Feb. 19 White House Vigil in Memory of Peter DeMott
Frank Cordaro
Dorothy Day CW in Wash DC & others
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_thread/thread/402cf20aec42e3e5
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Art Laffin <artl...@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 18, 2010
Dear CW friends:
Thought you might like to see the prayer service we are doing tomorrow
where we will remember our brother Peter DeMott in a special way.
With love and gratitude,
Art Laffin <artl...@hotmail.com>
Dorothy Day Catholic Worker
http://dccatholicworker.wordpress.com/
First Friday Lenten Vigil for Peace and Justice
February 19, 2010 -- White House
Opening song: Peace, Salaam, Shalom
Read Leaflet : Lenten Witness for Peace and Justice
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent
people.... We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever
reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in
our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war
against children... What matters most is not who is sitting in the
White House, but "who is sitting in" -- and who is marching outside
the White House pushing for change..."
-Howard Zinn, author of People's History of the United States
(Died-January 27, 2010)
Lent is a time for personal and societal repentance, a time for
radical conversion, renewal and transformation. Living under the
brutal occupation of the Roman empire, Jesus declared: "The kingdom of
God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel." (Mk.1:15) Living
in the U.S. empire, which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described as
"the greatest purveyor of violence in the world," we need to heed
Jesus' proclamation now more than ever.
We live in a warmaking empire, where war is being waged
indiscriminately in order to control and acquire resources. The U.S.
continues to wage an unrelenting war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has
increased it's military intervention in Pakistan and Yemen. According
to the Pakistani newspaper The News, U.S. drone attacks killed 123
civilians in January 2010. The U.S. also continues to provide military
and economic support to Israel for its illegal occupation of
Palestine. Corporate, military and political powers are also waging a
war against the poor. War, economic exploitation and global warming
claim countless lives daily. The victims cry out for justice. The
earth groans in travail.
We invite you to participate in a Lenten Witness for Peace and
Justice. The purpose of this witness is to call for repentance and
conversion of ourselves, our society and our churches to the Gospel
way of justice, nonviolence and a reverence for all life and creation.
We call for an immediate end to the sinful wars being carried out in
our name. We call for reparations for Iraq and Afghanistan; for total
disarmament; the abolition of all nuclear and conventional weapons; an
end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank; an end to torture and
the closing of Guantanamo and Bagram U.S. military prisons and other
military torture training centers like the SOA/WHINSEC; and an end to
AFRICOM and the militarization of Africa. We call, too, for the
eradication of poverty; universal health care; unlimited aid and
assistance to help rebuild Haiti; a just economic order; climate
justice, and justice for immigrants. And we call for the proposed FY
2011 $708 billion military budget, which includes $7 billion to
upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal, to be converted to meet urgent human
needs.
Please vigil with us during these Friday's of Lent from 12:00-1:00
p.m. at the White House.
This Lenten Witness is sponsored by Pax Christi Metro DC- Baltimore,
Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, TASSC, Maryknoll Office for Global
Concerns, SICSAL-USA and Jonah House
For more info contact the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 202-882-9649.
----------------------------
Gospel Luke 9: 22-25
Reading of Excerpts of Finding My Way, by Peter J. DeMott (In Memoriam)
Today marks the first anniversary of the death of our beloved friend
and peacemaker, Peter J. DeMott. As we grieve the loss of Peter, we
take great inspiration from his steadfast commitment to Gospel
peacemaking and nonviolence. We extend our love and prayers to Peter's
family, including his wife Ellen, and four beautiful daughter: Marie,
Kate, Nora, and Saoirse.
Peter Demott, father and laborer, pray for us.
Peter DeMott, peacemaker and faithful follower of Jesus, pray for us.
Peter DeMott—Presente!!!
While in Vietnam I attended Roman Catholic Mass regularly and on
occasion would go to confession, as I had been brought up to do. As a
dutiful young Marine who followed orders well, I had no idea that my
work in Vietnam was helping to bring about the deaths of some two
million people there, maim and displace countless others, and severely
damage and degrade the local environment. That sad realization came to
me only much later. While in Vietnam I operated under the influence of
a training film my fellow recruits and I viewed in boot camp,which
justified U.S.involvement in the war as a defense against communist
aggression. (We were told the communists were struggling to extend
their”evil empire.”) Like millions of other soldiers down through the
course of history,we were taught by the power elite to look at
ourselves as heroic patriots willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in
defense of our native land and its cherished ideals.
After a tour of duty in Vietnam, I found myself serving as a military
policeman at the Marine Corps base atTwentynine Palms,California.
There I became more and more disillusioned with life as a Marine, with
its stultifying duties and inflexible discipline. I left the Marines
in the summer of 1970 and about a year later joined the United States
Army,after signing an enlistment contract which promised me a course
of study at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California...
Finally I had an eye-opening experience during my trip to the Soviet
Union, when I realized that the people there had the same hopes and
dreams as the folks back home. Having grown up on a diet of propaganda
that the Russians made up a godless country bent on world domination,
I saw and experienced instead their common humanity, which helped to
change my perspective profoundly.
Once again feeling rather disaffected with the sterility and
bureaucracy of military life, I turned my back on the Army in February
l976, and returned to my hometown to complete my college education.
Following graduation, I explored the possibility of becoming a
diocesan priest by going to a seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota—but
dropped out after a year and got involved in the Catholic Worker
movement.
The Catholic Worker taught me many things I’d never heard before:
pacifism, nonviolence, voluntary poverty, personal responsibility for
contemporary injustice, and service to Christ in the person of the
victims of military and corporate violence and greed. The Catholic
Worker also introduced me to nonviolent civil disobedience and its
history and practice in our country. A process of conversion had begun
in me, as I began to question authority and realize the need to make
myself as marginal to evil as possible.
My arrest at an “arms bazaar” was the initial outward, visible act of
my conversion process, an ever-evolving journey leading me (please,
God) on the Via Crucis (the Way of the Cross). Christ tells us that if
we wish to be His disciples, then we must deny ourselves, take up the
cross, and follow Him in faith and obedience. The cross represents
both the lot and the glory of those who nonviolently resist systemic,
institutional injustice, and then experience the retribution of the
high and mighty as a consequence. Jesus commands us to love one
another, and He tells us that no one has greater love than a person
who lays down his or her life for a friend. Every act of civil
disobedience (which is equally aptly termed “divine obedience”),
performed in a spirit of love, helps to restore humanity to a
communion of solidarity, unity, and mutual aid.
Since my first act of civil disobedience more than two decades ago, I
have undergone arrest many times at the Pentagon, the White House, the
School of the Americas, and various military bases and weapons
manufacturing sites. Participation in two Plowshares disarmament
actions (which symbolically yet concretely beat the nuclear sword into
a plowshare, in accord with the vision of the prophet Isaiah), are
included in that list. These acts have resulted in periods of
incarceration in a variety of jails and prisons, cumulatively about
two years in all. Separation from family and friends has been
difficult, conditions behind bars less than ideal.
I realize, however, that nothing of good and lasting value comes
without a price, and I have been privileged to be part of the
world-wide struggle for peace and justice, along with so many others
who have done so much. To the extent that we sit passively by during
these challenging times—when the fate of the earth and all its life
forms hangs in the balance, to that very extent we give our tacit
approval to the forces amassed to destroy us.
Song: Love Will Guide US, by Sally Rogers
"Love will guide us/Peace has tried us/Hope inside us/Will lead the
way/On the road from/Greed to giving/Love will guide us/Through the
hard night."
"If you cannot/Sing like angels/If you cannot/Speak before
thousands/You can give from/Deep within you/You can change the
world/With your love."
(the third verse just repeats the first)
Litany of the Cloud of Witnesses
Response: Presente!
Moses and Miriam, nonviolent liberators, architects and singers of the
covenant of justice
Isaiah, critic of militarism, prophet of peace
Mary Magdalene, faithful witness of Christ's execution and first
witness of his resurrection
Felicity and Perpetua, midwives and mothers, sacrificed in the sport
of a military empire
Leonard Peltier, Native American political prisoner
Victor Jara, martyred musician
Gandhi, the Mahatma, nonviolent warrior
Ben Salmon, W.W.I CO
Rosa Parks, mother of the civil rights struggle
Thomas Merton, contemplative critic, mentor of peacemakers
Mary Jane Helrich, poet and peacemaker
Martin Luther King, Jr., prophet and maker of the Beloved Community
Clare of Assisi, steadfast follower of Jesus
Catherine of Siena, mystic diplomat, skilled negotiator
Phil Berigan, plowshares peacemaker
Five prisoners who died in Guantanamo
Francis of Assisi, lover of creation, poor man with nothing to fight for
Rachel Corrie, martyred human rights activist in West Bank
Franz Jagerstatter, resister for Christ
All imprisoned conscientious objectors and military refusers
Dorothy Stang, Brazilian rain forest martyr
Fr. Dick McSorley, Jesuit pacifist
Martin of Tours, conscientious objector
Elmer Maas, teacher, musician and peacemaker
Penny Lernoux, writer for justice
Pope John XXIII, herald of peace,
Dorothy Day, lady poverty, witness to the radical gospel of peace
Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan, martyrs for
the poor, handmaids of justice
Tom Lewis, artist and peace prisoner
William Thomas, persistent peace vigiler
Jean Juste, prophet priest of Haiti
Peter DeMott, father and nonviolent resister
Howard Zinn, truth-telling historian
All the holy peacemakers, martyrs and saints, past ad present
Jesus, Prince of Peace, we pray to you, empower us.
Responsorial: From the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.
[LEFT: These are revolutionary times. All over the globe people are
revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out
of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are
being born… Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the
revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world
declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
ALL: Make us a light to the world.
RIGHT: I refuse to accept the view that humankind is so tragically
bound to the starless midnight of racism and that the bright daybreak
of peace and kinship can never become a reality…I believe that even
amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope
for a brighter tomorrow, I believe that wounded justice lying
prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted
from the dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of
humankind.
ALL: Make us a light to the world.
LEFT: Christians of the United States, I must say to you what was
written to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be not conformed to this
world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." You have a
dual citizenry. Your highest loyalty is to God, and not to the mores
or the folkways, the state or the nation or any human –made
institution. If an earthly injustice or custom conflicts with God's
will it is your Christian duty to oppose it.
ALL: Make us a light to the world.
RIGHT: Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" and vanity comes
along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" And there comes a time
when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor
popular, but one must do it because conscience tells them it is right.
And this is where I believe we must go, as ministers of the Gospel.
ALL: Make us a light to the world.
LEFT: So often the contemporary church is ineffectual and weak, with
an uncertain voice. So often it is an arch defender of the status
quo…If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the
early church it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of
millions and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning
for the twentieth century.
ALL: Make us a light to the world.
LEFT: The churches must take a more prophetic stand, using every creative
method possible to protest, but we must protest... We must encourage
conscientious objection, and continue to call for an end to the U.S.
war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
ALL: Make us a light to the world.
RIGHT: The Iraq war speaks to a deeper need for a true revolution of values...
We must challenge the giant triplets of poverty, racism and militarism...
We must address the roots of the conflict, the disparity between
poverty and wealth, both domestically and internationally...
We must challenge war as a means to achieve justice, and end the
insanity of spending a trillion dollars on war, little on social
welfare and the common good.
ALL: Make us a light to the world
LEFT: A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on
military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death…Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and unguided men.
ALL: Make us a light to the world.
RIGHT: America is rapidly approaching spiritual death...
Our choice is either nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation...
Our loyalties must go beyond national interests and embrace the global
common good...
We can no longer afford to worship a God of hate, but rather a God of
love who does justice...
We must find news ways of acting with justice and compassion, but we
must act... The time is urgent, tomorrow is today. The world awaits
our response....
We must choose to end the violence and work for a just peace at this
crucial moment in history.
All: Make us a light to the world.
Song: Vine and Fig Tree
Remembering the Prisoners of Guantanamo and Bagram
Litany of Victims of US Drone Attacks in Pakistan
U.S. Drone Attacks in 2009 in Pakistan
Response After Each Attack: God Forgive US
* February 14, 2009: more than 30 killed when two missiles are
launched by drones near town of Makeen in South Waziristan.[31]
March 1, 2009: Strike in Sararogha village in South Waziristan kills 7
people.[33]
March 12, 2009: 24 killed in attack in Berju in Kurram Agency.[34]
March 25, 2009: 7 killed in attacks on 2 vehicles by two missiles in
Makin area of South Waziristan at 6:30pm.[36]
April 1, 2009: 14 killed in Orakzai Agency tribal area.[38]
April 4, 2009: 13 killed in North Waziristan.[39]
April 19, 2009: at least 3 killed and 5 injured in an attack in South
Waziristan[41]
May 16, 2009: strike in village of Sarkai Naki in North Waziristan
kills 25 people.[45]
June 14, 2009: strike on a vehicle in South Waziristan kills 5 people.[46]
June 23, 2009: Makeen airstrike kills at least 80 but misses Baitullah
Mehsud in the town of Makeen, many of which were attending the
funerals of people killed in the air strikes earlier in the
day.[50][51][52]
July 3, 2009: US Drone kills 17 people and injures a further 27.[53]
July 7, 2009: strike in Zangarha in South Waziristan kills at least 12
people.[54]
July 8, 2009: strike on a hideout in Karwan Manza area and on a
vehicle convoy in South Waziristan kills at least 50 people.[55]
August 11, 2009: strike in Ladda village, South Waziristan, kills 10.[64]
August 21, 2009: missile strike on the village of Darpa Kheil, North
Waziristan, reportedly targeting Sirajuddin Haqqani kills at least 21
people.[65][66][67]
September 14, 2009: drone fired missile kills four people in a car 1.5
miles from Mir Ali in North Waziristan.[74]
September 24, 2009: drone fired missile kills up to 12 people in the
village of Dande Darpa Khel near Mir Ali.[75]
October 24, 2009: Alleged US drone strike killed 27, in Damadolla ,
inside Bajaur tribal agency.[82][83] The 27 victims were reportedly a
mix of Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives engaged in a planning and
strategy meeting. The dead apparently included 11 "foreigners". One of
those reported killed was Faqir Mohammed's nephew, Zahid and another
was Mohammed's unnamed son-in-law. The meeting was apparently being
held to decide on whether to reinforce South Wazaristan against
Pakistani forces, which Mohammed advocates, or exploit recent
successes in the Nuristan and Kunar provinces of Afghanistan, which Al
Qaeda wishes to do.[84]
December 17, 2009: 17 killed in 2 separate attacks in North Waziristan
in an area controlled by Hafiz Gul Bahadur. In the first attack, two
missiles hit a car near Dosali, killing two. In the second attack, 10
missiles fired by five drones hit two compounds in Ambarshaga, killing
15 people. Unnamed sources stated that seven of the dead were
"foreigners."[93][94]
Remembering Iraq, Afghan war-dead
Litany of Repentance and Conversion
During this Lenten Season we ask God's forgiveness for our complicity
in the violence now unleashed in our world and we repent of the
violence in our own hearts.
From the arrogance of power...Deliver us
From the tryanny of greed...Deliver us
From the politics of hypocrisy...Deliver us
From the addiction of control...Deliver us
from the idolatry of national security...Deliver us
From the cancer of hatred...Deliver us
From the hystreia of nationalism...Deliver us
From the sin of racism...Deliver us
From the sin of sexism...Deliver us
From the sin of war...Deliver us
From the sin of torture...Deliver us
From the waste and preparation of war...Deliver us
From the madness of war...Deliver us
In humility we ask o God, hear our prayer
(From CPT Litany of Resistance, by Jim Looney)
For our hardness of the heart….forgive us, we pray O God
For wasting our gifts
For wanting too much
For wounding the earth
For ignoring the poor
For trusting in weapons
For refusing to listen
For exporting arms
For desiring dominance
For lacking humility
For failing to risk
For failing to trust
For failing to act
For failing to hope
For failing to love
For failing to negotiate
For our arrogance
For our impatience
For our pride
For our silence
That we learn compassion….change our hearts, we pray O God
That we embrace nonviolence
That we act in justice
That we live in hope
That we do your will
That we love our enemies
That we strive to be peacemakers
That we live simply
That we practice sharing
That we protect the earth
That we cherish all life
(Adapted from Pax Christi USA)
Closing prayer (From Bill Wylie Kellermann, Seasons of Faith and Conscience)
"To keep Lent is to follow Jesus in the prayer of wilderness and garden.
"To keep Lent is to confront the principalities and powers first of
all in prayer. With Jesus we face the dark side of ourselves this is
so susceptible to capture and control by the powers. If it happens
that we keep vigil publicly at the gates of economic, military,
political or religious authority, we do so confessionally,
acknowledging the solidarity of sin.
"To keep Lent is to discover and remember who in heaven's name we are,
as person and community. We pray against all confusers and confusions
for our true identity and vocation. We know that means standing before
the cross and making some choices.
"The grace of this season is that Jesus suffers the choice with us.
He's been over the turf and is our brother exactly on that score, with
us in the struggle of our hearts. Let the further grace be that we
make our choice as disciples, in the mind and heart of Christ."
Closing song: World Peace Prayer
Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth,
From despair to hope, from fear to trust;
Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace;
Let peace fill our hearts, let peace fill our world,
Let peace fill our universe.
Let justice ever roll, let mercy fill the earth.
Let us begin to grow into your people.
We can be love, we can bring peace,
We can still be your way of compassion.