Category Archives: Events

The Shame of it All

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There is an understandable temptation to shame the perpetrators of the attempted insurrection earlier this week at our nation’s capital. Perhaps even more tempting is the desire to shame all those in power whose rhetoric fueled the eruption of violence we saw. To shame any such person is to forcibly impose on them the label of sub-human (usually with much more graphic phrasing) and to unilaterally declare them unworthy of humane treatment. To shame someone is to humiliate them. There is, of course, a reactive desire for retribution when we feel assaulted or offended and we feel very tempted to “get even” with the perpetrator and we make a case (publicly or in the privacy of our our thoughts) for the justification of the “payback” to be delivered. The Grand Fantasy, of course, it that this will somehow be corrective and healing for us or at least make us “feel better” (translation: a massage session for our ego) and that it will “teach them a lesson” and will “make them think twice before they act that way again.”

Someone from another world might look at us and ask: “How’s that been working for you humans?” I think if we’re honest, the answer is that it isn’t working for us. I suspect that we keep at it because we think it “should work” (because we’re the smartest people we’ve ever met!). So we keep punishing each other and wonder in amazement when those being punished “don’t get it.”

Here’s the thing: Shaming does not produce enlightenment. Shaming does correlate to violence. Significantly so. I contend that this is the case because shaming is violence. It is a direct attack on the human spirit embodied within every one of us (no matter how obscured it might be by multiple layers of “baggage” we have accumulated over time) and attacking anyone in this way does not induce them to become well behaved. When any of us is in enough pain we will tend to either lash out at others or lash inwardly against ourselves. We saw lashing out in Washington, D.C.

I am not in any way condoning or making excuses for the would-be insurrectionists or those who egged them on. I am adamantly opposed to their actions and beliefs. People, however, are not the problem. The problem is the problem. So what’s The Problem? Here’s my answer: The Problem is the belief that violence in whatever form is an effective way to resolve conflicts or heal injuries. Certainly we in America have romanticized and relentlessly promoted the fiction that “violence works.” This fiction permeates our politics, our economics, our legal system, and our popular entertainment just to list a few examples. We have been swimming in this fiction for far too long. We have learned to revel in the defeat of the “other” and to glorify ourselves in our “winning.” This may serve the pleasure center of the National Ego and our little individual ones but it does not serve our actual wellness as members of the Human Family.

It stops when we stop it.

You are invited

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Written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.

Friends,

July 16 is the 75th anniversary of the detonation of the first nuclear weapon in human history and 2020 is also the 30th year for the Day of Prayer for Forgiveness and Protection on July 15-16.  You are invited to participate remotely via Zoom (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/72313107071?pwd=T1E5MnhLYTdmWjZMSHdmT01QR3M1UT ) in this 24-hour event re-configured as a virtual vigil as an alternative to participating in person in New Mexico. 

Below are the Zoom link and code information and a .pdf of the program of events for the 24 hours. is attached. Also attached is the Statement of Purpose for this Vigil at Trinity Site

When you enter the Zoom your video and sound will be muted and remain so.  There will be no need to unmute either from your location for the duration.  Joining the zoom, leaving it, and rejoining it uses the same link and code found above and below.  We note that this is the first time this is being attempted and we anticipate there may be some technical glitches so we beg your patience.  Happily, there is no reason an interrupted or frozen connection can stop you from praying wherever you are!  Like at the desert site itself, it is not a marathon.  Come and go from the Zoom meeting as you prefer.  Zoom can be downloaded for laptops (PC and Mac) iPad, tablets, and smartphones.  Joining a meeting as a participant is free.  Click the link and follow the prompt to enter the password and you will be automatically admitted to the Zoom meeting.  Make sure the sound on your device is turned up. 

Topic: 24 Hour Prayer Vigil and Reflection at Trinity Site | Password GNV2020

Starting Time: Jul 15, 2020 05:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

Topic: 24 Hour Prayer Vigil and Reflection | Password GNV2020Time: Jul 15, 2020 05:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/72313107071?pwd=T1E5MnhLYTdmWjZMSHdmT01QR3M1UT09
Meeting ID: 723 1310 7071Password: GNV2020

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/72313107071?pwd=T1E5MnhLYTdmWjZMSHdmT01QR3M1UT09

Meeting ID: 723 1310 7071

Password: GNV2020

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

www.emmanuelcharlesmccarthy.org or www.centerforchristiannonviolence.org

Program-A-Day-of-Prayer-for-Forgiveness-and-Protection-1-1Download

The Catholic Church is Back!

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I urge everyone to read the Appeal for the Church and the World and sign it if you are in general agreement and help to spread it far and wide.

This Appeal represents the strong and courageous Church coming forward once again as opposed to the weak and spineless Church which we are all so familiar with.  It is important because the issue is no longer just about whether we shall ever gather to celebrate the Mass in public again. It is about the Church coming forward now to do what it is obligated to do in addition to providing us with worship and the Sacraments. We need the Church and strong American Catholics to stand up and defend the weak and innocent against the impositions on their natural rights by powerful, arrogant tyrants.

From the Appeal:

“Those with governmental responsibility must stop these forms of social engineering, by taking measures to protect their citizens whom they represent, and in whose interests they have a serious obligation to act. Likewise, let them help the family, the cell of society, by not unreasonably penalizing the weak and elderly, forcing them into a painful separation from their loved ones. The criminalization of personal and social relationships must likewise be judged as an unacceptable part of the plan of those who advocate isolating individuals in order to better manipulate and control them.”

Here in Boston, my grandchildren, and all kids, cannot go to school or play soccer on a team, or meet with their friends, or have a birthday party, or play in the playground which is across the street. Will they be able to go to camp this summer or go to swim at the pool or beach? Who knows?  These are decisions that should be made exclusively by their parents and not by so-called experts or the apostate Catholic Mayor of Boston, whose judgment regarding any matters involving the protection of human life is highly suspect. How can our Church leaders leave us at the mercy of these enemies?

I don’t need any experts to tell me that kids are being greatly damaged. Perfectly healthy, they cannot go outside for a walk without wearing the ubiquitous death mask. Enough is enough.

Even if you cannot sign the appeal at this time I urge you to participate in the discussion. Help us to open the Churches again and let’s also open the Church halls and basements for gatherings to facilitate open, honest conversations about what is happening to us and what people of Faith can do about it.

From the Appeal:

“A democratic and honest debate is the best antidote to the risk of imposing subtle forms of dictatorship, presumably worse than those our society has seen rise and fall in the recent past.”

Breaking news: Cardinal Muller, a brave man, and probably the most prominent person to sign the appeal, is being attacked. Please sign the appeal in order to protect him. There is safety in numbers. Every added signature is important, especially if you are a famous or semi-famous Catholic clergyman  or lay person whose name is recognizable to others on the internet.

In Catholic Solidarity,

Doug Fuda
Boston MA

First Day of Trial

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Outside the courthouse for the first day of the trial of the Kings Bay Plowshares activists. We interviewed three of them on the podcast back in August: Martha Hennessy, Carmen Trotta and Clare Grady.

Below are some speeches they gave last night at the eve of the trial. Both of these videos have been taken from the Kings Bay Plowshares Facebook page and were posted by Steve Dear.

I have a better idea

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Maybe this should be “examining the role that churches play in propagating war”?

 

Faith and Duty

The Role of Spirituality in Times of War

Presented by the Archives of the Archdiocese of New York

Saturday, December 15, 2018 @ 4PM

This panel discussion will examine the role that faith plays in times of war. Beginning the conversation with the rise of the chaplain corps during the First World War, a group of academics, religious, and current duty military will speak about the importance for caring for the spiritual well being of soldiers in the face of the horrors of war.

Faith and Duty at the Sheen Center

 

 

“Reclaiming” Jesus–Really?

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Reclaiming Jesus Event Brings Its Message to the White House, National Catholic Review, May 25, 2018

***

RECLAIMING JESUS

but not

THE NONVIOLENT JESUS OF THE GOSPELS

by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

It is difficult, if not impossible, to figure out which Jesus is being reclaimed in the recent much-ballyhooed document, Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis (attached below). But, what is clear is the Jesus that the document presumes to reclaim is not the Jesus of the Gospels who was Nonviolent and who teaches a Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies. Not once in the entire Reclaiming Jesus document is Jesus’ rejection of violence by word and by deed in the Gospels mentioned, although the document gives a list of things that must be reject based on Jesus teachings and His being Lord. Nor is it mentioned that His disciples are called to follow Him and reject violence. So the document communicates that a Christian, whether American or British, who has reclaimed Jesus as the document prescribes could join the American or British military and bomb the be-Jesus out of human beings designated “enemies” or designated “collateral damage” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

The idea governing Reclaiming Jesus and around which its authors state the entire document is composed and validated, is this: “Jesus is Lord. That is our foundational confession. It was central for the early church and needs to again become central to us. If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar was not—nor any other political ruler since. If Jesus is Lord, no other authority is absolute.” Neither I nor any other Christian could reasonably disagree with this. It is in fact the theological basis for proclaiming and adhering to Gospel Nonviolence. The Gospels themselves in which Jesus teaches, lives and dies in the Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies—and which Gospels the Catholic Church teaches in its Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution Revelation (sec 18-19), “faithfully hand on what Jesus Chris, while living among men really did and taught for their eternal salvation” —are the historical root of Gospel Nonviolence. But the profession, Jesus is Lord, is the theological root of Gospel Nonviolence, because if Jesus’ authority in matters of Christian faith and morals is not absolute, then He is just another guy conjecturing about the manner in which life should be lived or how to be saved from eternal death.

The Reclaiming Jesus document goes on to say, “What we believe, i.e., Jesus is Lord, leads us to what we must reject. Our ‘Yes’ is the foundation for our ‘No.’“ It then goes on to list those matters that Christians must say, ‘No’ to and rejected on the basis of their, ‘Yes,’ to Jesus is Lord. The given list of what must be rejected because Jesus is Lord is this: “white nationalism and racism, misogyny, the mistreatment, violent abuse, sexual harassment, and assault of women, language and policies of political leaders who would debase and abandon the most vulnerable children of God, the practice and pattern of lying that is invading our political and civil life, any moves toward autocratic political leadership and authoritarian rule,  “America first” as a theological heresy for followers of Christ.”

It should be noted, and noted well, that while their document states, “If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not,” these Christian peace activists from the U.S. and Britain and their document do not reject Christian participation in Caesar’s violence and war because Jesus is Lord. This is bizarre since the Lord Jesus’ rejection of violence in the Gospels is unambiguous. It is strange since the authors respective countries are two of the greatest purveyors of violence in the world historically and today. It is gravely disingenuous since the Christians in their societies did and do most of the violence done by each country. Reclaiming Jesus and proclaiming Jesus is Lord in such societies should at a minimum mean rejecting participation in the legal and illegal, romantic and sorted violence of these societies and their institutions that incarnationally follow the way and use the means of the violent Caesar rather then the Nonviolent Jesus. It should mean at least this because,

“Jesus taught that violence belongs to the Reign of Satan, and that men must expel violence if they wish to liberate themselves from the Reign of Satan. If Jesus did not reject any type of violence for any purpose, then we know nothing of him. No reader of the New Testament, simple or sophisticated, can retain any doubt of Jesus’ position toward violence directed to persons, individual or collective, organized or free enterprise, he rejected it totally. Jesus in no way accepts violence as a means of controlling violence. 

Jesus presents in His words and life not only a good way of doing things, not only an ideal to be executed whenever it is convenient, but the only way of doing what He did.” (Quoted section is from the Catholic Biblical scholar, Rev. John L. McKenzie.)

It is, however, not surprising that no mention is made of reclaiming the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels. Some of the authors of this document were formally on Barack Obama’s, aka Barack Obomba’s, spiritual consultation team. And, one the authors is the episcopal chaplain of the British royalty—a gene pool that has never existed, cannot exists and does not exists without gargantuan amounts of violence being employed to sustain it and to protect its unholy and promiscuous accumulation of luxury wealth in the face of thousands of human beings writhing in pain and unnecessarily perishing daily because they lack the few cents to procure the needed food or medicine. The hording of luxury wealth in a world where billions do not have the bare necessities need to live can only be defended and sustained by violence.

If a Christian were to truly desire to reclaim the Jesus of the Gospels—the only Jesus there ever was or will be— it takes no literary skill to say,

“What cannot be done without violence cannot be done by a faithful follower of the Lord Jesus. A Christian cannot follow Jesus’ “new commandment ” to “Love one another as I have loved you,” and use violence to do good or to fight evil.”

But this is exactly the Jesus that this document and its peace activists authors do not want to reclaim, any more than the institutional Churches of Christianity want to reclaim Him. Both want a “Jesus” who endorses violence so they can carry out their plans to make the world a better place by using violence, whatever their plans may be.

So which Jesus is this Reclaiming Jesus document trying to reclaim? It is trying to reclaim—or more accurately trying to propagandize— a “Jesus” that never existed in history as a person—a violent liberal-Constantinian Jesus. But a violent liberal-Constantinian “Jesus” is no more the reality of the Person revealed and proclaimed in the Gospels than is a violent conservative-Constantinian Jesus. They are mirror images of each other in terms of the means they use to respond to evil and to promote the good. What each calls Christian love is saturated with violence—that is, with that phenomenon that “Jesus teaches belongs to the Reign of Satan.” It is Christians and their Churches that almost universally confess faith in a violence-endorsing “Jesus” that are the source of this time of crisis. The spiritually malformed Christians Trump, Obama, Clinton, Bush, Merkel, Blair, Putin, etc. are but blips on the screen of the crisis.

It is the institutional Christian Churches and their deceitful leaders, who gave them—hardwired nurtured them—and billions of other Christians into the mind-style of justified Christian killers and liars under the pretense of helping them put on the mind and truth of Jesus, who are the cause of the crisis. It is absurd to believe that implementing a new agenda for the betterment of humanity via a new version of a violence endorsing “Jesus” can solve this crisis. The violence-endorsing “Jesus” illusion is the crisis in the Church and in the world.

The Jesus that must be reclaimed to solve this crisis is the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels with His Way of Nonviolent Love, without exception, of friends and enemies. The Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels is Lord. Believe it or not. His authority is therefore absolute. Believe it or not. Jesus presents in His words and life not only a good way of doing things, not only an ideal to be executed whenever it is convenient, but the only way of doing what He did. Believe it or not. And, that Way unequivocally rejects violence, even when, indeed most especially when, ordered by Lord Caesar. Believe it or not.

Let this new evangelization program, as well as all new evangelization programs of all Churches, be in fact new and reclaim the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels from the deceitfully concocted and institutionally propagandized illusion of the violence justifying, endorsing, supporting Jesus, that has brought so much evil and misery into the world and prevented so much good from being done.