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18/08/2017

180 years on - what’s changed?

A reflection by Marian Pallister, vice chair of Justice and Peace Scotland and Justice & Peace commissioner for Argyll & the Isles.

I write for Worldwide, a magazine produced by the Comboni Missionaries in South Africa. My latest commission is a piece about Sr Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who has campaigned to end the death penalty in America. The movie Dead Man Walking depicts her early struggles.

As part of my research, I read Prejean’s detailed account under the same title. She worked in the southern states of America, in jails where people of colour were in the majority and on death rows where those destined for the barbaric methods of dispatch – the electric chair and later the lethal injection – were more likely to be black than white. Prejean came to realise that it was not just prison talk that the authorities rubber-stamped more black than white executions.

Why have I been asked to write about Sr Helen Prejean now, decades after her original campaign? Because in April of this year, Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas started to carry out an unprecedented series of eight executions in 11 days.

Prejean, whose name is now synonymous with the US’s anti-death penalty movement, was swift to react. And in her condemnation of Governor Hutchinson’s actions, she said something that four months later may help us get a handle on what has happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.

She said ‘The real practitioners of death have always been the 10 southern states that practiced slavery.’

The motives behind the campaign to remove the statue of the Confederate General Robert E Lee (a campaign approved by the local authorities) are eminently understandable. Robert E, Lee fought to retain slavery. What’s the argument in favour of keeping that monument – unless it comes from those who still see slavery as acceptable, who disdain those they consider as ‘other’, and who are prepared to use lethal weapons to enforce their views?

Disconcertingly, Charlottesville wasn’t only about racism; about the concept of white supremacy that insidiously runs through the DNA of too many in those ten southern states identified by Sr Helen Prejean. The dazzling novels of Paul Beatty (read his White Boy Shuffle or The Sellout) satirise the layers of prejudice against so many sectors of American society considered to be ‘other’, and highlighting the neo-Nazi element of Charlottesville, Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the Tikkum website (see our link elsewhere) points out that one of the major groups sponsoring the Charlottesville right-wing rally proclaimed ‘Join Azzmador and the Daily Stormer to end Jewish influence in America.’

Lerner comments, ‘Anti-Black racism and anti-Semitism are out of the closet in Trump’s America.’

Mr Trump finds it hard to condemn the far right. That’s scary – and his ability to manipulate the emotions of those who feel disenfranchised is a quality that should concern us even more than his playground nose thumbing at North Korea’s leader.

The parallels between the Bay of Pigs stand-off of the 1960s and the sabre-rattling between Trump and Kim Jong-un could be far less of a threat than the parallels we see with the rise of Fascism that led not only to a world war but to the ethnic cleansing of millions of Jews, people of colour, Roma, and those whose sexuality offended the sensitivities of the Third Reich.

In condemning the hatred and bigotry, the Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, said ‘Racism is a poison of the soul’ and that ‘blending it with the Nazi salute, the relic of a regime that murdered millions, compounds the obscenity’. He warned, ‘If we want a different kind of country in the future, we need to start today with a conversion in our own hearts, and an insistence on the same in others.’

President Obama said in the wake of Charlottesville, ‘No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin or his background or his religion.’ It is a sobering thought that on this side of the Atlantic, too, peace and justice slip out of reach when hate is nurtured.

The illustration shows Reynolds Political Map of the United States, 1856.

11/08/2017

Blessed Oscar Romero

15th August 2017 will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Oscar Romero and, in a fitting tribute to him, SCIAF will adopt him as their patron on this day also. To mark these events Patricia Ferguson of SCIAF has written our new blog on the life and legacy of Archbishop Romero.

“We know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us".

These words were spoken by Archbishop Oscar Romero moments before he was shot while saying Mass in the Church of the Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador on the 24th March 1980. His homily was halted by the bullet that killed him.

The news of his murder was shocking, but perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised. After all, many priests and nuns had been murdered in El Salvador in the years leading up to Romero’s death and his own ministry was galvanised by the murder of his friend Fr. Rutilio Grande. Romero knew he was a target, having received many death threats in the months before he died.

Responding to one of those threats he said,

“I will not abandon my people, rather I will run the same risks with them that my ministry requires.”

So what had Archbishop Romero done that was felt to be so dangerous, so challenging to his assassins?

As a parish priest he was dedicated to pastoral work, visiting prisons and working with Caritas to provide food to the poor. In 1967 he was made a Monsignor and moved to San Salvador where he met Fr. Rutilio Grande, an outspoken champion of the poor and oppressed. In spite of their differences in approach, the two men become close friends.

In June 1970 Monsignor Romero was appointed Bishop. In 1974 the army killed three villagers in his diocese and Romero protested to the President. Worse was to come - the violence escalated and priests and other religious were targeted.

When he was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977 he was still seen as someone happy to maintain the status quo - but only a month after he became Archbishop, his close friend Fr. Grande and two others were killed in an ambush.
In his homily after Fr Grande’s death, Archbishop Romero said:

”The liberation that Fr. Grande preached was inspired by faith. A faith that speaks to us of eternal life. The liberation that ends in the happiness of God. The liberation that comes from repentance from sin. The liberation that is founded on Christ, the only force of salvation.”

From that moment Archbishop Romero became an outspoken voice for the oppressed and the poor. His weekly radio homilies were listened to by thousands of people and his message began to be heard outside his country.

Death threats increased as he became a rallying point for the poor people of his country.

On the 23rd March 1980, the day before he died, Archbishop Romero denounced the government and the army, saying,

“In the name of God, and in the name of his suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I beg you, I implore you, I order you, in the name of God, stop the repression!”

As he said Mass next day, Archbishop Romero was gunned down. His last words were, “May God have mercy on the assassin.” Needless to say no one was ever charged with the murder of Archbishop Romero.

On the 23rd May 2015, Oscar Romero was beatified at a ceremony in San Salvador attended by 250,000 people. Cardinal Angelo Amato spoke in his homily that day of the life and legacy of a man revered throughout the world for his courage, commitment and faith.

“The beatification today of Mgr. Romero is a feast of joy, of peace, of brotherhood, of welcome, of forgiveness. Romero is not a symbol of division, but of peace, of harmony, of fraternity.”

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Blessed Oscar Romero’s birth on 15th August 2017, and SCIAF adopts him as a patron, let us remember his care for the poor and his bravery in defending his faith. Let us pray that he will soon join the ranks of those recognised by the Church as saints.

04/08/2017

Reclaiming Gospel Nonviolence

This week David Mumford writes our blog and gives his personal account of being involved with the organising and running of Scotland's first Nonviolence Conference which took place at Kinnoul from 14th-16th July 2017.

We had spent eight months planning the weekend. I just hoped that it would all go well and that people attending would be inspired to strengthen their witness to peace and nonviolence. And that they would see Jesus in a different light – through nonviolent spectacles and that that would deepen their faith and Christian commitment.

Driving up to Perth I had both speakers in the back of my car – that was one anxiety laid to rest. I had heard John Dear previously and found him an inspiring speaker. Listening to him on the Saturday reinforced this view. If other human beings, created in the image of God are our brothers and sisters, then how can loving them involve killing them? How can the Church, the people of God, reclaim a perspective that sees Jesus himself looking at us out of another’s eyes? How can Christians gather round altars and then go out to prepare to destroy each other?

But often what stops Christians is anxiety that nonviolence will not always ‘work’ and that violence may be necessary – not in self-defence but to defend weak and helpless people. So it was fascinating to hear Lucas of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation talking about what was being done nonviolently by Christians and others in conflict areas such as the South Sudan, Colombia and Israel/Palestine.

Nonviolence was more effective, created less bloodshed, had a much greater chance of achieving post-conflict reconciliation and deepened people’s spiritual lives.

The workshops covered many issues and I would have liked to have gone to them all. I settled for a further encounter with John Dear, which was richly rewarding: Jesus and nonviolent direct action – in the temple overthrowing the moneylenders’ tables or healing people on the Sabbath.

The Mass on Sunday morning illustrated our divisions. I am old enough to remember when at such a gathering (as a good Episcopalian with a high view of the real presence of Christ in consecrated bread and wine) I would happily have been able to make my communion. I pray that such times come again. As it was, receiving a blessing in a reverent and worshipful service led by Fr. Tony Lappin was a joy.

The final session looked to the future and what could be done about Pax Christi in Scotland and about encouraging local churches and congregations to give a higher profile to peace and nonviolence issues. I was especially struck by contributions from Hugh Foy as to how we can work towards a culture of nonviolence in prisons, schools and families. The course from ‘Violence to Wholeness’ sounded to be one that every parish should take up. I see church change as being very much a bottom up process although it was really encouraging to think that there might just be an encyclical on nonviolence in two years time – if so we must be prepared….

My time was interrupted regularly by organisational details… Would people take their sheets off the beds before leaving? Would they remember to hand in their room keys/cards? Would all the requested diets work out (most did). Could we run a bar on a voluntary donation basis (yes, we could and did).

Sometimes a conference feels a bit like herding cats but in general most people got to the right place without too much delay. It was great to be in a refurbished St. Mary’s monastery at Kinnoull. Memories of freezing on the top floor were eradicated. The new showers are a delight. The welcome from those living and working there was warm – Kinnoull comes strongly recommended for any other group planning a conference – our evaluation was excellent.

And the grounds are superb.

Going home I thanked the Lord for a good weekend. Now to see how much fruit it all bears in the life of the church and in Scotland.

David Mumford

You can watch the conference keynote speakers at the Justice and Peace Scotland Youtube channel

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