Elise O'Connell, new on the CTA board, is the Program Director of Thresholds Mentally Ill Substance Abuse Program. Elise lives in a lay intentional community which she helped found in l993, with four other women and a married couple. The Sophia community focuses on hospitality, simple living, shared faith, presence, and action. Elise will be getting married in September to Kazi Joshua, a theology doctoral candidate from Malawi, Africa. Elise and Kazi plan on living in Sophia after spending one year on their own. Elise also works with the Inner City Teaching Corps, assisting the teachers, who have volunteered to work for two years in an inner-city Catholic school, to form community and deal with the questions of injustice that arise in their classrooms. Elise reflects, "I am drawn to Call To Action because I believe that parishes and small faith communities are, and will continue to be, the foundation for societal transformation. I, of course, am also a firm believer in the need to create a non-hierarchical church that celebrates all of its membership, which includes divorced, gay, and female Catholics."

Harry Radday also joined the CTa board recetnly. He and his wife Ellen became aware of CTA through the 1990 Call for Reform. "We just had to sign!" Harry said. Since then they have participated in all of the national CTA conferences. In 1994, prompted by a desire to bring the reform spirit of CTA to the archconservative Diocese of Arlington, Harry became one of the initiators of CTA/Northern Virginia. Harry was a U. S. Foreign Service officer for 27 years, living with Ellen and their three children in Kenya, Tanzania, the Ivory Coast, the Central African Republic, Belgium, Malta, and Germany, and in Arlington, Va., while on home assignments. The demise of the Berlin Wall and the other momentous changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union gave him great hope for church reform. "If those authoritarian regimes could be swept away by people's determination to have a voice, then democratization must be possible even for the Catholic Church," he said. "It will come from the steady work of CTA members and other Catholics who follow the Gospel and hear the voice of the Spirit in our times."

Harry retired from the Foreign Service in 1989. He is now a consultant to the State Department and the U. S. Information Agency. Fluent in French and German, Harry is helping CTA with its international contacts. Ellen is a chaplain and director of pastoral care at a nursing and rehabilitation center.

Don Wedd joined the CTA staff late last year as regional coordinator, spending much of his time working with the burgeoning network of regional affiliates and cooperating organizations. Don also brings an international perspective. An Australian who worked as a teacher, researcher and youth worker, he has qualifications in science, crosscultural studies and theology. Two years ago he moved to Chicago for love. Now married, he and his wife Lisa Rademacher live in the Sophia intentional community described above. Lisa has a graduate degree in theology, and works as a teacher with recent immigrant families in Chicago. Says Don, "I enjoy working for CTA. I meet such good people all over the U.S., people who are creating a new form of spiritual community, working for justice, trusting in their own authority. But it is a pity our office is in such a cold city, so far from a real beach."

In February CTA said farewell to Carrie Maus, since 1993 our extraordinarily talented annual conference manager. Carrie has played an essential role in making the last four national conferences a grand success, as crowds have grown from 2,300 to 5,000. Carrie recently completed her Master of Divinity degree at Loyola University's Institute for Pastoral Studies. In early March she left for Europe, where she will travel for some months, then take a Pallottine lay volunteer position at a retreat center in Germany. Auf wiedersehen, Carrie, und danke schön!

Carrie's many friends, including a host of grateful CTA members and colleagues, can stay in touch with her overseas via her new e-mail address: mausca@hotmail.com