Fr. Louis Vitale to Bring His Peace Message to El Paso
June 16, 2008
Pax Christi El Paso has invited Franciscan Father Louis Vitale to deliver the homily at its annual Mass of Peace and Reconciliation at 12:30 Sunday July 27 at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, five miles north of I-10 on Yarbrough at Pebble Hills. Fr. Vitale will also speak at 10 am Saturday, July 26 at St. Pius Community Hall, one block south of I-10 at Geronimo. His presentation, “Love Your Enemies: Transforming Us vs. Them Thinking,” will be followed by a question and answer session.
“We have tried traditional avenues of influence. We have lobbied our politicians. We have marched in permitted rallies millions strong. We have signed petitions, prayed and held vigils for a peaceful solution, “ Father Louis Vitale wrote as the invasion of Iraq began in March 2003. “We must now use what remains of our democratic heritage: the right to use nonviolent civil disobedience in the tradition of the Boston Tea Party, the women’s suffragette movement and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.”
“We feel a moral imperative to demonstrate to the Bush administration and to the world that Americans are willing to risk their own freedom and their own comfort to confront the atrocities being committed in our names,” Fr. Vitale continued. His many decades of teaching the spirituality and practice of nonviolence propelled him to a more active stance. The Korean War era Air Force pilot had long since determined that possession of nuclear weapons served no peaceful purpose. He co-founded Nevada Desert Experience to oppose weapons testing and the arms race. He has protested the training of human rights abusers at Fort Benning, Ga., shining a light on the practices of the former School of the Americas. His courageous witness to nonviolence resulted in arrest and conviction on a charge of federal trespass. Father Vitale served several months of time in prison for his beliefs, a consequence that might leave many circumspect.
When news of barbaric torture practices became known, Father Vitale went to the source: Army Interrogation Training at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. He and a fellow priest went to deliver a letter to the commander, who was not available on a Sunday. They asked to see the Officer of the Day and were denied. Kneeling in prayer, they were arrested, subsequently tried and sentenced to five months on a trespassing charge, being released this spring.
Many of the issues involved in detention and torture are still unfolding. In mid-June, the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners held in Guantanamo have a right to appeal their detention in federal court. The opinion used language that reflects the democratic heritage Fr. Vitale references: “The laws and Consitiution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”
Everyone is invited to reflect on what it means to live nonviolently, a practice that is rarely passive. Sometimes it seems to require extraordinary courage and faith just to behave decently. Yet we all have the potential to be mindful and exemplify nonviolent spirituality. It always helps to listen to a good teacher.
More information on Father Vitale’s visit and Pax Christi is available from Father Vincent Petersen at San Antonio de Padua Parish, 915 598-1457.
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