Dear Friends,
Early this morning, from 7-8 AM, ten peacemakers witnessed at the Pentagon to commemorate the Feast of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents. The witnessed was organized by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in conjunction with the Little Flower Catholic Worker and Norfolk Catholic Worker.
We act in prayerful solidarity with many sisters and brothers today in the U.S. and elsewhere who are commemorating this special feast day by engaging in acts of public witness in resistance to a warmaking empire.
The witness began with Bill Frankel-Streit (Little Flower Catholic Worker) and Kim Williams (Norfolk Catholic Worker) leading a procession from the designated Pentagon police designated protest area to the main checkpoint gate of the Pentagon located next to the Metro entrance. Bill and Kim proceeded to block this gate holding a banner: “Wounded Knee to GAZA-Stop the Massacre of Innocents!” (see attached Photo) Bill and Kim offered statements explaining their action as they were given three warnings to leave or be arrested. Also, during this time, the other eight peacemakers stood nearby holding signs. An Intro statement to our witness and an excerpt of Pope Francis’s Christmas Day Message was read (see below), and the songs Cry of Ramah and Coventry Carol were offered. When Kim and Bill refused to comply with police orders, they were placed under arrest. We then all sang the Vine and Fig Tree and recited the Lord’s Prayer.
The remaining eight returned to the designated protest area to continue our witness and prayer. (see attached photos) This included holding banners and signs (see attachments), and reading the following: a Gospel account of the massacre of the Holy Innocents (Mt. 2:13-18), excerpted reflections of the ongoing Gaza Massacre by a Jewish doctor and two Palestinians ministers in Bethlehem (see below—please also see link “Christ in the Rubble”), a poem by Sr. Anne Montgomery (Feast of the Innocents:1991-In Memoriam: Mass Graves), a Litany (see below) and a Redeem the Times Declaration (see below).
I want to express appreciation to all the readers: Steve Baggarly, Paul Magno, Michele Dunne and Jack McHale, and to all who participated in this witness. Grateful, too, for the photos from Michele and Jack. And we are mindful of and grateful to everyone who expressed their prayerful support and solidarity with this witness, (including those of you who receive this) but who could not be physically present.
After processing by Pentagon police, Bill and Kim were released and charged with “disobeying a lawful order.” They were given a March 7, 2024 court date to appear in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA. We are deeply thankful for the courageous witness offered by Bill and Kim!
Another prayer of intercession was offered this morning at the Pentagon! God have mercy on U.S.! In these perilous times we need now, more than ever, to live and proclaim the Gospel of Nonviolence and resist the ongoing massacre of the Holy Innocents today.
In Christ’s peace,
Art
Introduction to Holy Innocents Witness 2023
(Prepared by Art Laffin)
Good Morning. We greet everyone going into the Pentagon and the Pentagon police in a spirit of peace and nonviolence. Today, Christian churches commemorate the feast of the massacre of the Holy Innocents, recalling how Herod, fearful of being removed from power, sought to destroy the child Jesus by ordering the slaughter of boys under two years old in and around Bethlehem. We, members of the DDCW, Pax Christi, the Atlantic Life and Southern Life Community, FAN, and other peace groups, come to the Pentagon, the center of warmaking on our planet, to remember the innocents who have been killed–past and present–due to greed, oppression, racism and war. Today, in this time of perpetual war, nuclear peril and climate chaos, the lives of countless innocents are endangered.
As followers of Jesus, who commands us to love and never to kill, we unequivocally oppose and condemn all killing, no matter who the perpetrator is. We remember and pray for all victims of violence, war and occupation– from Ukraine to Israel and Palestine. We remember the Israeli victims of the horrific October 7th Hamas attack. We remember all Palestinian victims of the Israeli indiscriminate mass slaughter and destruction of Gaza over the last several months, including three Christian women, 84-year-old Ilham Farah who was killed by a sniper on Nov. 13th outside of Holy Family Church in Gaza, and Nahida Khalil Anton and her adult daughter Samar Kamal Anton, who, on Dec. 14th, were killed and others wounded by snipers outside the same church. Speaking on Dec. 17th about these women and the house of Mother Teresa’s nuns that was damaged on the church compound, Pope Francis said: “Some say it’s terrorism. It’s war. Yes, it’s war. It’s terrorism.” (For interview with Philip Farah about his relative Ilham Farah killed outside Holy Family Parish in Gaza see: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/20/part_2_palestinian_christian_community_in
We remember all children living under systems of violence, oppression and white supremacy.
Our faith in the nonviolent Jesus compels us to nonviolently resist the massacre of Holy Innocents today. We are ever so mindful that children are always the first victims of war. We call into our presence this morning all the Holy Cloud of Witnesses, including those who have witnessed here at the Pentagon proclaiming Jesus’ Gospel of Nonviolence in resistance to a warmaking empire.
GAZA MASSACRE REFLECTIONS
Excerpt from Oct. 28th Remarks by Dr. Gabor Mate Regarding the Israeli Assault of Gaza (Gabor Mate is a Canadian physician and author, whose maternal grandparents were killed in Auschwitz when he was five. Taken from the Dec./Jan. 2023-2024 issue of The Catholic Radical).
“Words fail me at this point. It’s difficult to explain how I perceive the situation, but in a certain deep sense, I feel that it’s the worst thing I’ve seen in my whole life. It’s impossible to compare atrocities. Nothing compares with the mechanized murder of 5.6 million Jews by the Nazis. But what is different about the situation [in Gaza] is that I’ve never seen anything so publicly committed, such atrocities perpetrated on television, with the victims presented as the perpetrators. And this spectacle, this obscene, vicious spectacle, that we’re subjected to is either supported or condoned by the major media and all the politicians.”
Excerpts Two Palestinian Ministers from Bethlehem
The following are excerpts from two Palestinian ministers in the Holy Land regarding the Israeli onslaught of Gaza.
REV. MUNTHER ISAAC, a Palestinian pastor of a Lutheran church in Bethlehem, addressed his congregation earlier this month in front of a nativity scene with the figure of Jesus Christ in a keffiyeh, surrounded by rubble. He stated: “Christmas is a ray of light and hope from the heart of pain and suffering. Christmas is the radiance of life from the heart of destruction and death. In Gaza, God is under the rubble. He is in the operating room. If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble. I invite you to see the image of Jesus in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble, in every child struggling for life in destroyed hospitals, in every child in incubators. Christmas celebrations are canceled this year, but Christmas itself is not and will not be canceled, for our hope cannot be canceled.” In A Liturgy of Lament held in Bethlehem on Dec. 23, Rev. Isaac declared: “We are broken… This should have been a time of joy; instead, we are mourning. We are fearful. 20,000 killed. Thousands under the rubble still. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways. Day after day after day. 1.9 million displaced! Hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed. Gaza as we know it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. A genocide. The world is watching; Churches are watching. Gazans are sending live images of their own execution… We are tormented by the silence of the world. Leaders of the so-called “free” lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population. They gave the cover….Here we confront the theology of the Empire…The theology of the Empire becomes a powerful tool to mask oppression under the cloak of divine sanction. It divides people into “us” and “them.” It dehumanizes and demonizes…It calls for emptying Gaza, just like it called the ethnic cleansing in 1948 “a divine miracle.” “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they said of us. This is the theology of Empire…This war has confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal…As they said, if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get a single “Hamas militant” then so be it! We are not humans in their eyes. (But in God’s eyes… no one can tell us we are not!) The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling!…In this war, the many Christians in the Western world made sure the Empire has the theology needed. It is self-defense, we were told! (And I ask How?) In the shadow of the Empire, they turned the colonizer into the victim, and the colonized into the aggressor. Have we forgotten that the state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans? We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear: Silence is complicity, and empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end to occupation, and the shallow words of empathy without direct action — are all under the banner of complicity. So here is my message: Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell on earth before October 7th…If you are not appalled by what is happening; if you are not shaken to your core – there is something wrong with your humanity. If we, as Christians, are not outraged by this genocide…there is something wrong with our Christian witness, and compromising the credibility of the Gospel!…In our pain, anguish, and lament, we have searched for God, and found him under the rubble in Gaza. Jesus became the victim of the very same violence of the Empire…This Christmas season, as we search for Jesus, he is to be found not on the side of Rome, but our side of the wall. In a cave, with a simple family. Vulnerable. Barely, and miraculously surviving a massacre. Among a refugee family. This is where Jesus is found. https://www.redletterchristians.org/christ-in-the-rubble-a-liturgy-of-lament/
REV. MITRI RAHEB, pastor, teacher and writer in Bethlehem, stated in an Dec. 22, 2023 interview: “The Christmas story actually is a Palestinian story, par excellence. It talks about a family in Nazareth, in the north of Palestine, that is ordered by an imperial decree of the Romans to evacuate to Bethlehem, to go there and register. And this is exactly what our people in Gaza have been experiencing these 75 days. It talks about Mary, the pregnant woman, on the run, exactly like 50,000 women in Gaza who are actually displaced. Jesus was actually born as a refugee. There was no place at the inn for him to be born, so he was put in a manger. And this is exactly what also the kids that are coming to life these days in Gaza are experiencing. You know, most of the hospitals are damaged, out of service, and so there are no delivery places for all of these pregnant women in Gaza. And then you have the bloodthirsty Herod that ordered to kill the kids in Bethlehem to stay in power. And in Gaza, over 8,000 kids have been murdered for Netanyahu to stay in power. And you have this message that the angels declared, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on Earth,” which was actually a critique of the empire, because glory belongs to the Almighty and not to the mighty. And the peace that Jesus came to proclaim is not the peace, the Pax Romana, the peace that is based on subjugation and military operation, but on human dignity, equality and justice. And this is actually what we call for. And I have to say I find it really a shame that in this season, where every church hears these words, “peace on Earth,” that the United States is vetoing even a ceasefire. It’s a shame. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/22/christmas_cancelled_in_palestine_mitri_raheb
Excerpt from Pope Francis Christmas Day Message:
In the Scriptures, the Prince of Peace is opposed by the “Prince of this world” (Jn 12:31), who, by sowing the seeds of death, plots against the Lord, “the lover of life” (cf. Wis 11:26). We see this played out in Bethlehem, where the birth of the Saviour is followed by the slaughter of the innocents. How many innocents are being slaughtered in our world! They are the little Jesuses of today, these little ones whose childhood has been devastated by war.To say “yes” to the Prince of Peace, then, means saying “no” to war, to every war and to do so with courage, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. This is what war is: an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. To say “no” to war means saying “no” to weaponry… And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise? Today, as at the time of Herod, the evil that opposes God’s light hatches its plots in the shadows of hypocrisy and concealment. How much violence and killing takes place amid deafening silence, unbeknownst to many! Isaiah, who prophesied the Prince of Peace, looked forward to a day when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation”, a day when men “will not learn war any more”, but instead “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (2:4). With God’s help, let us make every effort to work for the coming of that day!May it come in Israel and Palestine, where war is devastating the lives of those peoples. I embrace them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza, the parish of Gaza, and the entire Holy Land. My heart grieves for the victims of the abominable attack of 7 October last, and I reiterate my urgent appeal for the liberation of those still being held hostage. I plead for an end to the military operations with their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims, and call for a solution to the desperate humanitarian situation by an opening to the provision of humanitarian aid. May there be an end to the fueling of violence and hatred. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/urbi/documents/20231225-urbi-et-orbi-natale.html
LITANY
(prepared by Art Laffin)
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
During the last three decades, the United States has engaged in immoral and illegal military intervention and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, U.S. intervention resulted in over several million Iraqi deaths and countless injuries from bombings, sanctions, torture and occupation; over four million refugees; immeasurable trauma for an entire society; political and social instability; and an endless cycle of violence.
During its criminal military intervention in Afghanistan, tens of thousands of Afghan civilians were killed and wounded and there has been political and social instability. Like Iraq, an entire population has been traumatized by U.S. warmaking. We demand that all those responsible for committing these war crimes be held accountable.
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
In Yemen, the U.S. continues to provide direct military support and weapons to Saudi Arabia in its brutal war against the Houthi rebels. The war in Yemen has killed over 150,000 people. According to UNICEF, more than 11,000 boys and girls have been killed and injured during the war. More than 540,000 children under the age of five suffer life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, with one child continuing to die every 10 minutes from preventable causes. A Lockheed Martin made bomb was used in the Saudi bombing of a school bus in Yemen on Aug. 9, 2018 killing over 40 children. We demand that all those responsible for committing these war crimes be held accountable.
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
We also remember the thousands of innocent civilians who have died as a result of U.S. drone attacks and air strikes over the last twenty years. Two years ago, the New York Times published a series exposing a vast cover-up by the Pentagon of hiding the numbers of civilians killed by these U.S. bombings. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), U.S. strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen from January 2004 to February 2020 killed between 10,888 and 20,000 people. On August 29, 2021, 7 children were among the 10 family members of the Ahmadi family that were killed in Kabul Afghanistan by a Lockheed Hellfire missile fired from a General Atomics Reaper Drone. We demand that all those responsible for committing these war crimes be held accountable.
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
In retaliation for the October 7th Hamas attack that claimed the lives of over 1,200 Israelis and the taking of 240 hostages which we denounce, the Israeli government and military has engaged in a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, despite pleas for an immediate ceasefire from the UN, Pope Francis, Jewish Voices for Peace, numerous human rights, religious and humanitarian aid organizations, and countless citizens worldwide. As we remember the over 21,000 Palestinian victims and countless wounded in Gaza, and the over 1 million displaced who are in urgent need of food and humanitarian assistance, we decry U.S. complicity in these atrocities by providing weapons and intelligence to Israel, and for refusing to support UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire. We remember all Palestinian victims in the West Bank who have been killed by the Israeli military and Jewish settlers, and all who continue to suffer under the ruthless U.S.-backed Israeli occupation of the West Bank. We demand a permanent ceasefire, that all humanitarian aid be made available to the starving refugees of Gaza, release of all Palestinian prisoners and those held hostage by Hamas, an end to the occupation, self-determination for Palestinians and a just peace in the Holy Land. We demand that all those responsible for committing war crimes be held accountable.
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
The 2024 NDAA military spending bill of $886 billion was recently passed by the House and Senate, and signed by President Biden. The U.S. proceeds with an estimated $1.7 trillion nuclear modernization program over the next several decades, which includes 12 new Columbia-Class nuclear submarines to replace existing Ohio-Class Trident subs at an estimated cost of over $114 billion. The Pentagon’s new B-21 Raider is a dual-capable strike stealth bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear weapons. Each B-21 will cost over $700 million. Estimated costs for 100 B21’s over the next 30 years will exceed $200 billion. Pope Francis has declared that the mere possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. These exorbitant expenditures for weapons and war are an abomination–an affront to God and a crime against the poor!
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
According to Save the Children, 1.7 billion children are living in poverty. According to the Poor People’s Campaign, there are 140 million poor and low-income people in the U.S. According to the Children Defense Fund, 11 million children live in poverty, including 1 in 7 children and in 6 children under 5. Over 25 million people are uninsured in the U.S. Over 650,000 people are experiencing homelessness in the U.S. In 2023, 90 people in D.C. died without the dignity of a home. Dr. King declared: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
On January 24th of this year, the Doomsday Clock was set to 90 seconds before midnight due to the existential dangers of nuclear war and climate change — threats compounded by cyber-enabled information warfare, upgrades to existing nuclear systems, the Ukraine war, and worsening world tensions. The Ukraine war has further exacerbated the nuclear peril between the two foremost nuclear powers. While the U.S. has always maintained a “first-use” nuclear weapons policy, Russia has stated it would consider using nuclear weapons if it feels endangered by increased U.S. and NATO intervention in the Ukraine war. With respect to waging war, Dr. King, who condemned nuclear weapons in 1959, declared: “War is not the answer…I consider war an evil…The choice before us is either nonviolence or nonexistence.” It is imperative that the U.S. and the eight other nuclear-armed states ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
According to the Federation of American Scientists, nine countries possess roughly 12,700 warheads. Approximately 90 percent of all nuclear warheads are owned by the U.S. and Russia (Russia has 5,977; the U.S. has 5,428). U.S. nuclear weapons are also stored at six military bases in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Turkey. Furthermore, U.S. and NATO missile defense systems ring Russia and China, increasing already heightened tensions. The U.S. and Russia, whose nuclear forces are on high alert, as well as China, are developing hypersonic weapons that could become nuclear capable.
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
Every day, the world’s addiction to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power is the cause of environmental contamination that is threatening global devastation. With nearly 800 military bases worldwide establishing its vast war machine, the Pentagon is the world’s single biggest consumer of fossil fuels, making it a major contributor to destabilizing the climate. Climate chaos acutely impacts the poor countries of the world. According to the WHO, climate change threatens the essential ingredients of good health – clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply and safe shelter – and has the potential to undermine decades of progress in global health. Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress alone.
Refrain: War Hurts and Kills Children, Help Us Abolish War!
Redeem the Times Declaration (We are indebted to Dan Berrigan and Ardeth Platte–Presente!–for their contributions to this Declaration). “Redeem the times,” proclaims the late peacemaking prophet, Jesuit Priest, Daniel Berrigan, along with countless others. “The times are inexpressibly evil. And yet, the times are inexhaustibly good, solaced by the courage and hope of many. The truth rules, Christ is not forsaken.” The violence, massacres and disregard for the truth and human life and creation stops here today at the Pentagon. Now is the time for national repentance and personal and societal transformation. In solidarity with sisters and brothers around the world, we resolve to:–commit ourselves to follow the nonviolent example of Jesus and call on all soldiers to refuse to fight and kill, and lay down their weapons; –denounce and resist all forms of State-sanctioned killing, systemic violence, racial injustice, discrimination and sexism;–end environmental destruction, poverty and economic inequality;–respect the human rights of all people, especially immigrants and refugees; –call on those who political leadership and all diplomats to adopt nonviolent and just peace initiatives to replace military solutions to resolve conflicts;–commit in policy that our country makes reparations to all victims of its military interventions worldwide and war crimes; abolish torture, war, and weapons forever, hammer all swords into plowshares; and convert the war economy so our planet and people may live;–build homes for all, assure healthy food for all, develop health care and education for all, plan an economy for full meaningful employment, develop renewable energy implementation, mass transit lines, practice restorative justice;–implore the U.S. and all nuclear nations to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which, to date, has been ratified by 69 nations; –celebrate God’s creation with joy. During this Holy Season we are reminded once again of the promise of Emmanuel, God is with us. And we are invited by Jesus to make the Word flesh and to nonviolently resist the Herod’s of this world and all forces of death. We are ever mindful of the hope-filled message of the angel Gabriel to Mary of Nazareth, that “nothing will be impossible for God!” As we approach the end of 2023 and move into a New Year, let us keep our eyes on the prize and do all we can to make God’s reign of justice, love and peace a reality as we strive to create the beloved community and a nonviolent world.
The Risk of the Cross
Swords into Plowshares
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters
Democracy Now!
Common Dreams
Winter Soldier 2008
The Story of Stuff
Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Washington, D.C. 