PAX CHRISTI IN DAYTON:
Allen, Rodger Van
INTERNATIONAL PEACE MOVEMENT
PAX CHRISTI IN DAYTON
Pax Christi, the International Catholic Peace Move-merit, is alive and well in its U.S. chapter, and though in its infancy, faces its future with...
...Personnel from diocesan peace and justice or social action offices were in attendance, though not in the numbers one might have looked for...
...There were four Pentecostals from Ann Arbor, each with a deep-rooted and long-time concern and work for peace and justice...
...A physician from Fort Wayne, Peter Mayock, attended with his wife and two teenage sons...
...ican Catholicism...
...Pax Christi does not hold pacifism as a condition of membership, and has its ties to the Pax Christi International...
...Pax Christi has taken seriously Pope Paul's statement that "if peace is truly desired, then it is possible, and if it is possible then it is a duty...
...CPF in its more than a decade of existence has a distinguished record of on-street witness and service...
...It should...
...But the meeting was not essentially a conference for debate, but for action, and perhaps the broadest basis of agreement was that the development of Catholic thinking on war and peace in and since Vatican II had gone largely unpromulgated...
...The use of force was not eliminated for Finn, who held that "there are some values that justify that dire action...
...College professors were present, but in a somewhat underrepresented fashion...
...It is not, however, a strictly pacifist group, but one that "invites concerned Catholics to respond to the Church's call to evaluate war with an entirely new attitude and to take an active role in making secure a peace based on justice and love...
...It spread rapidly and secured the approval and encouragement of Pope Pins XII as the International Catholic Peace Movement...
...Harry Bury, a priest from Minneapolis who had visited Vietnam in 1971...
...INTERNATIONAL PEACE MOVEMENT PAX CHRISTI IN DAYTON Pax Christi, the International Catholic Peace Move-merit, is alive and well in its U.S...
...There are chapters of Pax Christi in most European countries, typically with a bishop as President...
...Cornell commented that CPF may have "a John the Baptist role" in regard to Pax Christi, though to most observers the need for both groups at this point is obvious...
...An example of such an exchange was that between Jesuit Dick McSorley, whose book with the rhetorical question title Kill for Peace...
...Its presence in the U.S...
...But all the dialogue from whatever quarter recognized a common concern for peacemaking...
...Could it be that conscientious objection, now clearly no longer a "deviant" position, would, in fact, emerge as the dominant Catholic view...
...That's the stuff out of which authentic movements come...
...Catholic Conference...
...There was Betty Leone, a mother of seven, from Washington...
...Should not Catholics work to reorient the priorities of our national government away from heavy arms spending and trading to priorities that have as their concern the truly human survival of mankind...
...And there were others whose full-time occupation was such that their presence was expected...
...Striking, however, was the broad base of grassroots participants...
...Eileen Egan, of Catholic Relief Services, had earlier in the conference called such weapons an "Auschwitz in the air," and many were uneasy about leaving the use of such weapons in cryptic terms, however well-intentioned such a posture might be...
...There was no smugness or self-righteousness in the group...
...Bishops Dozier and Gum-bleton, while they serve on the Executive Committee of Pax Christi U.S.A., have chosen to serve more as colleagues than as presiders over the group...
...It was an impressive and diverse group...
...They were hopeful but basically uncalculating as to movement potential...
...is weak on financial resources and full-time staff too, though these needs may be remedied once its vast potential as a broad-based Catholic movement is realized...
...It is seeking to work through the Catholic Church in America to promote peace aad justice through church educational structures, diocesan centers for peace and justice, religious orders, parishes, and in the hearts and actions of concerned individuals...
...Some had received financial help from their schools or Centers to help them get there...
...They struck me as simply concerned to make a real difference with their own lives...
...They came by car, train and air, many with sleeping bags...
...so were Worldview editor James Finn, Sister Mary Rae Waller of Network, the Washington-based sisters' lobby group, Tom Cornell of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, and Bryan Hehir of the International Justice and Peace Division of the U.S...
...Indeed there was no easy categorization of groups...
...They came from 30 different states with males in a slight majority...
...Can Pax Christi make it as a broad-based Catholic movement...
...This was evident in the comments of many on Bryan Helm's approval of nuclear weapons possession, and bluffing, but not employment...
...Students, perhaps one in every five attendees, came from Newman Centers in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and elsewhere, and from Catholic colleges such as Aquinas College in Dubuque, and the University of Detroit...
...Was the most significant period of development and thinking on war and peace in the post-Augustinian life of the Church to be passed by so casually...
...chapter, and though in its infancy, faces its future with hope and determination...
...was a source of encouragement to Tom Cornell of the Catholic Peace Fellowship as distinctive in identity but collaborative...
...Ter Maat, a distinguished middle-aged gentleman, dates his concern and work for peace from his presence in Arnhem during that city's tragic World War II battle...
...That is the conclusion carried away by 220 concerned Catholics who had gathered at the University of 'Dayton's Bergamo Conference Center, November 21-23, to do their part in seeing the U.S...
...CPF is distinctly pacifist and has its ties to the interfaith Fellowship of Reconciliation...
...Pax Christi U.SA...
...The participants at Dayton realized this but didn't pause over it too long...
...Finally, what about the arms race Vatican II called an "utterly treacherous trap...
...Joseph Fahey of Manhattan College's Peace Studies Institute, the Executive Secretary of Pax Christi U.S.A., was there, of course, as were Gordon Zahn and Eileen Egan, whose energetic work had resulted in the founding of the group...
...Joe Fahey indicated, however, that a thorough mailing list for this group had not been available, and Bryan Hehir expressed confidence of good support for Pax Christi from such persons...
...Bishops Gumbleton and Dozier, the group's episcopal moderators, were present actively participating in the weekend's formal meetings and informal discussions...
...Pax Christi has its international headquarters at The Hague, Holland...
...expressed his view, and the patiently analytical Jim Finn of Worldview, who defended the just war doctrine as "providing principles to think about for policy decisions where power and morality intersect...
...Pax Christi was founded at the end of World War II by Bishop Theas of France, to promote reconciliation, between the French and Germans...
...And what of selective conscientious objection, and its corollary of amnesty...
...If it attracts the support it deserves, Pax Christi will serve as a much needed conscience to and for the Catholic community on issues of peace and justice, and could be a dramatic and significant new element in American Catholicism...
...Were not deeper reflections in the community needed...
...Was it not time to bring "all the boys" home...
...Those who hold to complete non-violence were well represented at the assembly, but there was only the healthiest kind of tension and exchange between them and what seemed a minority just war view...
...The ages ranged from 19 to 75 with every decade amply represented...
...Perhaps two-thirds of the women were sisters...
...Tom Heath, a Dominican master of novices, from New England...
...Bernard Cardinal Alfrink, the International President, sent a warm letter of greeting and encouragement to the American chapter, and it was personally delivered by Carel Ter Maat, the International Secretary of the Movement...
...Angie Calvert, a youthful veteran of tax resistance staff work in New York, now the proprietor of a new Catholic Worker house in Kansas City...
...Pax Christi's statement of purpose holds that it "intends to contribute to the building of peace and justice by exploring and articulating the ideal of Christian nonviolence and by striving to apply it to personal life and the structures of society...
...RODGER VAN ALLEN (Rodger Van Allen is Professor of Religious Studies, Villanova University, Co-Editor of Horizons, the Journal of the College Theology Society, and author of The Commonweal and American Catholicism...
...Ten Benedictine sisters from one community in Atchison, Kansas, attended...
...It has supplied counseling and legal services, has seen to the needs of "prison widows," and conducted educational efforts, all on a hand-to-mouth financial base...
...Catholics could indeed carry their weight in the international movement...
Vol. 102 • December 1975 • No. 20
