The New Yorker, March 9, 2015
Credit Illustrations by Alex Williamson; Left to Right: Getty (Dorothy Day); Bettman / Corbis (Philip Berrigan and Protest March)
“Why Civil Resistance Works” by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephen, the 2011 groundbreaking study on civil resistance.
Their study found that “between 1900 and 2006, nonviolent resistance campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.”
And Erica Chenoweth’s TED Talk:
An article from a 1965 issue of Commonweal.
“Where the witness of the five men does help is in their insistence upon moral judgment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, not the government, not circumstances, not “credibility” nor the necessity of “honoring our commitments” nor “national interest” can release the individual from making a conscientious judgment on the particular events occurring in Vietnam. Every responsible citizen, and in particular every draftable male, must make this judgment today. Nor can he even make it once and for all; should circumstances change, he must be ready to reverse his position tomorrow.”
If only every student at a Catholic high school or college was required to read this book! I am reading it now and highly recommend it.
This book is a history of the peace tradition in the Roman Catholic Church from the time of the Gospels to the twentieth century. Its purpose is to show that there is a continuing, unbroken, and self-sustaining stream within Catholicism from the martyrs and pacifists of the early church to John XXIII and the peacemakers of our time.
Read the reviews on Amazon.
Priests walk between a line of riot police and protesters barricades (not pictured) on Grushevsky Street near European square in central Kiev on January 28, 2014. Ukrainian lawmakers scrapped on January 28 draconian anti-protest laws that have angered the opposition, in a move aimed at bringing a deadly two-month standoff to an end. Applause broke out in parliament including from opposition benches after the vote, which passed with 361 deputies in favour and two against. AFP PHOTO / GENYA SAVILOV
“The overall and enduring atmosphere on the square is peaceful non-violence,” reports Nazar. “There is no alcohol allowed. There is prayer every hour. There is no retaliation for the violence — and now five killings — by the special forces, except the stones to keep them at a distance. You really have to be impressed with the nature of this revolution.”
Read more at CatholicRegister.org.
Blog post by Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
Great overview on Catholic World Report.
Arrest of Catholic Anti-war Protestor Highlights Progressive Church Opposition to Drone Strikes, Huffington Post, January 27, 2014
“Anti-war activist Brian Terrell began serving a six-month sentence Friday at the federal prison camp in Yankton, South Dakota. Last April, Terrell and about 40 others staged a protest at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to demand an end to U.S. drone bombings in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries….”
Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy and their wives, Coretta and Juanita, lead a march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, with the Abernathy children on the front line. (Wikimedia Commons/Abernathy Family)
Waging Nonviolence has a great article “When Martin Luther King Gave Up His Guns.”
“A popular U.S. Catholic priest and author known for his peace writings and some 75 arrests for civil disobedience actions across the country has been dismissed from the international Jesuit religious order, which says he was ‘obstinately disobedient’ to its directives.”
John Dear, Jesuit Known for Peace Witness, Dismissed from Order, National Catholic Reporter, January 7, 2013
“This decision was sparked three years ago, when Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M., removed my priestly faculties because he objected to the prayer vigils for peace and against nuclear weapons development I was leading at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of nuclear weapons. He had received many complaints regarding my peace efforts over the years from the local pastor in Los Alamos and other Catholics who work in Los Alamos, building nuclear weapons.”
Leaving the Jesuits After 32 Years, National Catholic Reporter, January 7, 2013
In a somber mood, I’d like to play The Skipperdees’ “Atomic City” on the CAM jukebox. This one goes out to all Catholics out there in Los Alamos, building nuclear weapons:
loose lips sink ships
so keep yours tight
don’t you go askin’ if
what we did was right
Published on Nov 4, 2013
Between 1900-2006, campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance were twice as successful as violent campaigns. Erica will talk about her research on the impressive historical record of civil resistance in the 20th century and discuss the promise of unarmed struggle in the 21st century. She will focus on the so-called “3.5% rule”—the notion that no government can withstand a challenge of 3.5% of its population without either accommodating the movement or (in extreme cases) disintegrating. In addition to explaining why nonviolent resistance has been so effective, she will also share some lessons learned about why it sometimes fails.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death. (Part III Life in Christ, Safeguarding Peace III., 2306).
From Waging Nonviolence:
“Hardly a year goes by without at least one Hollywood film that takes place during World War II. And when Hollywood isn’t making them, other countries are. In fact, there hasn’t been a year since the war ended without several movies featuring events from that period. And it’s hard to imagine a time when that will change. After all, who doesn’t like a good story of resistance in the face of evil?
Yet in their pursuit of showing us the good in human nature — our capacity for courage and sacrifice, and our ability to work together for a common, higher purpose — most of these films have also taken historical shortcuts that offer only a very narrow view of World War II. For instance, we forget that Germans during this period, including Nazi soldiers, were not unanimously in support of Hitler. We forget that there were those who even engaged in resistance, and that more violence wasn’t the only way to challenge the Nazis.”
Click here to read more about The Book Thief (2013), Rosenstrasse (2003), Sophie Scholl — The Final Days (2005), Miracle at Midnight (1998), Weapons of the Spirit (documentary, 1989), and Among the Righteous (PBS documentary, 2010).