Entries from May 2007
St. Ann Social Concerns Meeting
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
7:00 p.m.
“In teaching us charity, the Gospel instructs us in the preferential respect due the poor and the special situation they have in society: the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others.” - A Call to Action, #23
Barbara Roth of Catholic Relief Services and P.E.A.C.E. will address the Catholic Social Teaching principle of Rights and Responsibilities on Wednesday, June 6th at 7:00 p.m. in the Ministry Room located in the NE corner of the parking garage of St. Ann’s Gymnatorium (NE corner of 3rd St. and Olive Avenue, West Palm Beach, FL)
Don’t miss the opportunity to be inspired by this prominent Catholic social justice advocate.
For more information, contact Barbara Richardson at 845-2010; bar8537@earthlink.net
Please plan to attend and bring a friend!
Categories: local events
“Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers”
In 1959 Jim Forest was 18 years old and working for the U.S. Navy. At the bus station in New York City he picked up Merton’s autobiography, “Seven Story Mountain”. He was hooked.
A year later, while visiting the Peter Maurin Farm on Staten Island, Jim heard Dorothy Day reading one of Merton’s letters. He was amazed. He had been under the impression that the monk of Seven Story Mountain was cloistered behind walls and had closed the door to the world forever yet here he was corresponding with one of the America’s more controversial figures.
In 1961, upon his discharge from the Navy, Jim joined the Catholic Worker Community in New York thinking that it would be his own stepping stone to the monastery. Knowing of his interest in Merton and attraction to the monastic life, Dorothy began sharing her Merton correspondence with Jim. By this time Jim had read more of Merton’s books. Merton and Jim began their own correspondence.
In late 1961 Merton invited Jim to Gethsemani. Their friendship and correspondence continued until Merton’s death in 1968. (probably longer 
) Jim went on in life to be a predominant presence in the formation of the Catholic Peace Fellowship and the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. His correspondence with Merton is extensive, as is his writing about Merton. His book, “Living with Wisdom”, is one of my favorite biographies of Merton. Jim and his wife, Nancy, now live in Amsterdam.
On June 8, 2007, Jim will give this lecture, “Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers” at the Thomas Merton Society’s 10th General Meeting in Memphis Tennessee.
Reference: Essays by Jim Forest “Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers”
Categories: news
The Narrow Path
Following in the footsteps of the great apostles of nonviolence – Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Oscar Romero – John Dear, SJ presents in The Narrow Path the challenging message of Jesus in a fresh way, speaking with new force and vision of God’s plea for peace. Available in late April 2007. View the Trailer.
Categories: news
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
- Blaise Pascal
Categories: Quotes
The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors. – Plutarch (46 A.D.-127 A.D.) Historian of the Roman Republic
Most people would rather opine a lie and “fit in” than profess the truth and be excluded. Just as the majority would rather be lied to and made comfortable than be told the truth and made uncomfortable. Liars have held humanity in the throes of illusion for countless centuries. Governmental, religious, and academic officialdom can and do transform basically decent human beings into unconscious automatons bereft of free will. They do this successfully because a majority of humans are terrified to assume personal responsibility.
- Michael Godspeed
Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
- James Madison, April 20, 1795
Categories: Quotes
The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their “vital interests” are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the “sanctity” of human life, or the “conscience” of the civilized world.
- James Baldwin – page 489 of COLLECTED ESSAYS (1998), from chapter one of “The Devil Finds Work” (orig. pub. 1976)
Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions and covetous desires, and for the ruled the abdication of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish enthralment to those in power.
- Leo Toystoy
If they talk about dying for principles that are bigger than life you say mis- ter you’re a liar. Nothing is bigger than life. There’s nothing noble in death. What’s noble about lying in the gound and rotting? What’s noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What’s noble about hav- ing your legs and arms blown off? What’s noble about being an idiot? What’s noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What’s noble about being dead? Because when you’re dead mister it’s all over. It’s the end. You’re less than a dog less than a rat less than a bee or an ant less than a maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You’re dead mister and you died for nothing. You’re dead mister. Dead.
- Dalton Trumbo – Source: Johnny Got His Gun – I entered the quote directly as it is found in the text with the same line endings, and the same lack of punctuation. Possibly the greatest anti-war novel ever written.
Categories: Quotes
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