The big annual event of St. Joan’s International Alliance in the United States is participating in the two-week-long annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW61–its 61st meeting is this year) at the United Nations in New York. In contrast to the many national governments which send their representatives to the UN, St. Joan’s is an NGO, non-government organization. While the representatives of the world’s governments are discussing the themes of this year’s event in the tall building on the waterfront, the NGO’s are holding more than 400 Parallel Events in the Church Building across the street, and in a dozen other auditoriums nearby. Organizations throughout the world will be reporting on women’s equality–problems and solutions. St. Joan’s too will be holding a Parallel Event, contributing from the point of view of women raised in a Catholic tradition and now seeking the gender equality which we believe is taught in the earliest Christian sources, as a solution to hunger, poverty, war, and domestic violence.