Longtime Anti-Nuclear Activist John Dear Arrested 75+ Times ...

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from DemocracyNow: http://i1.democracynow.org/2009/4/20/longtime_anti_nuclear_activist_john_dear

Guest: Father John Dear, longtime Jesuit peace activist. He is the former director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and has written over twenty-five books on peace and nonviolence. His most recent book is his autobiography, A Persistent Peace. He has been arrested more than seventy-five times for acts of civil disobedience against war and nuclear weapons, including last week while protesting the US drone warplanes at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.


AMY GOODMAN: Let’s start with what President Obama said, talking about the abolition of nuclear weapons, though he said it wouldn’t be in his lifetime.

FATHER JOHN DEAR: Well, it’s a great breakthrough to have a president even speak about a nuclear-free world. And we all rejoice in that he said that, but that’s the key sentence for me, that he said, “Alas, this won’t happen, probably, in our lifetime.” And we have to say—the activists around the country, the peace and justice movement—not only does it have to happen in our lifetime, it has to begin and happen this year or next year, that we can’t have a thousand nuclear weapons, which is what the rumors are that he’s going to propose—we go down to a thousand nuclear weapons. We have to abolish all nuclear weapons. And it has to begin here in New Mexico. And so, I think the movement around the country has to push the Obama administration harder than ever, as it’s beginning to talk about a nuclear-free world, and really demand it now.

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AMY GOODMAN: You were kicked out of a church?

FATHER JOHN DEAR: Yeah, for speaking against the Iraq war. I had five parishes, four of them very poor and one a kind of a middle-upper-class parish of retired military families near a ski resort. And the war was starting, and naturally I was saying, “Hey, you cannot be a Christian and claim to follow the nonviolent Jesus who said ‘love your enemies’ and support the bombing of children in Iraq or nuclear weapons or the whole culture of war.” Well, they were appalled and kicked me out.

And I think that should be the future of every Christian minister, priest and bishop—getting kicked out for speaking out against war and nuclear weapons—so that all the churches become communities of nonviolence, which is what the gospel of Jesus was about. And so, that was, you know, a very hard experience, but a good experience. And it needs to happen more and more, that we get church people to return to the heart of, I think, nonviolence at the heart of every religion and be instruments of peace in this country.

read more and listen to interview: http://i1.democracynow.org/2009/4/20/longtime_anti_nuclear_activist_john_dear

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. A Catholic priest?

Sorry. That's impossible.

I read these boards carefully, and I know that there are no such things as progressive Catholics, or Catholic clergy who aren't money-grubbing pedophiles.

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2. .

:D