- Pax Christi USA has served notice that escalated war
on Iraq by the United States will trigger civil disobedience throughout
this country. The international Catholic peace organization's board committed
itself to that action at the Pax Christi USA National Assembly held at
the University of Detroit-Mercy July 26-28. Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton urged the assembly's 600-plus participants to sign a pledge of
resistance against U.S. military action in Iraq.
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- "The war in the Persian Gulf in 1991 was an unjust
war condemned by Pope John Paul II," said Gumbleton, who was founding
president of the U.S. branch of the peace organization and headed it from
1972 to 1991. "Any new war against Iraq will be an unjust war. We
must say 'No!' "
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- The civil disobedience pledge was sponsored by eight
national peace groups. In addition to Pax Christi USA they include the
American Friends Service Committee, Education for Peace in Iraq Center,
Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Lutheran Peace
Fellowship, National Network to End the War against Iraq, and Voices in
the Wilderness. The petition, which was circulated for signatures at the
assembly, indicates willingness "to join with others to engage in
acts of nonviolent civil disobedience at U.S. federal facilities in order
to prevent or halt the death and destruction that U.S. military action
causes the people of Iraq."
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- Gumbleton proposed that next year Pax Christi members
gather Aug. 6, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, at a
place like Oak Ridge, Tenn., "where they are making the new nuclear
weapons that we will be preparing to use. We must have our bodies there,
do civil disobedience there, and say no to nuclear weapons in a very dramatic
way," he said. He also called for a 22-day fast starting on July 16,
anniversary of the first nuclear device explosion in Nevada in 1945.
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- In his keynote talk, Gumbleton contrasted choices between
Pax Americana -- "the peace of America" as represented by Bush
administration foreign policy -- and Pax Christi, the peace of Christ.
He recalled that when President George Bush announced the war strikes in
Afghanistan Oct. 7 he said, "We are a peaceful nation." Gumbleton
then listed 19 military conflicts involving "this peaceful nation"
since 1945, adding "and now Afghanistan."
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- The Bush administration's proposed nuclear missile defense
is not a defensive strategy, but rather part of a first-strike capability,
Gumbleton said. "Pax Americana: bombing, killing, wherever we decide."
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- Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister, the assembly's first
keynoter, touched on the assembly's theme, "Casting Out Fear, Building
on Hope, Living Nonviolence," when she recalled the gospel narrative
of the Transfiguration. She noted that Jesus identified himself with Moses,
who led people out of oppression, and with Elijah, whom King Ahab called
"the troublemaker of Israel," the one who "exposed to the
people the underlying causes of their problems, so they could both heal
the present and have hope in a better future."
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- "Our ministry must be not only to comfort but to
challenge church, state and community; not just to attend to the pain but
to advocate for change; not simply to care for the victims of the world
but also to change the institutions that victimize them," Chittister
said
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- At one orientation session, first-time attendees were
asked why they were there.
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- Gloria Dugay of Chicago said she was impressed by the
ecumenical participation in a peace march against the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict that was held recently in Oak Park, Ill. Dugay said the march
motivated her to be an ongoing part of such efforts.
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- Joe Walker, of East Grand Rapids, Mich., said he has
been affiliated with Pax Christi since the Gulf War but hasn't been active
beyond sending e-mails. Now, he said, it's really time to educate Catholics
that peace and social justice are essential elements of their faith, "because
most Catholics I know, they'll tell you about transubstantiation and the
Virgin Mary, but they do not want to hear about peace and justice."
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- Danise Jones Dorsey, a member of the Black Catholics
Congress in Baltimore, said she wanted to learn more about Pax Christi's
anti-racism strategy because she was concerned about what "seemed
to be an epidemic of violence in the African-American community."
She said she wonders if the same elements that cause people of different
countries to war against each other are taking hold in black America, and
whether "the same strategies for conflict resolution would be effective
in my community."
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- The Detroit gathering devoted one plenary session to
launching its 20-year anti-racism initiative, "Brothers and Sisters
All." David Robinson, Pax Christi USA's national coordinator, said
one key focus of the program will be "dealing with the hidden racism
within our own movement and developing ways of being accountable to our
brothers and sisters in communities of color, especially those who are
Catholic."
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- "We are essentially a liberal white peace movement,"
Tom Cordaro, a member of Pax Christi's anti-racism team, told NCR. "We're
not going to find many people who think of themselves as being racist.
But I think for white middle-class people the issue we really have to deal
with is white entitlement and white privilege, and how that has guided
the way we think about, frame and do our peace work. For a lot of white
folks, they're not even aware of that."
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- The 2002 assembly marked the U.S. peace organization's
30th anniversary by recognizing six "faithful witnesses to the 'Peace
of Christ,' " as Pax Christi USA Ambassadors of Peace: Helen Casey,
Jesuit Fr. John Dear, Ray LaPort, Colman McCarthy, Megan McKenna and Nancy
Small.
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- The final plenary session ended with participants extending
their hands in blessing over a family from Wall, N.J. Tom Mahedy, the husband
and father, faces three months in federal prison for crossing the line
into the former School of the Americas, now the Western Hemisphere Institute
for Security Cooperation, in Fort Benning, Ga. Mahedy was one of 43 nonviolent
demonstrators who were arrested and sentenced for protesting the human
rights abuses in Latin America carried out by graduates of the U.S.-run
military training school.
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- "[Going to prison] is hard as a father," Mahedy
told NCR, "but I've come to realize that while love begins at home,
it has to flow forth into the world as well."
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- Tom Kelly is a freelance writer in Toledo, Ohio.
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- http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives/081602/081602k.htm
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