Gathering Momentum Toward Nuclear Zero

Speaker: Marie Dennis, Co-President of Pax Christi International; former Director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns; member of Assisi Community

Date: Friday, February 6, 2015 @ 7:30 p.m.

Place: Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Rd. NW, Washington, DC 20010

“Nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutually assured destruction cannot be the basis for an ethics of … peaceful coexistence among peoples and states.” (Pope Francis, Dec. 7, 2014)

In landmark cases filed in the International Court of Justice and a U.S. Federal District Court, the Marshall Islands, itself a U.S. nuclear weapons testing ground, is making a powerful claim that the nine nuclear-armed nations have failed to comply with their obligations, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and customary international law, to pursue negotiations for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons.

Thanks to the Marshall Islands legal action and to three major conferences focused on the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear exchange – as well as to the persistent efforts of Ploughshares activists, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and so many others, the discussion about nuclear disarmament has been reframed. As the NPT Review Conference approaches in April/May 2015, the focus is shifting from national security strategy and stability to what the detonation of these weapons would do to humans and to the earth. At the same time, “Cold War” rhetoric is pointing to rattling of the nuclear sabre by Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, as well as to threats of proliferation.

Pax Christi International filed an amicus brief in support of the Marshall Islands lawsuit against the U.S. government. Pax Christi member organizations are deeply involved at every level in nuclear disarmament efforts, including in the leadership of ICAN and Abolition 2000. Please come for an update and discussion — action toward nuclear zero will be crucial in the coming months.

For more info contact the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 202-882-9649

From Ferguson to Guantanamo: Institutionalized Brutality and Torture

When: Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 8 p.m.

Where: First Trinity Lutheran Church, 4th St and E St. NW (Judicial Square stop on the Redline)

Experts will connect the dots between the police killing of unarmed African Americans in the U.S. and the brutal treatment of Muslim men imprisoned at Guantanamo. The panelists include Kathy Kelly (Voices for Creative Nonviolence), Marsha Coleman-Adebayo (DC Hands-Up Coalition), and a Center for Constitutional Rights attorney.  (Others to be announced.) The Peace Poets from New York will begin and end the evening with performances.

This program is the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Clarification of Thought program for January. Please join us.

Co-sponsored by Witness Against Torture and Dorothy Day Catholic Worker

For more info call Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 202-882-9649.

For more info about the January 5-12, 2015 Witness Against Torture Fast and Public Witness to Close Guantanamo,

see: www.witnesstorture.org.