August 30, 2008
Sisters of St Joseph
1884 Randolph Ave
St Paul, MN  55105

Join Witness Against War for a meal, music, and welcome event.

Witness Against War 2008 is a 450 mile walk from Chicago to St. Paul to challenge and nonviolently resist our country’s continuing war in and occupation of Iraq.

Our journey will begin in the City of Chicago, site of the 1968 Democratic Party convention in the midst of the Vietnam War. The walk will conclude on August 31 in St. Paul — in time for the start of the 2008 Republican Party convention in the midst of the Iraq war.

For more information, please contact: nancy@globalexchange.org phone #: 415-342-6409 or http://vcnv.org/witness-against-war.

Preemptive Peacemaking: Just Peace vs. Just War 

Friday, September 19, 2008
7-9pm

Cirque de Guerre a comedic, satirical, play about the mayhem of war told in a series of vignettes. Q & A following the performance.  Commissioned by Every Church A Peace Church.

Saturday, September 20, 2008
9am-3pm

Keynote address, Glen Harold Stassen, Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological Seminary: Just Peacemaking: The New Paradigm for the Ethics of Peace and War

Held at the O’Shaughnessy Education Center University of St. Thomas, St. Paul Campus.
 
Sponsored by Every Church a Peace Church and Co-sponsored by the University of St. Thomas , Justice and Peace Studies Program and UST Students for Justice and Peace 

For more information, please contact Rod Olsen at 651.228.7224 or joan@pleromacoaching.com or Every Church a Peace Church.

August 23, 2008
St. Frances Cabrini Church
1500 Franklin Ave SE
Minneapolis, MN  55414

Noted theologian Jim Douglass will do a book-reading and book signing of his ground-breaking book, “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.”  Jim Douglass presents a compelling, persuasive account of why President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and why the unmasking of this truth remains crucial for the future of our country and the world.  He traces the sequence of events that transforms Kennedy from a conventional Cold Warrior to someone determined to pull the world back from the edge of apocalypse, and argues that, only by unmasking the forces of the “Unspeakable” that killed him, can we free ourselves and our country to pursue Kennedy’s vision of peace. 

The event is sponsored by St. Martin’s Table.

Yours in peace,
 
John Dear, S.J.

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What Do the People Say?
Conscience and Faith
US Policies at Home and Abroad

September 27, 2008
Duluth, MN

Click on MN State Assembly for more information and to sign up!

Peace Lantern Float
Remembering the
63rd Anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

As it enters Hiroshima, the Ohta River splits into six fingers.  It was to these waters that tens of thousands fled seeking shelter from the flames of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.  It is here each August that people gather, as they do in Nagasaki three days later, to float lanterns and to remember: never again.

In Rochester we remember those days to remind ourselves of what we are capable of doing.  With nuclear weapons we are capable of destroying the world’s civilization.  We are also capable of preventing that destruction.  We gather to remind ourselves that the choice is ours.

Rochester commemorates the event in an annual Peace Lantern Floating Ceremony at Silver Lake Park.

WHERE: East picnic shelter at Silver Lake
WHEN: August 6th (Wednesday). If heavy rain, August 10th (Sunday)
  7pm: Gather to make lanterns; kits and instructions for making lanterns will be provided. 
  7:45pm: Ceremony followed by lantern floating at sunset

SPEAKERS: Mayor Ardell Brede and Professor Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer

MUSIC: Campfire II 
         
PLAY: A short play presented by Rochester students

WHY: George Shultz, Sec. of State 1982-89; William Perry, Sec. of Defense 1994-97; Henry Kissinger, Sec. of State 1973-77; Sam Nunn, former chair Senate Armed Services Committee: in an article in the Wall Street Journal Jan. 15, 2008 again point out that the world has reached “a nuclear tipping point” and call for an immediate move toward destruction of all nuclear weapons. They are joined by James Baker, Warren Christopher, William Cohen, Lawrence Eagleburger, Melvin Laird, Robert McNamara and Colin Powell. 
  http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120036422673589947.html
  “For the first time in history, both main party candidates have agreed to put America on a path    toward a world without nuclear weapons and all the risks they bring.”   (June 24, 2008)
  http://www.johnkerry.com/news/entry/america_looks_to_a_nuclear_free_world/

WHAT TO DO:   Check these web sites for information and suggested actions:
  International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
  http://www.ippnw.org/
  International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
  http://www.ippnw.org/Programs/ICAN/index.html
  Mayors for Peace http://www.mayorsforpeace.org/english/index.html
  Cities Are Not Targets (CANT) project Petition Drive
  http://www.mayorsforpeace.org/english/topic/list/36.htm
  https://www.ssl-hiroins.city.hiroshima.jp/pcf/en/form.htm
     
WHO: You! Everyone is welcome. All ages please come.

For the past twelve years, AlliantACTION has vigiled in front of Alliant Techsystems, Minnesota’s largest arms merchant. After being spun off from Honeywell who grew tired of the protests from the Honeywell Project, Alliant Techsystems, or ATK as it is known by their company logo and in the stock market, first located in an old Honeywell facility in Hopkins, MN. The weekly vigil by local activists started in 1996, focusing on ATK’s manufacture and sale of anti-personnel landmines. After a significant victory in court in 1997 when 79 people were acquitted of trespassing charges under a defense claiming International Law, the Wednesday morning vigil continued to grow in size.

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Franz Jägerstätter: Family Man & Martyr

Because he would not be part of Hitler’s unjust war, he is now Blessed Franz Jägerstätter.

In his cause for sainthood, let the American Church
pray for his intercession for this miracle–that the
war in Iraq will end, with all U.S. troops being
brought home, and hostilities to cease, by the end of
2009. Blessed Franz knows the cost of unjust war, as
do many other holy ones killed by Germany and all
sides in World War II. He is close to God in his
rejection of violence and war as a solution to our
conflicts. Scripture tells us sincere prayer will
always be answered, even if not in the way most
directly expected. Franz is perfectly placed in
eternity to be our intercessor helping end this unjust
war, which harms the American and Iraqi people so
grievously in body and soul.

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Review of James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 2008)

I had just turned 13 the month before the startling news was broadcast into my 8th grade classroom: President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas and had been rushed to the hospital. It was followed by the bulletin that the President was dead. Lorenzo, my fellow classmate, an Italian Catholic, burst into tears. I sat quietly thinking: at least we got that Papist out of the White House! The anti-Catholic indoctrination I received from my church and parents never allowed me to see JFK as a person, only a symbol of a false religion to reject. Oh, and he was a Democrat as well!

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