Catholics for an End to the War in Iraq

September 4, 2007 - Tuscon Citizen
by Anne T. Denogean

The Rev. John Dear imagines a world in which the United States spends the billions it uses to wage war and build nuclear weapons to feed starving children around the globe. He imagines a U.S. that wins over the world with love, not force.

Don't try to tell him his vision of a nonviolent world is utopian or impractical. Violence is impractical because it leads to more violence, he says.

"War doesn't work," says Dear, a Jesuit priest and peace activist from New Mexico who will speak Sept. 26 in Tucson at St. Cyril's Catholic Church.

Dear's appearance marks the emergence of a local Catholics-for-peace movement, just as a similar nonviolence movement among Catholics, energized by opposition to the Iraq war, gains steam on the national level.

A newly formed local chapter of Pax Christi, a national Catholic peace group, and the Network of Spiritual Progressives invited Dear to Tucson.

The Rev. Bill Remmel, a founding member of Tucson Pax Christi, is pastor of Most Holy Trinity parish on the West Side. On recent Sundays, his parishioners were invited to sign petitions, before or after Mass, calling for an end to the Iraq war.

Remmel says at least 360 signatures were gathered during the first two weeks the "Catholics for an End to the War in Iraq" petitions were made available. The petitions are a project of Catholics United, a national social justice group.

Chris Korzen, Catholics United executive director, says more than 11,000 signatures have been collected. The group's goal is to present 20,000 signatures to Congress this month as lawmakers discuss the direction of the war.

Dear has lectured across the country about nonviolence and Christianity and has written or edited 20 books on peace. He writes a weekly column for the National Catholic Reporter. He has been arrested 75 times for acts of civil disobedience and will be in federal court this week for charges related to a peaceful anti-war protest in the Santa Fe, N.M., building where U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici has an office.

"I advocate pulling troops out immediately, but that doesn't mean just sitting back and doing nothing," he says in a phone interview from New Mexico.

He supports replacing U.S. forces with an international and primarily Muslim peace force acceptable to the Iraqi people. And he believes the U.S. should fund a massive Marshall Plan-style program to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq.

"That's a long-haul work but it's very doable. We've done it in the past. We did it after World War II," Dear says.

He believes the U.S. has turned the world against us since 9/11 with a policy of aggression.

"We're teaching people around the world to hate us. We're asking for more September 11ths," he says.

Now, wait a minute. That's extreme. Though I share his anti-war stance, I had to ask if he really believes there is never a time when the U.S. is justified in using force against people who want to kill us.

"I'm a Christian and I'm a follower of Jesus, who says, 'Love your enemies.' I think we are not allowed to use violence," Dear says. "That doesn't mean we sit back and do nothing. Jesus was an active person. I turn to Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, who have taught the whole world this ethic of nonviolence. We have to find new, nonviolent, nonmilitary solutions to the world's problems."

Those include eliminating the roots of war, which are hunger, disease and poverty, he says.

Make no mistake about it. Dear is a peace radical who's not afraid to challenge or offend.

When I wonder how his message is received by those Catholics who have loved ones serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, he responds, "Forget me. What would Jesus want us to do? No one could say Jesus would want us to kill. I'm saying, 'If you want to be a good patriotic American, that's fine. But just recognize you are no longer following the nonviolent Jesus.' "

Maybe it's a good thing if people wake up and decide they have to choose a side, Dear says. He points to the outspoken stance of Pope John Paul II against the Iraq war - war is not always inevitable but is always a defeat for humanity, the pope famously said in 2003 - in arguing that to be a Catholic is to also be against war.

"We've been presuming you can go to church on Sunday and then the rest of the week support the bombing and the killing of innocent people around the world or, for that matter, working at Los Alamos or Fort Huachuca.

"You can't. That's becoming like the Nazis who were good Catholics who went to Mass on Sunday and then threw people into the gas chambers on Monday. We have to say that being a Christian is political because it's talking about a universal love, universal compassion and peace."

I ask Remmel of Most Holy Trinity about bringing a political message into a venue where people are expecting a spiritual message.

Remmel says an anti-war stance is in keeping with the seven key themes of Catholic social teachings, which include the concepts of global human solidarity and the sacredness and dignity of all human life.

"It's Catholic moral teaching. It's Catholic social teaching. If that's not appropriate for the church, what is?" Remmel asks.