Fr. Mottet

This Sunday Marvin Mottet will receive the Pacem in Terris award for years of work in the community. Church of Peace became familiar with Father Mottet when he, along with our Pastor Emeritus, Ken Kuenning worked together to organize Quad Cities Interfaith (QCI) to bring together communites if faith to address social issues in the Quad Cities.

QCI has operated for many years now, with ups and downs. It is affiliated with the Gamaliel Foundation, out of Chicago, to do church based community organizing. QCI has been a beacon in the area to bring together folks from the Catholic and Protestant communities to work together for justice. On occasion it has also been a place for Jewish and Islamic communities to join the conversation as well.

Many folks have grand ideas about how to build a more just and peaceful community. Fr. Mottet and QCI has worked to bring these grand ideas to practical consequence by transforming problems into issues that we can address together.

It is interesting to note that Chicago has been, if you will, the world capitol of "community organizing" as a way of addressing how to change a community for the better. With the candidacy of Barack Obama, who has a background in community organizing in Chicago, the whole notion of community organizing is getting more discussion. We have been doing community organizing here at the Church of Peace for at least the last 30 years.

We are grateful for partners like Fr. Mottet in this journey.