. I have represented Pax Christi NJ in a number of coalitions including New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, New Jersey for the Philippine Human Rights Act, and New Jersey Prison Justice Watch. I currently serve as the regional coordinator for New Jersey and recently served on the 50th anniversary committee for Pax Christi USA.

VISION: I think that in this particular moment that we are in that it is imperative that Pax Christi USA help educate and support white Catholics with recognizing, calling out and beginning to work to root out white supremacy and white Christian nationalism from the spaces that we occupy and the circles that we move in. I think it is also important that Pax Christi USA create platforms for non-white Catholics and peace makers from other faith traditions, in order that they may share their work and their perspective on issues related to Pax Christi’s working groups and areas of priority and so that we can help build community. No matter what the issue or activity I would urge Pax Christi USA to ask these questions about the work that we do and the work that we are considering undertaking: 1) how does it establish, strengthen or deepen relationships with directly impacted people, particularly people of color? 2) how does it uplift and center the voices and amplify the work that has already been done, and is currently being done, by directly impacted people? 3) how does it help to disentangle the Catholic Church and her institutions, including Pax Christi USA, from the legacy of slavery, white supremacy, colonialism and the power of empire?