"The Quiet Encroachment of the Ordinary": Remarks by Youth Caucus Pax Christi leader

Silwan, East Jerusalem. Photo by Jessica Sun

Given October 24, 2026 at the annual Massachusetts Pax Christi meeting 

By Amy Katuska 

When I was growing up, my grandmother was probably the most important influence on my understanding of what it means to live out one's faith.

For much of her early life, she believed that the government generally had people's best interests at heart. That changed after the shootings at Kent State. She began to question things she had previously taken for granted, and those questions led her to practice her Catholic faith in a much more active way.

She lived out the corporal works of mercy better than anyone else I've ever met. She volunteered in prisons, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and agencies serving teenage mothers. She also became increasingly outspoken about issues of peace and justice. She was the person who first introduced me to Pax Christi.

When I was eight, she was chosen to carry the Olympic Torch in recognition of her charitable work. I remember that honor cementing something in my mind: that the work my grandmother did was important and worthy of admiration. I understood that before I was really old enough to understand why.

Looking back, I think one of the most important things she taught me was that faith isn't simply a matter of what we believe. It requires us to examine the world around us, to question injustice, and to act on our convictions. That understanding has shaped much of my life.

I began studying Iran when I was sixteen, and one of the things that struck me was the enormous gap between the way Iranians were often portrayed in American political discourse and the people I was getting to know.

In 2009, I started a pen-pal program connecting Iranian and American children and teenagers. Some of my most hopeful moments came from reading the letters they exchanged. Children who had grown up thousands of miles apart were discovering that they liked the same things, had similar experiences, and shared many of the same concerns.

These were completely ordinary conversations, but that was precisely what made them meaningful.

Those letters weren't going to resolve the political tensions between Iran and the United States, but they offered something that I think is essential to peacebuilding: the opportunity to recognize someone we might otherwise regard as a stranger, or even an enemy, as a person much like ourselves.

The dignity of the human person is one of the foundational principles of Catholic Social Teaching. It tells us that every person possesses inherent worth, regardless of nationality, religion, or political circumstances.

That sounds simple enough, but I've found that it can be extraordinarily difficult to put into practice.

One of my greatest frustrations has been trying to have conversations with people who know very little about Iran but are nevertheless convinced that Iranians are inherently hateful or dangerous. I've encountered similar difficulties when discussing Palestine with people who seem to understand the situation as though its history began on October 7, 2023.

It's difficult to challenge these perceptions when people are so accustomed to thinking about entire populations in terms of political conflicts rather than individual human lives.

And I think that's one reason relationships are so important. They make it harder to reduce people to stereotypes or abstractions.

Last Advent, I had the opportunity to travel to the West Bank as part of a Catholic Worker delegation.

I expected to encounter suffering, injustice, and the consequences of occupation, and I did. What surprised me was how often I encountered hope—not necessarily as optimism about the future, but as a kind of resistance expressed through the determination to continue living ordinary lives.

One experience that has stayed with me took place in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem where many homes are threatened with demolition.

Our delegation was walking through the neighborhood when we stopped to rest in what was functioning as a playground but was more like a fenced-in concrete lot. We were surrounded by rubble and houses with enormous eyes painted on them, part of an art project called I Witness Silwan, which draws attention to the threatened displacement of the neighborhood's residents.

In the middle of all this, a few children were playing soccer with a deflated ball. As we were leaving, they came running after us and challenged us to a match. We accepted, and they beat us handily.

I've thought about that game a great deal since.

 

Goalie Mark Colville of Amistad Catholic Worker, New Haven. Credit Amy Katuska

The Iranian sociologist Asef Bayat writes about what he calls the "quiet encroachment of the ordinary," the ways marginalized people assert their claims to life and opportunity through everyday practices, often without participating in organized political movements.

I doubt those children thought of their soccer game as an act of resistance, but that's part of what made the moment so meaningful to me.

In a neighborhood where even the security of one's home cannot be taken for granted, those children were still playing. They were still making friends, challenging strangers to soccer matches, and enjoying their childhoods.

Their game was more than a game, at least in the way I came to understand it. It was an assertion of their right to an ordinary childhood. It was a refusal to stop living.

I think there's something important in that for those of us who work for peace and justice. We often think of resistance in terms of protests, demonstrations, and dramatic acts of courage. But sometimes resistance is found in the simple determination to carry on with everyday life when the circumstances around us make that difficult.

Their perseverance is inspiring, but the circumstances that demand it are unjust. That tension is something I struggle with constantly in my own peace and justice work.

Solidarity isn't simply a matter of feeling compassion for people who are suffering. It requires us to recognize our responsibilities to one another and to act on them, and sometimes that responsibility feels overwhelming.

I've developed relationships with young men and widows in Gaza who have found themselves responsible for providing for their families under circumstances that are incomprehensible. One man I know, one of the few with a job, works 10 hours a day for $7. I was told this morning that a tomato is $17, a lemon $20, and, if you're lucky enough to find one, a bag of flour is $100. How can anyone be expected to feed his or her family, let alone buy medicine, pay rent, or get winter clothes?

I can try to raise awareness, and I can help raise money, but my financial resources are limited, and I often feel that what I'm able to offer falls terribly short of what they need. It can be heartbreaking to speak with someone who is struggling to provide for his family and know that you cannot give him the practical help he needs.

At times, the language of solidarity can feel inadequate in the face of such immediate material suffering.

But I also think that solidarity has to begin with a refusal to turn away.

It means remaining in relationship with people even when their suffering makes us uncomfortable, even when we feel powerless, and even when we know we cannot solve the problems they face.

And it means recognizing that charity, however necessary, is not enough on its own.

We must not only meet immediate needs but also confront the conditions that deprive people of their rights, opportunities, and dignity in the first place.

That commitment requires more than good intentions. It requires sustained attention, relationships, and action.

When I think about what keep me going in this work, I return to the small moments of hope I've encountered.

I don't think hope necessarily means believing that things will get better. Sometimes it means continuing to act as though a more just world is possible, even when we have very little reason to expect immediate change.

As members of Pax Christi, we belong to a tradition that understands peace not simply as the absence of war, but as something rooted in justice, dignity, and solidarity.

For me, that tradition began with my grandmother. It has grown through relationships with people whose lives are both very different from and remarkably similar to my own, and through encounters that have challenged me to think more deeply about what solidarity requires.

As a member of the Young Adult Caucus, I hope to continue carrying that tradition forward—not because I have answers to the problems confronting our world, but because I believe we have a responsibility to remain engaged with them, and with one another.

The people who have inspired me most haven't necessarily been those who have accomplished the most. Often, they've been people determined to keep doing the ordinary things that make life meaningful: teaching children, caring for families, building friendships, and finding moments of joy.

Their lives remind me that peace and justice are not abstract ideals. They are about whether people can live with dignity, develop their talents, care for those they love, and imagine a future for themselves, and I think our responsibility is to help make a world in which doing those ordinary things no longer requires extraordinary courage.

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Amy Katuska was the 2013 John Leary Peacemaker Award Recipient