Painting of the Storming of the Bastille
I thought of that Monday when I went to a meeting to hear the Most Reverend Archbishop of Santa Fe John C. Wester address the crisis of nuclear proliferation across the world, initiated and continued at the Los Alamos Labs, just up the hill.
There were three hundred people, a varied crowd, listening attentively in the big church hall. The archbishop listed the threats to our planet that the expansion of nuclear pits and the war machines designed to carry them represent. He is a quiet man, perhaps already stepping into dangerous territory to denounce the government program the Catholic church has long supported. Perhaps his most powerful statement was when he linked anti-nuclear proliferation to the so-called “Pro-Life” movement vigorously supported by most Catholics and their churches. And now he has the Pope behind him, declaring recently that the possession of nuclear weapons is a sin.
It seemed unlikely that any of the men in charge of our massive over-development of pits (we already have more than enough to blow up the world) were present in that audience.
I felt as we filed out that something more needed to be done: a match supplied by the community that had listened patiently to the speech. Even a pad of paper and pencil so that those of us who might be willing to take part in a street protest could register.
As Gloria Steinem reminded a university audience years ago, without organizing there is nothing accomplished.
Perhaps the Archbishop’s church would have objected to this kind of open solicitation; after all, his talk, titled “Living in the Light of God’s Peace,” was labeled innocuously “A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament,” not a march, not a protest.
But I’m grateful for his words; he is the only church leader who has spoken out, and now others must produce the signup sheet and the pencils.
And we must provide the match.
[Related news and a pamphlet from Archbishop Wester is available for download on the Archdiocese of Santa Fe website.]
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