Category Archives: Nonviolence

Daniel Berrigan, R.I.P.

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Here are two obituaries for Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J.

OBITUARY: Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace,
passes away at age 94, NCR April 30, 2016
http://ncronline.org/news/people/daniel-berrigan-poet-peacemaker-dies-94

“Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94”
by DANIEL LEWIS, NY Times, APRIL 30, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/nyregion/daniel-j-berrigan-defiant-priest-who-preached-pacifism-dies-at-94.html?_r=0

And here is a statement written by Frida Kerrigan:

 

April 30, 2016

Daniel Berrigan, Uncle, Brother, Friend,

PRESENTE

A statement from the Family of Father Dan Berrigan, SJ

This afternoon around 2:30, a great soul left this earth. Close family missed the “time of death” by half an hour, but Dan was not alone, held and prayed out of this plane of existence by his friends. We – Liz McAlister, Kate, Jerry and Frida Berrigan, Carla and Marc Berrigan-Pittarelli—were blessed to be among friends—Patrick Walsh, Joe Cosgrove, Father Joe Towle and Maureen McCafferty—able to surround Daniel Berrigan’s body for the afternoon into the evening.

We were able to be with our memories of our Uncle, Friend and Brother in Law—birthdays and baptisms, weddings and wakes, funerals and Christmas dinners, long meals and longer walks, arrests and marches and court appearances.

It was a sacrament to be with Dan and feel his spirit move out of his body and into each of us and into the world. We see our fathers in him—Jerry Berrigan who died in July 2015 and Phil Berrigan who died in December 2002. We see our children in him—we think that little Madeline Vida Berrigan Sheehan-Gaumer (born February 2014) is his pre-incarnation with her dark skin, bright eyes and big ears.

We see the future in him – his commitment to making the world a little more human, a little more truthful.

We are bereft. We are so sad. We are aching and wrung out. Our bodies are tired as Dan’s was—after a hip fracture, repeated infections, prolonged frailty.  And we are so grateful: for the excellent and conscientious care Dan received at Murray Weigel, for his long life and considerable gifts, for his grace in each of our lives, for his courage and witness and prodigious vocabulary. Dan taught us that every person is a miracle, every person has a story, every person is worthy of respect.

And we are so aware of all he did and all he was and all he created in almost 95 years of life lived with enthusiasm, commitment, seriousness, and almost holy humor.

We talked this afternoon of Dan Berrigan’s uncanny sense of ceremony and ritual, his deep appreciation of the feminine, and his ability to be in the right place at the right time. He was not strategic, he was not opportunistic, but he understood solidarity—the power of showing
up for people and struggles and communities. We reflect back on his long life and we are in awe of the depth and breadth of his commitment to peace and justice—from the Palestinians’ struggle for land and recognition and justice; to the gay community’s fight for health care,
equal rights and humanity; to the fractured and polluted earth that is crying out for nuclear disarmament; to a deep commitment to the imprisoned, the poor, the homeless, the ill and infirm.

We are aware that no one person can pick up this heavy burden, but that there is enough work for each and every one of us. We can all move forward Dan Berrigan’s work for humanity. Dan told an interviewer: “Peacemaking is tough, unfinished, blood-ridden. Everything is worse now than when I started, but I’m at peace. We walk our hope and that’s the only way of keeping it going. We’ve got faith, we’ve got one another, we’ve got religious discipline…” We do have
it, all of it, thanks to Dan.

Dan was at peace. He was ready to relinquish his body. His spirit is free, it is alive in the world and it is waiting for you.

The Real St. Patrick for Children

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Here is a March 17, AD 2016, St. Patrick’s Day gift for you and your children and grandchildren, whether Irish or not. There is much historically accurate information here for children and adults on St. Patrick and Irish history. Maire Ferguson, the book’s author, is extremely well-versed in Irish history, language and literature. Since attending a week’s retreat on Gospel Nonviolence at Our Lady of Knock Shrine in Mayo in the mid-1990s with Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, and she has been working very diligently in Ireland on behave of the truth of Gospel Nonviolence. The book, ST PATRICK CHILDREN’S BOOK- Two parts, will present to any child who reads it or has it read to him or both historical truth and Gospel truth. There is also a part for teenagers and adults.

In Atlanta, May 2

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All Catholics against militarism are invited to an event at St. Jude the Apostle Catholic Church in Sandy Springs (Atlanta) Georgia on May 2. This will be a one-day conference called “Gospel Nonviolence: The Great Failure, The Only Hope” presented by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy. All are welcome to attend, listen, and reflect.

The-Christian-tradition2
It seems most of us Catholics learn precious little about either tradition in the Church when it comes to dealing with conflict. I, for one, have never heard the word “nonviolence” mentioned in a Catholic Church! I often hear the term “just war” thrown around. It is important to learn about both of these traditions, I think.

Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy received his B.A. and two M.A. degrees from the University of Notre Dame and his Doctorate in Jurisprudence from Boston College. He taught at the University of Notre Dame where he founded The Program for the Study and Practice of Nonviolent Conflict Resolution and he is also co-founder of Pax Christi-USA. For twenty-five years he served as Spiritual Director and/or Rector of St. Gregory the Theologian Byzantine-Melkite Catholic Seminary.

Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

For over forty years he has directed retreats and spoken at conferences throughout the world on the issue of faith and violence. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his life’s work on behalf of peace within and among people. He is author of several books and his series BEHOLD THE LAMB is almost universally considered to be the most spiritually profound presentation on the matter of Jesus’ Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies available on CD/DVD.

Please spread the word to anyone in the Atlanta area who might be interested in attending.

Find us Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/411178052376042/
To register, go to:
http://www.stjudeatlanta.net/PaxChristiEvent

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“For Christians, Holy Week is the most meaningful and most significant week of the liturgical year…The primal spiritual encounter of Holy Week—between Satan and God, evil and good, the lie and the truth, death and life, total destruction and total salvation—takes place on the historical plane as an encounter between violence and nonviolence, violent hate and nonviolent love, violent justice and nonviolent righteousness, violent retribution and nonviolent forgiveness, violent mercilessness and non violent mercy, violent wounding and nonviolent healing, violent power and the power of nonviolence, violent holy men and a temptaion_in_gardennonviolent Holy Man, violent people and a nonviolent person, the violence of the secular and the religious kingdoms of this world and the nonviolence of the Kingdom of God, the violent Prince of this world and the nonviolent Prince of Peace, violent monotheism and nonviolent monotheism, the violent Cain and the nonviolent Christ, the violent sword and the nonviolent cross. Jesus does not suffer and die quietly, in bed, from medical problems associated with old age—and there must be a reason in the Redemptive Plan of God through Jesus Christ for this.

Holy Week is situated and saturated in a life-and-death battle between violence and nonviolence. Take the violence of humanly planned and executed torture and murder out of Holy Week, and there is no Holy Week. Take Jesus’ Nonviolent Love of all, of enemies and of friends, of His torturers and of His murderers, out of Holy Week and there is no Holy Week. Only God can author authentic revelation. If we do not choose to accept His Word as He communicated it, then we have no access to authentic revelation, which means we have no access to its power and wisdom.

So why do bishops, priests, ministers, and pastors refuse—almost universally, and almost universally in the spirit of willful obstinacy—to talk about, much less focus on, nonviolence, or its derivatives, e.g., nonviolent love, in their sermons about Holy Week during Holy Week?”

-Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Is Fr. Barron going hippie?

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Is Fr. Barron going all hippie nonviolent on us? Has he always been this way or is this a new turn? I have to admit, I haven’t listened to too much of his stuff. But this is refreshing to hear.

From Word on Fire: It is easy to think the Church’s great Marian feasts are sentimental or quaint. But really just the opposite is true. Here are Father Robert Barron’s reflections on today’s Feast of the Queenship of Mary, a dramatic celebration which demands that we acknowledge that:

“There is one decision that you have to make: which army are you in? Every other decision will follow from that one.For whom are your fighting? There is Satan’s army and there is Christ’s army... Satan – in a million ways – in a will try to lead you into his army which means you will try to walk the way of hatred, violence, egotism and cruelty.That is the decision that you have to make:Am I in that army or am I in Christ’s army? Am I going to fight the good battle of love, compassion and nonviolence?”