Eileen Egan

[1] She first coined the term "seamless garment" to describe the unity of Catholic teaching that all human life is sacred and should be protected by law.

Born in Wales, she moved with her family to New York City in 1926 and completed her secondary education at Cathedral High School.

Back in New York briefly in 1945, she was out of the office the July day a B-25 crashed into the CRS headquarters on the seventy-ninth floor of the Empire State Building.

In the course of her work, Egan visited Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Chinese exiles in Hong Kong, and displaced civilians in Pakistan, Korea and Vietnam.

She marched with Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma, Alabama, had a major, behind-the-scenes hand in framing the "peace" statements of Vatican II, and promoted the work of Jean and Hildegard Goss-Mayr, crucial to the peaceful ouster of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines.

It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations.

[2] In 2007, Pax Christi USA established the Eileen Egan Peacemaker Award to recognize a group or individual who has made a strong and extraordinary prophetic witness for peace in a time or situation of devastating violence or injustice.