Margaret Swedish

Margaret Swedish grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, receiving a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1973. From 1971-1974, she worked part-time in campus ministry at the Catholic student parish in Boulder, participating in peace studies, prison ministry, and solidarity with striking farmworkers.

From 1977-1979, Ms. Swedish lived and worked at the Benedict Labre House in Montreal, Quebec, a soup kitchen and outreach centre for homeless men.

From 1981-2004, she was director of the Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico, based in Washington DC. The Task Force was founded in 1980 by Catholic religious leaders and former missioners to respond to the human rights crisis in El Salvador and to offer solidarity within the US for the church of Archbishop Oscar Romero. It served a broad network of faith-based solidarity groups, grassroots peace and justice activists, as well as Catholic religious leaders.

In addition to her role as director, Ms. Swedish was editor of the RTF’s Central America/Mexico Report, and author of the book, Like Grains of Wheat: a Spirituality of Solidarity, co-written with Marie Dennis, director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns in Washington DC, published by Orbis Books in 2004.

Ms. Swedish has recently launched a new project, Spirituality and Ecological Hope, an effort to raise awareness within the faith community of the ecological crises facing our world and the need for a prophetic response among the affluent of North America.

Her new book is titled, Living Beyond the “End of the World,” a Spirituality of Hope, due out in late April 2008, also from Orbis Books.

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