KIM LAWTON, guest anchor and managing editor: Religious groups had mixed reactions to President Obama’s new plan for the war in Afghanistan. Some expressed hope that the additional 30,000 American troops will indeed bring stability by 2011, when Obama said the US will start to withdraw. But others were disappointed by the military escalation. A coalition of moderate and progressive Christians had pushed for a “humanitarian” surge, rather than a military one. In his speech to the nation, Obama said America began the war, in part, to defend what he called “the values we hold dear”:

President Obama (speaking at West Point): “America, we are passing through a time of great trial. And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might.”

Joining me now is John Carlson, associate director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University. He’s joining us from San Diego. John, did President Obama make the moral case for his plans for the Afghanistan war?

JOHN CARLSON (Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State University): I think he gives us a good framework for thinking about the moral implications of that war. He started his speech by taking us back to the events of September 11th, the slaughter of innocents, and reminding us of the tremendous moral legitimacy and consensus about that legitimacy that we enjoyed at that time. He reminded us of the oppressive regime of the Taliban that supported them, and then he closed his speech, as we just saw, again reminding us of the moral source of America’s authority. So I think those are good moral bookends to a political argument for thinking about the moral implications there.

LAWTON: Well, in fact, it seems like a lot of the public discussion that we’ve been hearing has been based on the military strategy, political implications, expediency. There really hasn’t been a lot of moral discussion about the implications of this war, has there?

CARLSON: I quite agree with that. It’s been there, here and there, but not as much as it could be or should be or certainly was in—surrounding the deliberation about the initial invasion of Afghanistan.

LAWTON: But what’s not being discussed? What are some of the moral implications that you’re not hearing and you think we need to be examining?

CARLSON: Well, I think there are two in particular that need to be lifted up here. The first is to remember the plight of the Afghan people under the Taliban prior to September 11th, and also what the plight of the Afghan people would be should the Taliban return to power, and that’s particularly significant if one thinks about the treatment of women and girls, and so we really can’t afford to ignore that at all. The second is that there is a moral responsibility on the part of the United States. When you invade a country and overthrow its government and occupy it and put in a new government you incur responsibilities. We may have been there for eight years, but we have never put forward the resources needed to succeed or even to be able to say we’ve done all that we can do, we have earned the right to withdraw.

LAWTON: What about the moral responsibility to the troops, to the American people who are concerned about the cost of this and allocating those resources which people say could be used for other things as well?

CARLSON: There are clear moral implications there, and it is important to keep those in mind, and the president stressed in his speech that there’s this concept of a balancing act, so recognizing the moral implications of those features is very important as well, particularly the human cost of war, both for American lives but also for Afghan lives.

LAWTON: And I know that you are concerned about the long-term ethical implications. What do you mean by that?

CARLSON: Well, I talk about what we might consider the moral legacies of war, and that involves thinking about how the moral outcomes in many cases outweigh, in some cases outlast even, the original reasons for waging a war. So World War II was not waged to end the Holocaust, nor was the Civil War waged to end slavery, but those were important outcomes of those wars, so we need to keep those long-term moral legacies in mind, particularly if you’re thinking here about the liberation of the Afghan people from the oppressive regime of the Taliban.

LAWTON: And, very briefly, there’s been a movement stressing a humanitarian surge. Is that also something that should be incorporated into these plans?

CARLSON: I think the importance of civilian groups and building the infrastructure of society cannot be underestimated, so one has to support that, I agree. One also has to remember, of course, that those groups require security. It doesn’t help to build a school and staff it with teachers if it’s going to be bombed the next day, so security is crucial, and the military piece of  that has to be kept in mind.

LAWTON: All right. John Carlson, thank you very much for being with us today.

CARLSON: Thanks for having me on the show.

KIM LAWTON, anchor: The Obama Administration launched a new initiative this week encouraging Americans to help fight hunger in their communities. The campaign is called  “United We Serve: Feed a Neighbor.” It urges people to donate money to local soup kitchens and food banks and also to volunteer their time and talents. The effort comes amid new government reports that hunger is on the rise in the US. Forty-nine million Americans struggled to put food on the table this past year—that’s an increase of 13 million—and a record number of Americans, 36 million, now receive food stamp assistance.

Joining me with more on all of this is Candy Hill, a senior vice president at Catholic Charities USA. Candy, it seems like this time of year, every year, we hear appeals from groups saying “Oh people are hungry, you need to give.” What makes this year different?

CANDY HILL, Catholic Charities: Well, we certainly are seeing such an increase, and new people that have never come to Catholic Charities for services before. Some of them are even our donors, and some of them are our former board members, so we see a real crisis in the number of people coming and who need assistance this year over the other years that we’ve been in business.

LAWTON: And there’s been some talk of food insecurity, I mean we’re not talking about starving in the streets, but we’re talking about people who are just having a harder time feeding their families?

Candy Hill, Catholic Charities USA

HILL: Yes, and I think when we talk about food insecurity we’re really talking about people not having food for three meals a day, so we find parents who are scrimping or not having a meal themselves in order to feed their children, and seniors who are making choices between whether they buy medicine or feed themselves, and in a country as great as this country we shouldn’t have people doing that.

LAWTON: And this is a function of the economy and all of the repercussions of that?

HILL: I think this is a perfect storm. We see the economy, and the people that we serve certainly were struggling before the collapse of Wall Street, but they were struggling first and will be the last to recover in this recovery.

LAWTON: And to what extent is it difficult in these tough economic times to make appeals for groups like yours, to say to people, give money to hungry people when individuals might be thinking, you know, I don’t know how I’m going to feed my own family?

HILL: Exactly. Well, what I would say as Americans we’ve always risen to the occasion, and this is one of these occasions. Our neighbors are suffering and we need to dig deep into our own pockets. The government has a role to play, all of us have a role to play, and we need to reach out and help each other during this really tough time.

LAWTON: Well, speaking of the government’s role, the U.S. government is urging people to give more in this new initiative, but is that enough? I mean, is it enough for individuals to give $20, a $100 or whatever, or do we need systematic changes in policy?

HILL: Well, I think long term we need systematic changes, but you know that’s a long term strategy and right now we have a short term problem, and so we need people to give and we also need the government to step up and do its part as well.

LAWTON: Are you pleased that the administration is having this initiative?

HILL: Absolutely, because I think it brings, it highlights always when the administration speaks on something and gives information, it helps connect to the things that we’re doing on the ground, and so this initiative, certainly, I think will highlight the need, but also the really creative things that are happening across America to try and meet the needs of individual people.

LAWTON: Yours is a faith-based organization. A lot of groups are trying to help the hungry. What is the specific role for religious groups and those from the faith community?

HILL: Well certainly we have a 2,000-year tradition that we’re supposed to feed the hungry and we take that very seriously and so we’ve been doing this for decades across the country and we see it as a moral issue, that people shouldn’t have to go hungry in a country as rich as ours, and we’re going to continue to try and meet the needs of people in local communities across this nation.

LAWTON: Again, we hear all the time people are hungry, people are hungry, the poor are always with us. Are there solutions? Is it possible to end hunger?

HILL: I absolutely believe it, and certainly the government is calling on that and Congress is as well. We have to think creatively. We have to think about 21st century solutions to 21st century problems, and the safety net in this country is badly torn and weakened, and we need to not just fix it. A repair is not sufficient. We really need to think about how do we eliminate the need for programs like food stamps, and like donations to feed the hungry through a food bank or a soup kitchen, and if we have the political will to do it in this country we can change this. You know, Bobby Kennedy forty years ago called attention in the Mississippi Delta to children being hungry, and yet today you and I are sitting here having the same conversation four decades later. We just need to rise to the occasion and have the political will to change it.

LAWTON: All right, Candy Hill, thank you very much.

HILL: Thank you as well.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: Volunteers signed up by the thousands to lend a helping hand to people in need, and here in Portland, Oregon, where unemployment reached 12 percent this year, there are a lot of people in need. And with tax revenues down, the city needs help providing even basic services, like maintaining public schools, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. Roosevelt High, for instance, might get a visit from a maintenance man once this year if it’s lucky. Devon Baker is an administrator at Roosevelt.

DEVON BAKER (School Administrator): It does something for you, in your heart, you know, if you’re one of the staff members and suddenly the building is clean, it’s ready to go. It’s a real partnership with a lot of folks that just really makes you feel like, wow, people really do care.

Kevin Palau

SEVERSON: What makes this effort so extraordinary is not that it’s church members doing the volunteering—there are about 500 churches involved this year, including Catholic and mainline Protestant. But the majority of the 26,000 volunteers are evangelicals intentionally not here to proselytize, but to show their faith by doing good deeds such as scrubbing windows and even working in harmony with one of the most liberal cities in the US and its openly gay mayor,  Sam Adams.

SAM ADAMS (Mayor of Portland): If I could have them do it every month in my city I would, so thank you.

SEVERSON: The organizer of Season of Service, which is now in its second year, is Kevin Palau.

KEVIN PALAU (Executive Vice President, Luis Palau Association): Portland is a very proudly liberal city. This is not the Bible belt, and so to have that kind of cooperation between churches and city leaders on a long-term basis, I think, is unprecedented.

SEVERSON: Palau is the son of Luis Palau, who has staged huge evangelism festivals around the world. His son chose a slightly different path, one he thinks will put Christ’s teachings into action and, perhaps, change the image in a secular city that some have of Christians. The purpose, he says, is not to preach or proselytize.

KEVIN PALAU: We’re not doing this so that we can preach the Gospel. We’re doing this to demonstrate the love of Christ, and absolutely we’re not hiding the fact that we want people to come into relationship with Christ, but realistically through this it’s going to happen more relationally and organically, and that’s okay.

SEVERSON: Wayne Abbott graduated from Roosevelt.

WAYNE ABBOTT (Volunteer): Season of Service works because Jesus told us that he was here to serve, not be served, and there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t just take a few minutes out of a busy day and our busy lives every once in a while and do exactly what he did.

SEVERSON: The extensive work done sprucing up Roosevelt High, outside and in, would have cost the city about $200,000. Deborah Peterson is the principal.

DEBORAH PETERSON (Roosevelt High School Principal): When good people of good will come together and honor one another and believe in hope, miracles happen, and that’s what’s happening today.

SEVERSON: The churches also raised $100,000 to help the increasing numbers of homeless. Then they sponsored what they call compassion clinics throughout the city, offering free medical and dental care. These clinics were overbooked within the first half-hour with mostly uninsured patients. These clinics cared for as many as 200 patients each day—grateful patients. Churches even sponsored the mobile medical truck.

KRISTINE SUMMER (Volunteer): For the church love has to be a verb, and this is what it looks like.

JEFF PALEN (Volunteer): This is love in action. This is what Christ did for all of those 5,000. He fed them, he preached to them, he shared with them, and he loved them.

SEVERSON: Love includes free veterinarian care for their pets and haircuts for their owners. Kevin Palau says loving thy neighbor is what Season of Service is all about.

KEVIN PALAU: So our hope is that, long-term, this does lead to a lifestyle of service and sharing the Gospel by how we live.

SEVERSON: Mayor Adams said the thousands of volunteers had made Portland and its suburbs a better place.

SAM ADAMS: Honestly, we had modest hopes. Well, our modest hopes were greatly exceeded.

SEVERSON: Season of Service was topped off with a carnival that may have been as important as any of the other events—an opportunity for families to simply have fun in hard times and experience what neighborly love can do when it’s put into practice.

For Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, I’m Lucky Severson reporting.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: For the past 50 years, many churches and health organizations have observed the last Sunday in January as the World Day of Leprosy. Hansen’s disease, as it’s also known, is now curable, but it still strikes a quarter of a million people each year. Remembering leprosy victims recalls the life of Father Damien, a Belgian priest who cared for the outcasts in a leprosy colony in Hawaii, and who eventually died of leprosy himself. Father Damien is expected to be named a saint later this year [Editor's note: Father Damien will be canonized in Rome on October 11, 2009] and Lucky Severson tells his story.

LUCKY SEVERSON: This place may look like a slice of heaven, but to many who lived here it was hell on earth. This is Kalaupapa, which was and still is a leper colony on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. It is an extremely isolated place, forgotten by the civilized world for over 100 years. That may soon change because of the honor about to be bestowed on a priest long ago who helped the diseased of Kalaupapa when no one else would. His name was Father Damien de Veuster, a missionary priest from Belgium. He is remembered by another Catholic priest, Father Clyde Guerreiro.

Father Clyde Guerreiro

Father CLYDE GUERREIRO: It’s the story, the classic story of heroic virtue versus the worst we can be as human beings.

SEVERSON: Father Damien called the numerous cemeteries on Kalaupapa “gardens of the dead.” Almost all of the 8,000 souls buried in these gardens were victims of Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy. Its victims were first exiled here beginning in 1866, forcefully separated from their loved ones, treated as criminals, literally thrown off the boat near this rocky beach.

Fr. GUERREIRO: The schooner would park out there, and they’d just throw them over, and if they survived, well, then they lived here.

SEVERSON: When Father Damien arrived in 1873, those thrown from the boat — the castaways — lived under the most primitive conditions, without potable drinking water, in shacks they constructed out of sticks and dried leaves. Food was scarce. Doctors would occasionally leave medicine but refuse to touch the patients. Survival was all that mattered, and the place became a lawless wild land. Father Damien would change all of that. Father Lane Akiona grew up on Molokai, and grew up admiring Father Damien.

Father LANE AKIONA: He was the builder. He was the coffin builder. He was the grave digger. He did the services. He anointed them. He was their nurse and doctor. He did practically everything for them.

SEVERSON: And when Father Damien was 49, he died for them, a victim of leprosy. He had simply treated too many sores and infections. His grave is located next to a church he preached in. Most of those buried on Kalaupapa died in the early 1940s, before the new sulfone drugs were developed that controlled the infectious disease and stopped its contagion. Still, it wasn’t until 1969, a quarter of a century later, that the law ordering forced exile was finally lifted. Dr. Walter Chang says victims of Hansen’s disease have always been treated with callous disregard.

Dr. Walter Chang

Dr. WALTER CHANG: From the Bible and from historical accounts, leprosy was considered a very ghastly disease. Lepers were detested. They were stoned. They were even killed.

SEVERSON: Today, there are only about 20 patients living in Kalaupapa where there is now a hospital, and care is always available for those still afflicted with the disease. They were sentenced here. Some don’t need to stay here any longer, but they do. Others stay because they can’t leave the stigma behind. Melly Watanuki has been here since 1969 because it’s her home.

(to Melly Watanauki): Are you still sick?

MELLY WATANUKI: No.

SEVERSON: But you have to take medicine every day, right?

Ms. WATANUKI: Yeah, that was way before when I would get sick, I got to take the medicine for cure.

SEVERSON: But you don’t have to take the medicine anymore?

Ms. WATANUKI: No.

SEVERSON: The place is still almost as inaccessible as it was in the 1800s. No one is allowed in without government permission. There are only two ways onto the peninsula: an up-and-down eight-minute flight over the worlds tallest sea cliffs, which separate the colony from the outside world, or a steep mule train ride down from what is known as topside. Audrey Toguchi, a retired schoolteacher, has made the journey from her home in Honolulu five times, always to pray at Father Damien’s gravesite.

AUDREY TOGUCHI: Oh, he’s helped me a lot. He really has. And so how else can I look at him but as my hero?

Dr. CHANG (pointing to x-ray): See how vicious it looks? They look like all kinds of different criminals.

SEVERSON: If Father Damien was Audrey’s hero before, she’s convinced he became her lifesaver after Dr. Walter Chang, a general surgeon, diagnosed her with a very rare kind of aggressive cancer of the fat tissues 10 years ago.

Audrey Toguchi

Dr. CHANG: You know, I told her, “You need chemotherapy. Without chemotherapy,” I said, “the likelihood of you surviving a long time is extremely small.”

(to Ms. Toguchi): How long did he give you to live?

Ms. TOGUCHI: Well, probably about five or six months.

Dr. CHANG: Well, she told me very calmly, “Doctor, I’m not going to accept chemotherapy. I’m going to Molokai to pray to Father Damien.” And I replied, “Mrs. Toguchi, prayers are very nice, but you still need chemotherapy.” And she said, “Doctor, I’m going to pray only.”

SEVERSON: And so Audrey made one more trip to Father Damien’s grave, and here’s what she said.

Ms. TOGUCHI: “Father Damien, I have all these problems, and I really need your help to intercede, and dear Lord please, please help me.”

Dr. CHANG (pointing to x-rays): OK, this is Mrs. Toguchi’s x-ray before she went to Molokai. This is the cancer spread to her lungs.

SEVERSON: But after she returned from Father Damien’s graveside, the x-rays showed her cancer was receding. Eventually it disappeared altogether.

Ms. TOGUCHI: And Dr. Chang said, “What did you do?” I said I asked Father Damien for help.

Dr. CHANG: I said to myself, “This is a very remarkable event. It has never happened before in as far as I can detect from the history of medicine.” So I said to myself, “You know, Mrs. Toguchi,” I said, “this is so remarkable you ought to report it to your — people in your religion.”

SEVERSON: So Mrs. Toguchi contacted the Vatican and sent along Dr. Chang’s meticulously detailed record of her recovery, which was thoroughly investigated by church authorities, who eventually declared it a miracle. Now Father Damien is scheduled to become, officially, Saint Damien.

Dr. CHANG: The true skeptic will call this a random coincidence. The true believer, the truly faithful, will call this a miracle. I think I’ll have to straddle that line and call it a complete spontaneous or complete and permanent spontaneous regression of cancer.

Father Lane Akiona

SEVERSON: The canonization process is not quick or easy. Father Damien was first officially venerated for his work in Kalaupapa over 100 years ago. Then, to become a saint, he needed to perform two miracle healings authenticated by the best science of the times. The first, many years ago, was a French nun. The second, in 1999, was Audrey Toguchi.

The news that Father Damien was going to become Saint Damien did not come as a surprise to the patients still living here. To them, he’s always been a saint, one who would not recognize Kalaupapa today. The place seems like an island paradise with well-groomed bungalows, a grocery store, and gas station. It’s a quiet place, but that may change after the Vatican formally canonizes Father Damien.

SEVERSON: Kalaupapa has always been considered a special place. There are stories of natives making spiritual pilgrimages here 500 years ago. Clarence and Ivy Kahilihaiwa have been here more than 50 years, and they agree with their ancestors.

(to Clarence Kahilihiwa): Is this a spiritual place here?

CLARENCE KAHILIHIWA: It is more than that. The “manna,” the spirit is here, I guess, because of our ancestors who died here way back.

Fr. AKIONA: To know that so many people went there, feeling helpless — no sense of hope. And here comes this missionary from a foreign land and was willing to do everything for them. It is a spiritual place.

SEVERSON: As long as there are patients here, the government will continue to restrict the number of visitors. But the patients are getting older. The youngest is almost 70, and when they’re gone, only the “gardens of the dead” will speak of Kalaupapa’s dark, painful history.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Kaluapapa, Hawaii.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: In Jerusalem’s Old City, the Spafford Children’s Center is a welcome oasis from the turbulence that is all too present here. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital, and the ongoing conflict can take a heavy toll on the city’s children. Located in the Arab section of Jerusalem, the Spafford Children’s Center tries to help Muslim and Christian Palestinian kids deal with the trauma.

DR. JANTIEN DAJANI (Spafford Children’s Center CEO): I always say there is hardly anyone in the Palestinian society that is not traumatized.

LAWTON: The center is run by Dr. Jantien Dajani, a Dutch pediatrician who came here 35 years ago. Back then, the center provided medical services for East Jerusalem’s children, as it had since the 1920’s. But center leaders realized they were dealing with problems that went beyond the physical. David duPlantier, dean of Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral in New Orleans, is on the Spafford Children’s Center board.

REV. DAVID DUPLANTIER (Spafford Children’s Center Board Member): So it was a chance to really strengthen the health of the children, not just in the medical sense, but in the psychological and social sense.

LAWTON: About 400 children up to age 18 come through the center every week for after-school activities and Friday sessions. The center also sponsors summer camps and special cultural programs. The children learn skills to help them in future jobs, things like computer and English. Everything has an educational component, even the most uproarious game. There’s play therapy, art therapy, and drama therapy, all designed to help the children deal with trauma and stress they may not even realize they have. A psychologist comes in several times a week for one-on-one sessions, and there is also group counseling.

Dr. DAJANI: And what we try to do is to create in the center several safe areas, safe rooms where they can say anything, and it will not come back to them.

LAWTON: Dajani’s philosophy is to keep the kids busy with positive activities so they won’t get pulled into drug abuse or violence, common problems among Palestinian youths. She tries to teach them to make the best of their circumstances, no matter how difficult those circumstances are.

Dr. DAJANI: I always say I cannot change for you the situation we are living in. That’s impossible. That needs political solutions from high up. But at least what I can try is to change a bit your perception of the situation.

LAWTON: The center itself has a colorful past, tracing its roots to Horatio and Anna Spafford, an evangelical couple from Chicago. After suffering heavy losses in that city’s Great Fire of 1871, Horatio sent Anna and their four daughters to Europe. While en route their steamship, the Ville du Havre, sank after colliding with another ship.

Rev. DUPLANTIER: Before the Titanic, I think it was the most significant cruise ship disaster, and the daughters all perished.

LAWTON: Anna sent Horatio a telegram which said, “Saved alone. What shall I do?”

Rev. DUPLANTIER: He’s heartbroken to find out his daughters have perished, and so he takes a boat over to meet Anna, and when the captain shows him roughly the place where the shipwreck had taken place, he was inspired to write a poem that later became the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul.”

WINTLEY PHIPPS (singing): “When sorrows like sea billows roll…”

LAWTON: “It is Well” remains one of the most popular Christian hymns, sung in churches around the world and recorded by multiple gospel artists.

Mr. PHIPPS (singng):  “…it is well with my soul.”

LAWTON: After their tragedies, the Spaffords decided to move to the Holy Land. They believed the end of the world was near and that Jesus would soon come back to Earth on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives. The Spaffords and a small group of fellow believers called the Overcomers wanted to be close by when that happened. As they waited, they established a commune in East Jerusalem that became known as the American Colony.

Rev. DUPLANTIER: They weren’t there to try to convert people. That was one of the unique things about them. They didn’t proselytize. They said their prayers, they welcomed people, they offered food when they had it. But they were not there to try to convert other people, which was very different than especially evangelical Christianity in that period.

LAWTON: The American Colony eventually moved to the former palace of an Arab pasha. Jews, Christians and Muslims were all welcome there.

Rev. DUPLANTIER: From the absolute beginning they were generous, they were known to share their food. They really were thought to be a place of hospitality and, you know, Christianity at its core, it really is a faith of hospitality.

LAWTON: But there was also controversy. After Horatio died in 1888, Anna took over leadership of the colony. Her style was authoritarian, and she imposed a rigid set of rules.

Rev. DUPLANTIER: She kind of dictated how life would be. Certainly they were unique and different than mainline Christianity of today in how they lived. They were very disciplined. There was a period of time where men and women, even if they were married, apparently lived separately.

LAWTON: DuPlantier says after Anna died in 1923 the religious zeal of the colony changed.

Rev. DUPLANTIER: In any kind of community like that it’s always going to be a challenge to sustain that over a period of time. So I think partly that’s why the religious fervor fell away in the next generation, because you know it was very much based around the personal faith of Anna and Horatio.

LAWTON: But the charitable work of the colony continued. Anna’s daughter Bertha focused on caring for children.

Rev. DUPLANTIER: That began kind of the ministry that evolved, from taking in orphans to helping with health care and, you know, over a period of time turned into a hospital and then evolved over time into the Spafford Center as it is now.

LAWTON: The Spaffords’ compound has become the famous American Colony Hotel, which has been named one of the leading small hotels of the world. The hotel provides key support to the children’s center. The Spafford Children’s Center is just inside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City near the Damascus Gate. It’s in the house where Horatio and Anna Spafford settled after they arrived here from Chicago in 1881. The house eventually became the headquarters for the Spafford family’s charitable works. Today, the center is not explicitly religious, although it has many faith-based connections. Dr. Dajani says, like their predecessors, they serve people of all faiths, and they try to teach the children religious tolerance.

Dr. DAJANI: We want them to be tolerant for each other and for different opinions. We take them to the mosque, we take them to the Holy Sepulcher and to other holy places. They are always amazed at each other’s beauty.

LAWTON: For duPlantier, the lasting legacy of the colony is the joy he sees in the children who come to the center, a testament of hope, he says, that turmoil and tragedy need not prevail.

Rev. DUPLANTIER: To see the joy that is just prevalent in the folks really has renewed and continues to renew my knowledge that God finds a way. No matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, God finds a way to redeem them if we look.

LAWTON: And that, he says, makes things well with his soul.

I’m Kim Lawton in Jerusalem.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Aravind is the world’s largest eye care center, a one-stop shop that even makes many of the lenses and instruments used by its surgeons. It looks like any of India’s high tech centers where rich Indians and medical tourists can get first-world care at third-world prices. The surgical error rate is as low here as any place in America. The big difference at Aravind is that its patients are among the world’s poorest people.

Twenty years ago, I visited Aravind’s founder, Dr. Govindappa Venkatswamy. Everybody called him Dr. V. He had retired from a government hospital in 1976 and set out to tackle “needless blindness.” Worldwide, 45 million people still suffer from preventable or reversible blindness. Twelve million are in India alone, where the extreme sun and a genetic predisposition are blamed. Many people lose their sight—and livelihood—by their early 50s.

Dr. GOVINDAPPA VENKATASWAMY (Aravind Founder, speaking in 1988): There is nothing which disables a man more than cataract and poor eyesight, and there is nothing more easier than to mend it. You just do a small operation.

DE SAM LAZARO: Dr. V began with a simple idea in a sparse 11-bed hospital with four doctors, three from his own family. It would serve patients who could pay,  but the profits would afford free care to the many more people who couldn’t afford even the bus fare. So Aravind set out to find patients, mainly through screening camps in surrounding rural areas. For those needing surgery, groups like the Lions Club provided buses to the hospital, where they entered a brisk assembly line operating room. Dr. V’s business role model was the American chain store.

Dr. VENKATASWAMY: In America you have models, whether it is Sears stores or McDonald’s hamburgers. You are able to open a chain of stores, restaurants, hotels, and you are able to organize them efficiently.

Dr. ARAVIND SRINIVASAN (Aravind Hospital Administrator): You spoke to him here. You were sitting here, and he was sitting there and talking about McDonald’s.

DE SAM LAZARO: Dr. V died in 2005, but his office is left untouched as a shrine to him. His nephew, ophthalmologist Aravind Srinivasan, manages a system that’s grown to five regional hospitals and 25 satellite clinics. This was the first one.

Dr. ARAVIND: This is a 32-year-old hospital, so we are probably geared to see about 700 patients a day. Today we are seeing about 1500 to 2000 patients a day.

DE SAM LAZARO: Each pays about one dollar for a doctor’s appointment. That helps fund an equal number of patients who go next door to a free eye hospital. There’s not much profit margin, so a heavy volume of paying patients—satisfied patients—is critical. Efficiency is also critical

Dr. ARAVIND: We call this a clinic scoring sheet.

DE SAM LAZARO: Dr Aravind, who also has an MBA from the University of Michigan, has continuous productivity reports at his fingertips.

Dr. ARAVIND: This statistic talks about service time, what percentage were seen within two hours.

DE SAM LAZARO: Patients are promised a completed appointment in two hours. A brochure details what they can expect.

Dr. ARAVIND: Registration takes about 5 minutes, vision test about 10 minutes, refraction check about 10 minutes.

DE SAM LAZARO: This is sort of a patients bill of rights almost?

Dr. ARAVIND: Exactly. So they understand what’s happening.

DE SAM LAZARO: Aravind’s reputation is drawing patients from farther and farther away.

K.G. ANGENEYULU (Aravind Patient/Voice of Translator): Whenever you say eye operations everyone says go to Madurai.

DE SAM LAZARO: Fifty-five-year-old K.G. Angeneyulu had been in a three-year depression that started when cataracts began clouding his vision. He became completely blind three months ago. Angeneyulu and his wife Shobha endured a two-day train journey to get here.

Mr. ANGENEYULU (Voice of Translator): I was a sportsman. I used to swim. After the cataract, I could no longer move around. I got stuck at home, and I started eating. Then a leg injury made me even more immobile. I had problems being overweight, and I developed high blood pressure.

DE SAM LAZARO: By nine o’clock the morning after arriving here he was being prepared for surgery. Already dozens of patients had gone ahead of him

(to Dr. Aravind): So you’ve been going for two hours and done 16 surgeries?

Dr. ARAVIND: Yes.

DE SAM LAZARO: Dr, Aravind and surgeons in several other operating theaters or OTs were first working the routine—mostly cataract—cases.

Dr. ARAVIND: The other OTs are not primarily cataract surgeons. They are primarily doing either glaucoma or cornea, and they also do some cataract to contribute to the main volume, so we are able to identify those cases that need a little extra attention are segregated from the pool.

DE SAM LAZARO: Angeneyulu was a high-risk case, given his hypertension and obesity.

Dr. ARAVIND: You just have a margin is about five to10 minutes to get the surgery done.

DE SAM LAZARO: About 10 nervous minutes later, Dr. Aravind had removed a particularly tough, leathery cataract.

Dr. ARAVIND: The cataract was a little obstinate, but things went on well. He’ll get about 95 percent vision tomorrow, so when you see him tomorrow you’ll see a very different man—more confident.

DE SAM LAZARO: By the end of this day, Dr. Aravind and his colleagues did about 300 surgeries, about half of them free of charge. Increasingly, however, patients are seen outside the hospital. Telemedicine connects doctors to satellite clinics, and today’s eye camps offer much more on site—from grinding eye glass lenses to digital scans. Near the camp a satellite truck beamed high resolution images to specialists at the hospital. Technology has improved care, and it has also brought down costs—notably for the intraocular lenses which are implanted during cataract surgery. They used to be imported.

Aravind began making its own intraocular lenses back in the early 1990s. They used to cost between $50 and $100 each. Today they are made in this factory for as little as two dollars a piece. Aravind lenses are exported to 120 countries, and they own eight percent of the global market in intraocular lenses. This factory is an example of how Aravind turned a supply problem into an opportunity.

It’s not just business acumen that drives the mission, but also a firm spiritual basis, inspired by the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, a mid-20th century spiritual leader. He believed that good work and good ideas are a manifestation of the divine.

R.D. THULASIRAJ (Aravind Executive): Part of that is to recognize that whatever ideas you get, it’s not really your ideas. They are divine ideas. So how do you kind of act on it but are not taking the egoistic ownership to those ideas, like “I have don it?” So how do you train yourself to open up?

DE SAM LAZARO: One way Aravind has opened up, or shared its ideas, is by training some 250 hospitals in 40 nations to adopt its methods.

Mr. THULASIRAJ: In this institution we train organizations to become more efficient. We completely give our intellectual property or our store away. We open up our systems, processes, how we charge the patients, our records.

DE SAM LAZARO: It’s the ethos set by his uncle. Dr. V, who was single, never took a salary. In fact, he mortgaged his home to start Aravind, and he also coaxed or inspired 34 members of his extended family to work here, starting in 1976 with his sister Natchiar and her husband. Both left surgical careers in America to work here for about $20 a month.

Dr. G. NATCHIAR: Today, oh my God, we are very, very happy. In fact, at that time in ’80s we were not happy, even though Dr. V was happy. In the family, like me and my husband, two children, it was not easy for us. We could not even buy a cycle. At that time, we didn’t appreciate his far vision.

Mr. ANGENEYULU: God bless you, Madam.

Dr. NATCHIAR: God bless me? God bless the surgeon.

DE SAM LAZARO: She says the satisfaction of seeing patients like Angeneyulu restored to full lives makes up for any material privation, although over the years salaries have greatly improved for the 220 doctors and some 2500 other Aravind staff.

Mr. ANGENEYULU: My children are starting school on the first, so I want to get going.

Dr. NATCHIAR: We’ll give you some dark glasses just like a Hollywood actor.

DE SAM LAZARO: He’s one of 27 million patients who’ve been treated at Aravind and 3.4 million who’ve had surgery.

Over the next 20 years the goal is to raise that number ten-fold. That’s a measure of how ambitious the Aravind people are. It’s also a measure of how many people remain blind in the world whose vision can easily be restored.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro in Madurai, India.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: It’s a common observation that one of the most important paths to peace between enemies is to learn to see others not as demonized stereotypes, but as unique human beings. When she was in the Middle East last month, Kim Lawton learned about the Parents Circle-Families Forum — Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims who have lost loved ones in their long conflict but have learned to replace hate with reconciliation, even friendship. Here is Kim’s special report.

KIM LAWTON: Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank have been hotbeds of unrest and often scenes of angry confrontation between displaced Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. Because of the continuing military and political conflict, few Israeli civilians ever venture in. But don’t tell that to Rami Elhanan. On this day, he and his wife Nurit have come to the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem to visit their friend, Mazen Faraj. It’s is an unexpected friendship. Both have lost family members in the conflict. Yet their grief has brought them together.

MAZEN FARAJ: Today it’s our responsibility for our children and for our families to build something new.

RAMI ELHANAN: We put a crack in this wall of hatred and fear that divide these two nations, and we show another way. We show another possibility. We show the ability to listen to each other’s pain, which is essential if you want to get to any kind of reconciliation.

Mr. FARAJ: This was the first room for our house.

LAWTON: Faraj has lived in Dheisheh his entire life. During the early part of his childhood, fifteen people in his family lived in this one crowded room.

Mr. ELHANAN: This is the place he’s always talking about—that you don’t need someone to hate you to teach you how to hate when you grow up in a room like this.

LAWTON: In April of 2002, there was a violent confrontation between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians fighters outside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, the site where Christian tradition holds that Jesus was born. Palestinian fighters holed up in the church, and Israeli soldiers laid siege. During a lull in the fighting, Faraj’s 62-year-old father went out to Jerusalem to get groceries. He was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.

Mr. FARAJ: He got killed in April 2002 when he was coming back from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The Israeli soldiers, they started shooting him and without any reason. No one can kill his soul. They succeeded to kill his body, but without his soul. His soul’s still around us and give us like the power every day, how to keep going in our lives.

LAWTON: But there is great pain on the Israeli side as well. Elhanan had 14-year-old daughter, Smadar. Of four children, she was the only daughter, and the family had called her “the princess.” On September 4, 1997, the first day of school, Smadar went to a popular shopping area in Jerusalem.

Mr. ELHANAN: And she went down the street with her girlfriends to buy new books for the new year. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing five people that day, including three little girls. One of them was my 14-year-old Smadar.

LAWTON: Elhanan says he was overwhelmed by anger and despair.

Mr. ELHANAN: It took me almost a year to understand who I am, to try to recover, and to understand that I have to choose a way for myself and translate these feelings of anger and despair into something constructive and create some hope out of it. And I joined the Parents Circle and I found a meaning for my life.

LAWTON: The Parents Circle-Families Forum was launched in 1995 as a way to bring bereaved Israelis and Palestinians together. The group now has several hundred participants who’ve lost immediate family members because of the violence in this region. Organizers believe it’s the only project of its kind in an area where conflict is still ongoing. The nonprofit group sponsors face-to-face dialogue meetings for bereaved family members and public lectures about reconciliation.

Mr. ELHANAN: The minute I saw in that meeting the first bereaved Palestinian families as human beings I was completely shocked. It was the first time ever in my life that I meet Palestinians as human beings after so many years of demonizing each other. So this was the turning point.

LAWTON: Faraj, who was dealing with his own feelings of anger and revenge, went to one Parents Circle meeting where Elhanan spoke.

Mr. FARAJ: And it was this man talking about his suffering and his pain, too. But I told him, “What do you know about suffering and pain? You just live in Jerusalem. ou are Israeli, you are the occupier, you are everything.” And then he starts to talk about his daughter, and then really I found out that, whoa, it’s the same pain.

LAWTON: The two men became close friends. Elhanan was drawn by Faraj’s humor.

Mr. ELHANAN: He’s the only guy in the world that makes me laugh.

LAWTON: Faraj couldn’t believe that Elhanan was willing to visit him in the refugee camp. They built a deep mutual respect.

Mr. FARAJ: He’s just a human being, and you can deal with him in an easy way, and you can build a discussion with him with easy way, and you can build the fight also in easy way, too. But the most important thing’s that he’ll respect the other.

Mr. ELHANAN: What he’s doing needs a lot of guts, and his ability to face the world, tell his truths after all the things that he’s been through, I think it’s admirable, and I really respect him for it.

LAWTON: Faraj and Elhanan started doing joint lectures for the Parents Circle.

Mr. ELHANAN: We use this enormous respect that the two societies have for people who paid the highest price possible to convey this message, to convey the message of dialogue, of reconciliation, of peace.

LAWTON: Elhanan and Faraj have given more than 1,000 joint lectures in Palestinian and Israeli schools. They say most of the kids have no idea that Palestinians and Israelis can be friends.

Mr. ELHANAN: If there is only one kid at the end of the class who nods his head with acceptance to this message, we saved one drop of blood. According to Judaism, this is the whole world.

LAWTON: The Parents Circle is nonsectarian, but is supported by several Muslim, Christian, and Jewish groups. In 2008, Catholic Relief Services brought Faraj and Elhanan on a speaking tour across the United States.

BURCU MUNYAS (Program Manager, Catholic Relief Services): They are giving a message of hope in the midst of hopelessness in the Holy Land. So we thought that this would be a strong message to bring to our US Catholic audiences.

LAWTON: For their part, Elhanan and Faraj try to keep the focus on relationship, not religion.

Mr. FARAJ: It’s the important things that we don’t want to make this conflict like a religion conflict.

LAWTON: Their work isn’t always easy. Both men have received sometimes strong criticism from within their respective communities.

Mr. ELHANAN: People tell me that I’m a traitor or a — but I think more people are impressed by my ability to translate the pain into hope.

Mr. FARAJ: I really believe in what I’m doing and — but not all the people they really accept that, but anyway, if you believe in something you have to continue.

LAWTON: Parents Circle supporters hope these relationships can be a model for others, which they believe will help further the political peace process.

Ms MUNYAS: By building trust with each other they become more and more ready to trust the other side, to compromise, and to tell their leaders that they are ready, that they can move ahead, they can compromise, and they can sign the peace agreements.

LAWTON: Faraj and Elhanan agree.

Mr. FARAJ: We have a different culture, a different religion, and different, also, conditions on the ground, too. So how we can find a way? This the problem. It’s not about that’s it, I found the solution for the conflict. No. But the first step, we have to know each other.

Mr. ELHANAN: I devote my life to go everywhere possible to tell the very simple truth that we are not doomed. It’s not our destiny to keep on killing each other, and we can stop it by talking to one another — that simple.

LAWTON: Simple in theory, much more elusive to work out. But they hope their relationship proves it is possible. I’m Kim Lawton in the West Bank.

Burcu Munyas, program manager for Catholic Relief Services, discusses the difficulties her agency faces trying to get food and other relief supplies to desperate people in Gaza.

Eliyahu McLean of Jerusalem Peacemakers helps organize a movement called the Abrahamic Reunion, which tries to build friendships among Muslims, Christians, and Jews. He says relationships are moving forward, even if the peace process has been stalled.