My trial postponed, Steve Kelly's on the docket
Print Friendly Version| On the Road to Peace by John Dear S.J. | Tuesday, Apr. 17, 2007 |
| Vol. 1, No. 9 |
We of the Santa Fe protest group, nine of us, had ourselves braced for trial last Thursday in federal court in Albuquerque. We are embroiled in legal difficulties for our efforts last fall to urge our senator to sign a "declaration of peace." Wary guards blocked our entry. So in the lobby elevator we sat, its controls disabled and its doors wide open. And there we held a liturgy featuring a solemn reading of the names of Iraqi and American dead.
Shortly before trial, word came down from the U.S. district attorney. A plea bargain. Would we plead guilty? If so, he said, we would spare ourselves jail time. Moreover, we could feel free to avail ourselves of the court as a forum -- censure the war to our heart's content, and no effort from the court to interfere.
Two among us took the offer; they changed their pleas to guilty. Now, they may have to testify against the rest of us, a turn of events that required our lawyer to recuse himself. Another pro bono lawyer stepped forward. But in light of the time being short, the day before, the judge granted a continuance. We're now on for May 18.
And so continues our roller-coaster ride of nonviolent resistance to America's culture of war. Emotions run high and one brims with resolve. Then winds go calm and sails go limp. So what a blessing to get a visit from my friend Jesuit Fr. Steve Kelly. I've known him nearly 20 years, back to our days in Berkeley.
Steve is one of the unsung heroes of the peace movement. A six-year veteran of prison, half of those years in solitary confinement. In 1995, as part of the "Jubilee Plowshares West" he hammered on a D-5 Trident missile, fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy that swords would be beat into plowshares. Out of jail in June, 1996, he refused supervised release and went underground for nine months. The FBI prowled around Jesuit communities coast to coast in search of him. At the Manhattan Jesuit Community where I lived at the time, a SWAT team stormed through the doors at six in the morning.
In February 1997, Steve participated in the "Prince of Peace Plowshares" action in Bath, Maine. He and several friends boarded the U.S.S. Sullivans, an Aegis destroyer. While some hammered on missile hatches along the deck, Steve made his way to the bridge and lifted hammer against navigation equipment. Another stint in prison, this time for two years. He again rejected supervised release, and for nine months made himself scarce.
December 1999, Steve was at it again. He took part at Martin Airfield near Baltimore in the action dubbed "Plowshares vs. Depleted Uranium." There they hammered on two A-10 Warthog fighter jets, which fire salvos of depleted uranium projectiles -- radioactive and toxic, and lasting. On impact they produce a radioactive dust that scatters and settles. It layers the earth in poisons that persist for eons.
Back to prison he went, bouncing this time among several state prisons in Maryland and Fort Dix Federal Prison in New Jersey. While he festered in "the hole," his father died, and shortly after, his sister. October 2002, the feds set him free.
Alas, his rehabilitation is going badly. Nov. 19, Steve went to Fort Huachuca, Tucson, Ariz., to vigil and pray. Here army interrogators are trained. Here they supply soldiers to Guantanamo Bay. Here they wrote the army field manual on interrogation, euphemistically called "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual." The director of Fort Huachuca is Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, former head of Abu Ghraib.
Steve and our friend, Franciscan Fr. Louie Vitale, tried to give the general a letter: "We come here to speak with enlisted personnel about the illegality and immorality of torture according to international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions. We condemn torture as a dehumanization of both prisoners and interrogators, resulting in humiliation, disability and even death.
"We are convinced that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 is unconstitutional. We totally reject its conclusions. Torture is a useless and unreliable tool that leads to an accepted practice of terrorization and the rationalization of wrongdoing. We are here to repent and, because of our sense of moral and human decency, we condemn torture."
Their vigil concluded, they moved toward the gate, where officers told them to stop. Guards drew close and the two knelt down. They were seized and handcuffs applied. Then they were hauled inside and left to mull things over. Finally citations were produced and stuffed in their hands. Two months later, stiffer charges crystallized -- criminal trespass and failure to comply with a police officer. Federal charges, both of them. Steve will stand trial in Tucson June 4. He faces another 10 months in prison.
During his visit, Steve told me, "After my walk with the Catholic Worker 'Witness Against Torture' in Cuba at Guantanamo in December 2005, I feel compelled to raise consciousness and expose how the U.S. practices torture. It's been going on a long time. Both the tortured and the U.S. soldiers are victims. We are motivated to speak out against the horror of torture, and the fact that our young soldiers are being turned into torturers.
"A recent survey said that the majority of U.S. Catholics think torture is acceptable. I find that reprehensible. What a scandal. As a priest, I say torture is counter to the Gospel of Jesus. I don't think Christians should be doing this. We need to renounce torture, war and nuclear weapons. We have to learn to love as Christ loved, and abolish torture and war once and for all. So we go to trial as people accused of breaking the law, but we feel we are raising consciousness and trying to put Fort Huachuca and torture on the map."
So as it stands, I go to trial on May 18. Steve and Louie go on June 4 -- just two of many trials this summer against those who acted on behalf of justice and peace. And then there are the countless others speaking boldly against our nation's violent ways, and for God's ways of love and peace. All that is reason enough to take heart.
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John Dear's latest book, Transfiguration (from Doubleday, with a foreword by Archbishop Tutu) is available from local bookstores and Amazon.com. He will offer a week of classes on the Gospel of Jesus at the historic Ghost Ranch conference center in Abiquiu, N.M. (where artist Georgia O'Keefe lived) from June 17-24. For information contact, www.ghostranch.org and www.johndear.org.
And if we considered the
And if we considered the millions of people that are being exterminated through genocidal campaigns, either by war or by subjecting them to abject poverty, would we still consider the use of force as "the moral and right" thing to do to end such situations?
The Massacre at Virginia
The Massacre at Virginia Tech
We are still stunned by the magnitude of the suffering. Nevertheless, we should begin a serious reflection on how to reconcile non-violence with episodes like the one that took place last Monday.
It is terribly difficult to imagine what one would have done in the situation of those that were in the classroom with a man out of control aiming and shooting. Would the non-violent response have been to wait to be executed? Would it have been non-acceptably violent to attack the assassin?
I think that we are clearly before one example in which the rigid non-violent response shows its serious shortcomings.
The cultural massacre
The cultural massacre lurking under the Virginia Tech tragedy is, if anything, a clear indication to me of how much Jesus' fundamental message of peace and non-violence is needed for the conversion of our nation. To externalize the "problem" of a mindless tragedy is to fail to take the opportunity for self-examination for this particular violence and the violence of racism that so infects our national culture.
Perhaps the real essence of this shooting violence and the violence of racism is that perverted reverse-entitlement that says, "I'm not to blame ...", and then proceeds to exercise all the vile and disgusting 'cover' that we see in not only in the appalling Imus, but also in the over-stretched and false soul-searching of a nation attempting to "understand" the Virginia Tech killing tragedy by rationalizing our own culpability in the society of violence within which this massacre occurred.
We ostracize Imus, yet encourage shock-jock radio. We vicariously "mourn" the dead young people and faculty at Tech, yet fail to address the truly child-destroying educational deficits in our public education and ignore the travesty of "no child left behind." We psychologize the "problem" of violence-as-failed mental health; we debate the clearly uncivil matter of no gun control in this country; we seek answers in the "disturbed young South Korean man" (actually a resident of this country for 14 years.) We all say, "I'm not to blame ..." "There must be another reason." "It's somebody else who did this ..."
"Somebody else ..."
How do you think we tolerated generations of human slavery in this country and how do we tolerate the 27 million currently enslaved internationally today(80% of whom are women and children)?
How do you think we exercise principled outrage over women's right to choose while at the same time bankrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands in this country and millions in two-thirds nations who live impoverished and short lives?
How do you think we sleep warm and safe while this nation wages a war of terror and a genocidal policy of "principled" refusal to educate and provide birth control in Latin America and Africa claims generations of lives?
"Somebody else is to blame ..." Let's analyze it ... Let's consider who the "other one" is and how the "other one" could be counseled by us - the ones who sympathize from afar.
Yes, the Imus-today is a beast for his ignorance and his arrogance. But doesn't he serve such a useful purpose. HE'S so clearly to blame ...
What about us?
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." (Luke 24:5)
Here's an irony: According
Here's an irony: According to an article about his life in the New York Times the other day, the young Korean man (Mr. Cho's) Aunt back in South Korea said he never spoke, even while in Korea, in Korean. He never "mixed with other children" while in Korea, according to his Aunt. One reason the Family came to the United Staes when he was eight (besides extreme poverty) was that everyone so hoped that the child would benefit "from the openness" of American society, the Aunt said. The Parents hoped to buy a dry cleaning business, but they never attained that goal. Instead, the Father worked from eight a.m. to ten p.m. as a presser in a Korean-owned dry-cleaning establishment, and the Mother did as well. The older sister leaned English and prospered, graduating from Princeton, while the boy kept to himself and hid behind "the language barrier" while other kids occasionally bullied and tormented him for his differences. Yet it seems that "nobody did anything" while he was in grade or middle school.
Several years ago, the Mother got a job as a cafeteria worker in a nearby school system "so the Family could have medical insurance". They never had medical insurance for all those years! How did this boy, who seemed like he was in the autism SPECTRUM, at least, ever cope? I am not defending his actions, but as someone who has studied guidance and counseling in school systems (CT) since the sixties and seventies, has begged for more funding and attention for grade-school-age children (and been ignored) and had children in the Northern Virgiania Schools and later one at Virginia Tech, (obviously a very fine school, as one can see from the bios of the students and professors) I would like to know!
The final irony, is that the vilified, and so-called "racist" Don Imus, whose verbally horrific and racist statements I certainily am not defending, any more than I am defending the killing of 32 innocent students and professors, is the person who (at least) has raised MILLIONS OF DOLLARS for CHILDREN IN THE AUTISM SPECTRUM. He talked about the needs of these children on the air continually and advocated for them for the past two or three years. But I doubt if any of his critics ever listened to the man. (I have an autistic grandson, so I did.) It's difficult to hear or read any media (for me) where one does not hear or read statements which figuratively "curl one's toes", although this one (about the young womens' championship basketball team) did cause me to turn off the TV in complete disgust.
What is "evil" and where does it start?
Thank you Joe Walker for
Thank you Joe Walker for your comment. I am stunned also that any Catholic could possibly think that torture was in any way an acceptable practice. I agree with Fr. Steve that torture is "reprehensible, a scandal, counter to the Gospel of Jesus."
It leaves me to wonder what is going on in parishes and being said, or not being said, to have such great numbers of Catholics in approval of torture!
There should be an outcry about this in every parish in the U.S., in every Bishops office, the likes of which have never been seen or heard before, against war, against torture, against the death penalty, against nuclear weapons, against poverty. As Joe Walker has said, priests, DREs, and the laity need to write about and speak out in order to raise the consciousness of Catholics that seems to slumber in a stone-dead silence, while torture is enabled, wars widen, many people sit and wait on death-row for the executioner, and the maddness of the bomb still exists as a threat to us all, and more and more people suffer from lack of food and basic necessities to live.
Too many are too caught up in the "pelvic issues" that is for sure. We need to recognize that focusing on those issues alone is a symptom of a much larger issue from which one runs away or hides in, so as to not see and essentially becomes blind to the larger issues of peace and love. It seems that in this predicament of essentially hiding oneself from the larger issues, by not confronting them or being silent about them, or looking the other way, or burying themselves in pelvic issues, that it inevitably creates "Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel." (Matthew 23:24)
Thank you Fr. John Dear, SJ, and Fr. Steve Kelly, SJ. The best way and only way I can seem to describe how I feel about what you are doing, saying, and being is what John the Baptist said of Jesus: "I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandles." (Mark 1:8) [St. Joseph's Edition of the New American Bible] For surely they are God's anointed ones, in the true holy spirit of Jesus Christ.
The above quote of
The above quote of percentage of Catholics who think torture is acceptable comes from the "Survey by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Oct. 12-24, 2005; nationwide survey conducted among 2,006 adults" that was published by NCR in an article on March 24, 2006.
This survey found that only 26% of Catholics believe that torture is never justified, whereas 32% of the 2,600 people who were surveyed do not approve of torture in any circumstances and 41% of people who do not identify themselves with any religion do not approve of torture under any circumstances. It seems to me that people who are taught to defer to authority are more likely to support whatever any authority says is necessary.
While I frequently find fault with the extreme to which Fr. Dear seems to feel it is necessary to go in order to promote peace, I suspect that part of what drives this is the sense of inertia that is part of the Catholic tendency to seek an authority and defer to it. Still, is it really necessary to go to jail to teach Catholics right from wrong? (Fr. Dear should have taken the plea bargain. My guess he will be found guilty, given a suspended sentence--unless he is found in contempt for creating disorder in the court by preaching when others are waiting to have their cases tried--and be made to pay court costs.)
Joe Walker from East Grand
Joe Walker from East Grand Rapids, MI
Fr. John Dear, S.J. and Fr. Steve Kelly, S.J. are excellent modern-day role models of the same kinds of advocacy and civil disobedience that caused Saints Peter, Paul, Stephen, et al to suffer imprisonment and capital punishment. St. Stephen, of course, was stoned to death by religious and/or civil vigilantes before he could be imprisoned!
I am stunned by Fr. Steve’s comment "A recent survey said that the majority of U.S. Catholics think torture is acceptable. I find that reprehensible. What a scandal. As a priest, I say torture is counter to the Gospel of Jesus. I don't think Christians should be doing this. We need to renounce torture, war and nuclear weapons. We have to learn to love as Christ loved, and abolish torture and war once and for all. So we go to trial as people accused of breaking the law, but we feel we are raising consciousness and trying to put Fort Huachuca and torture on the map."
To my way of thinking, this survey is also an indictment of those Catholic parishes whose DRE’s and Pastors ignore the issues of peace, justice, and communitarianism in their faith formation activities. Homilies should include teachings on these subjects, yet many parishes perpetuate the secrecy, the “untouchableness” of Catholic Social Teaching. To me, that kind of reticence seems to be sinful in and of itself. Preaching about love and peace should be about more than pelvic issues! More priests, religious and laity need to step up to the plate and advocate for the Church’s Mission statement, which is rooted in Scripture by these words of Jesus from Luke 4:18-21: 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 9 because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord." 20 Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. 21 He said to them, "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." 10
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9 [18] The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me: see the note on Luke 3:21-22. As this incident develops, Jesus is portrayed as a prophet whose ministry is compared to that of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Prophetic anointings are known in first-century Palestinian Judaism from the Qumran literature that speaks of prophets as God's anointed ones. To bring glad tidings to the poor: more than any other gospel writer Luke is concerned with Jesus' attitude toward the economically and socially poor (see Luke 6:20, 24; 12:16-21; 14:12-14; 16:19-26; 19:8). At times, the poor in Luke's gospel are associated with the downtrodden, the oppressed and afflicted, the forgotten and the neglected (Luke 4:18; 6:20-22; 7:22; 14:12-14), and it is they who accept Jesus' message of salvation.
10 [21] Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing: this sermon inaugurates the time of fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Luke presents the ministry of Jesus as fulfilling Old Testament hopes and expectations (Luke 7:22); for Luke, even Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection are done in fulfillment of the scriptures (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46; Acts 3:18).
(New American Bible Copyright © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC.)
I hope that some who read this will talk to their Pastors and DRE’s about the need for balance in parish homilies and other faith formation activities, so as to include our best kept secret, namely Catholic social doctrine on love, peace, justice, and communitarianism!
Dear Joe, As I had wont to
Dear Joe,
As I had wont to explain to some of my clergy colleagues during a Lenten reflection recently, it is a mistake, I believe, to view what you call "pelvic issues" a distraction. Rather I believe that this is the cross in front of us - the one none of us would have chosen; the inconvenient and scandalous one; the intimate and embarrassing one; the one seemingly least 'efficient' as an exemplar of noble sentiment - yet IT IS THE CROSS IN FRONT OF US. By the Grace of God we are given this.
Like you, I am deeply indebted to Frs. Dear and Kelly for their courage and integrity in peace work. God bless these saints! AND like you, I think I see the how the sex card is being played by some of the mainstream institutional denominations to confuse the message of freedom given to us in the Good News of Jesus Our Savior. BUT, I caution us: we must NOT buy into the confusions of false righteousness by pitting one un-freedom against another. There is no hierarchy of virtue for us Christians, in my view.
There is the Cross and the Resurrection.
We meet and respond to the Crosses in front of us and must remind each other to reach for the one most reviled; most embarrassing, and seemingly most inefficient – perhaps, for us in our time, the "pelvic issues" cross. This is not a distraction but a gate. Not only do we see and suffer the many crosses for what they are: parts of the True Cross of Christ's own Great Presence among us, but we trust in the unified and wonderful gift of Resurrection given in all those sufferings wherein the mix and plurality of seemingly separate "issues" become One Issue - the freedom given by Grace.
This is the freedom that Paul describes so wonderfully in the 5th and 6th chapters of Letter to the Romans and, indeed, throughout his incarnational theology but most beautifully, I think, in the 3rd chapter of 2 Corinthians (17 -18): “17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." (Luke 24:5)
Goofalong: The events at
Goofalong:
The events at Virginia Tech are profoundly sad and tragically reflects a society that has rejected God as the ultimate answer to all problems. We look to psychiatry, science, biology, family life, toxins, inept parents, and an assortment of other reasons why this happened. Yet, the tragedy is that those about him could not see to help him. Maybe a good preacher or pious person could have been of some help. Yet, so many in the Church today speak in charity in political terms, and fail to preach and preach moral theology and Christ crucified. This is the type of preaching that can change society and the kind that could helped this young man see through his wrongs. For that moment when Cho was killing, I would want for a gun and would use it to stop him. That would be the moral and right to do so--as there were those among the ones he killed that could have been a leader, a fantastic father and mother, or a kind and faithful priest, preacher, or religious. Their lives were ended without reason, without charity, and without order, in a world that frankly needs God. We seek and yearn for all the wrong reasons, when in reality He is right in front of us. I wish our president would seek a public fast, and publicly ask God to forgive this Nation for its wrongs in killing innocent children and men and women, the injustices that have occurred, and to ask for right order, and right thinking be restored.