By Gary Kohl
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| Photo by Joshua McElwee |
”I am guilty of loving my planet more than I fear your jail.”
– Steve Jacobs
In the opinion of many, including myself, the most courageous, fearless and prophetic people in the world are those tens of thousands of conscientious members of Catholic Worker (CW) Movement communities that, since the 1930s, have been, and “are committed to nonviolent resistance to evil because they trust in the truth and practicality of the radical gospel of Jesus and his ethical teachings.
The prophetic publication of CW founders Dorothy Day and the radical French Catholic peasant-philosopher Peter Maurin, is The Catholic Worker, still sold for 1 penny per copy. It was first published on May Day, 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression. Since then, through fits and starts, 213 Catholic Worker communities currently persist, in various stages of viability, throughout the world.
The Catholic Worker mission
The following statement from http://www.catholicworker.org/ summarizes the mission of the CW Movement:
“The Catholic Worker Movement is grounded in a firm belief in the God-given dignity of every human person. Catholic Worker communities remain committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.”
Perhaps its most important ministry, considering our nation’s continuously funded, unaffordable, destructive, criminal and morally bankrupting wars, is its regular nonviolent direct actions against the madness of militarism.
The latest large CW action against the madness of nuclear weapons occurred on May 2, 2011, at Kansas City’s new Honeywell hydrogen bomb-making facility at Kansas City, MO. Honeywell is the infamous Minnesota “not-so-nice” multinational corporation that grew up in Minneapolis and that manufactures (through its spun-off subsidiary Alliant Tech) many highly profitable weapons of mass destruction (as well as weapons of individual and small group destruction). Alliant Tech and Honeywell have been picketed weekly, for decades, by Veterans for Peace, Women Against Military Madness, Catholic Workers and many other peace groups to expose the two corporation’s participation in international war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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| Steve Jacobs, photo by Indymedia UK |
On May 2, 2011, just outside of Kansas City, MO, 53 people of conscience (28 women and 25 men), most of them Catholic Workers, were arrested just after the murder/assassination of the unarmed Osama bin Laden, who, by the way, was not even wanted by the FBI for any part of the 9/11/01 controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center buildings because the agency found insufficient evidence of guilt. The 53 who were in prison for their trespass charges were fully aware of bin Laden’s extra-judicial killing and the glee portrayed by the average American in the street.
One of those arrested was CW member Steve Jacobs, from Columbia, MO, a person of faith and conscience who objects to the killing, rape, pillage and torture that is an intimate part of all wars, especially “US-led” wars. Jacobs has written a statement admitting his guilt in the action. He planned to read it to the judge and jury at the trial of the 53 on July 19.
Here is Jacobs’ powerful statement. He titled it “Your Honor: I Am Guilty of This:”
”I am guilty of knowing the difference between what is legal and what is right. Jesus tells us that the law is meant to serve humanity; humanity is not made to serve the law. Laws are just when they serve humanity and not when they protect those who create a mortal threat to its existence. Trespass laws which protect the makers of weapons of mass destruction against non-violent resisters have no authority over my conscience and act of resistance.
”I am guilty of trespass like a firefighter or a policeman is guilty of trespass when entering onto property in order to prevent a greater crime from occurring. You may believe the danger of nuclear annihilation is not imminent or that building these weapons of mass destruction are legal but I believe that any weapon that indiscriminately kills hundreds of thousands of innocents along with those who are targeted are immoral and have no right to exist. Creating more weapons makes their use more imminent, so we have a duty to stop their production now.
”Catholic bishops tell us that these weapons are immoral because if used they will continue to kill the innocent year after year from the effects of nuclear fallout and contamination. I am guilty of believing them.
”I am guilty of believing that any city that wishes to operate facilities to manufacture weapons of mass destruction (WMD) should have to put the issue to a vote before the citizens and that those who are morally opposed to these weapons cannot be made to pay taxes which enable their production because it is a violation of their conscience.
”I am guilty of believing judges have a duty to protect society from criminal schemes that condemn farm land under "urban blight laws" so that WMD's can be produced there and that they (judges) also have a duty to protect citizens from war profiteers who socialize the construction of WMD's and privatize the profits.
”I am guilty of loving my planet more than I fear your jail.”
Re-Defining the Euphemistic Term, War
If there were only more Americans as courageous as these Catholic Workers, courageous enough to rise up and publicly object to that reality that is euphemistically called war. (The word euphemism is defined as: an inoffensive term substituted for one considered offensively explicit).
I have witnessed the tragic, often permanent consequences of violence suffered by many soldier- and civilian-victims of war through my 40 years of practicing medicine, and I feel strongly that war would be better defined non-euphemistically as: ”the state-planned, state-sponsored, demonization and indiscriminate mass slaughter (including the maiming, starving, sickening, raping, pillaging and homelessness-making) of humans, most of whom are typically unarmed, innocent women, babies, children and the elderly, by well-trained, usually unaware killing-soldiers who obediently follow their lethal orders from command and control centers far away from the battlefield whose hidden paymasters are war-profiteers in government, finance, the media and the weapons industries .”
I have written frequently about the gruesome neurological, mental and spiritual consequences of participation in war and in the training for war. I can also attest to the fact that there is a very high probability that posttraumatic stress disordered veterans are highly likely to be incurable (although they may possibly be partially treatable if monumental efforts are undertaken).
My experience agrees with the published medical literature. It tells me that the deformities that can come from any experience of horrendous violence, whether one is the victim, the perpetrator or the bystander, are likely to be permanent. My experience also tells me that, (surprise, surprise) combat-induced mental and physical ill health is 100% preventable.
The Catholic Worker Movement knows that too and is warning us all. We need to listen to them.
Steve Jacobs is a Colombia, MO, Catholic Worker community member. The nonviolent direct action that he was arrested at was at Honeywell’s new 1 Billion dollar hydrogen bomb manufacturing facility in Kansas City, MO.
For background information on this specific case, see John LaForge’s article about the action, entitled "Up Against the War Machine in Kansas City", at:
Gary Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, Minnesota, and a founding member of Every Church A Peace Church. He writes about issues of religion, militarism, peace, justice and mental health.
