April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
ADVOCACY
At 91, Mabel Gil is still demandingjustice for needy
But the work is not finished, said the now 91-year-old activist.
"Never ever have we needed community interaction as much as we do today," said Mrs. Gil, a parishioner of St. Vincent de Paul in Albany. "We've got to become informed and we've got to communicate and we've got to buy smartly."
She's been particularly disappointed by the progress of federal reform to agriculture and food policy. This summer's defeat and ongoing reconstruction of a farm bill by the House of Representatives, she said, shows a disregard for the nation's needy.
"Legislators who claim to be pro-life are anti-education and food stamps and welfare," Mrs. Gil declared, referring to the House's removal of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program component of the bill (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). "They are really pro-birthing. I think that's very important for Christians to know."
To say a politician is pro-life, she explained, they must be committed to meeting "the needs of the child."
Bill affects all
With 47 million Americans receiving nutrition assistance and the rise of deep poverty, government cannot forsake food aid or support for sustainable agriculture, Mrs. Gil opined.
"The farm bill has a tremendous effect on every aspect of our lives," she said. "Not only is the price of food doubling, but [so is the price of] the distribution of that food. I don't know what [SNAP recipients] can buy for $3 a day."
Mrs. Gil believes the battle comes down to "a philosophy of what poor people are. If you describe them as people who God does not want" or look at it from a social Darwinist, survival-of-the-fittest viewpoint, "then you chuck them out because you're only exacerbating a no-win problem. When people are unemployed, we refuse to give them help and call them lazy dependents. We cannot do this to other human beings."
From the start
Mrs. Gil has been advocating for her peers her whole life. She and her five siblings were born in Wales and later moved to New York City. Social justice was a family affair: A table and chair outside the family's house signaled that passersby could knock on the door and receive food during the Great Depression.
She attended Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kan., where she was roommate to the daughter of Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Later on, Mrs. Gil and her husband, Joseph Gil, advocated for sustainable agriculture and social programs with the movement when they lived in Flushing, Queens, in New York City. Mr. Gil did community organizing, represented minorities in the prison system and became a Catholic deacon.
Mrs. Gil's sister, Eileen Egan, co-founded Pax Christi USA, worked for Catholic Relief Services and was close to Dorothy Day and Blessed Teresa of Kolkata. Their other sister is a Benedictine nun, and their brother was a member of the Congregation of Christian Brothers.
In the 1970s, Mr. and Mrs. Gil moved to the Capital Region, where Mrs. Gil served on the State Legislature's Task Force on Farm, Food and Nutrition Policy for 17 years. Her work focused on community gardens, fossil fuel dependence, farmer's markets and more. She still keeps in touch with lawmakers on food issues and stays educated through Facebook and the internet.
Today's issues
Mrs. Gil's current concerns include food chemicals, genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), energy alternatives and the dwindling food supply in the nation's cities. With the help of the Shrine Church of Our Lady of the Americas in Albany, a mission of Blessed Sacrament parish, and Rev. Peter Young Housing, Industries and Treatment (PYHIT), she's distributed more than 7,000 packets of vegetable seeds in recent years.
She said churches should provide forums to discuss these issues and write letters to state lawmakers.
"Even though it looks like [legislators are] being paid by corporations," Mrs. Gil said, "we still have the vote. We still have the upper hand. If we just stand back and do nothing, corporations will take over."
Rev. Francis O'Connor is chaplain to the shrine church; he brings Mrs. Gil communion every week. He's known her for decades and has been impressed by her "keen awareness of what's happening.
"She knows very well what's right and what isn't right," Father O'Connor said. "She understands the social teaching of the Church [and] has the tendency to say what other people think but wouldn't dare say."
Never silent
Mrs. Gil recently purchased "A Place at the Table," a documentary about food insecurity, to show to interested parishioners.
"She's very social justice-oriented, and part of her can't understand why everybody else isn't," Father O'Connor said. "She has a tendency to irritate people because she keeps [speaking] on the same things over and over. But she is an inspiration."
Mrs. Gil has spread her spirit of activism to her 10 children and 15 grandchildren. She calls her advocacy a vocation.
"We underestimate ourselves, but the fact is that God has a purpose for every person that He creates," she said. "If that person does not fill in that role, it will not be filled."
Catholic faith was "the only way I made it through life," Mrs. Gil said. "Knowing that we have a guardian angel and knowing that we have a personal God and we are loved. The way we show that knowledge of God's presence is to care for other people."[[In-content Ad]]
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