NCR SOA's blog

COLUMBUS, GA
Following a presentation titled: Behind the Swoosh,” University of Scranton freshman Jonathan Danforth proudly showed off his altered pair of Nike athletic shoes to Jim Keady. Danforth had seen a video about sweatshops that Keady had produced, and he decided to carefully remove Nike’s“Swoosh” logo from his shoes as a protest.

“I recognized the injustices that were being done to the workers, and I didn’t want to represent something like that,” Danforth told NCR, “and I just thought it would be the right thing to do.”

Keady, who 10 years ago was forced to resign from his job as a assistant men’s soccer coach at New York’s St.John’s University, approved of Danforth’s actions.

Keady delivered his lecture Saturday during a breakout session of the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice that is part of an annual protest weekend organized by SOA Watch, a group working to close the US Army’s Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (Formally the School of the Americas).

In 1998, Keady opposed St. John’s plans to cut a $3.5 million product endorsement deal with Nike.

COLUMBUS, GA
They came from throughout the country advocating everything from Canceling Third World debt, to closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, to stopping the death penalty. Some hawked T-Shirts and buttons. Religious orders recruited, but most simply vied for the attention of passers-by so they could tell all who would listen about their particular campaign.

The 19th annual SOA Watch weekend of events in this southwest Georgia military town looked a lot like the gatherings of years past. The number of protesters was down for the first time in recent years, perhaps because of a poor economy, or a post-election energy slump, but the enthusiasm was high as activists showed excitement that a new administration and more Democrats in Congress could mean 2009 will be the year Congress votes to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas), the US Army school that train s Latin American soldiers, many of whom have been implicated in human rights violations and killings in their native countries.

COLUMBUS, GA
Dying from cancer, and in hospice care, Jim Harney was not able to come to the annual School of the Americas Watch gathering this year, but Harney’s friend, Scott Wright, wanted to make sure that Harney’s life commitment to a more peaceful and just world was made known to the newest generation of activists.

Wright and his wife, Jean Stokan, distributed copies of a six-page tribute to Harney, who as a young priest in the late 1960s spent 18 months in federal prison for destroying draft files as a member of the Milwaukee 14, a group opposed to the Vietnam War. The six pages include several pieces of Harney’s writings and his photographs.

Harney is a professional photographer who traveled the world to take pictures of poor and oppressed peoples.

COLUMBUS, GA
While the election of Barack Obama has been welcome news to many peace and social justice activists, anti-military recruitment activist, Bill Galvin says an Obama presidency does not guarantee a smaller military, and Obama could push for a national service law that would require young adults to participate in volunteer programs that would include military service.

“Obama has said things like, ‘If we’re going to go to war, we should all share in the burden,’ and that is traditionally kind of a code word or a euphemism for ‘Maybe we ought to look at a draft,’” said Galvin, the counseling coordinator at The Center on Conscience & War in Washington, DC.

Galvin spoke with NCR as he stood in the middle of Benning Rd. handing out postcards to promote “Soldiers of Conscience,” a documentary film Galvin screened at the SOAW gathering.

COLUMBUS, GA Tikkun founder, Rabbi Michael Lerner has a grand plan -- The Global Marshall Plan -- “to end global and domestic homelessness, hunger, poverty, inadequate education, inadequate health care and repair the global environment,” and he needs the help of Catholics.
For the second straight year, Learner, who is launching his plan in cooperation with the Network of Spiritual Progressives, was at the SOA Watch weekend to present a workshop at the Ignatian Family Teach-In. “I’m here in part to appeal to the Catholic community to ask them to play a central role in building support for The Global Marshall Plan,” Lerner told NCR.
The p lan, which Lerner created, has been introduced into Congress, and it will be re-introduced next year. Written by Lerner, and co-introduced by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), a Muslim, and co-sponsored by Rep. James P. Moran (D-VA), a Catholic, the plan has a total of 20 backers in the House.

COLUMBUS, GA
Genevieve Mougey will graduate next May with a theology degree from St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN. While the 31-year says she doesn’t wish to be a priest, she does wish her Church at least offered women a place at the Eucharistic table.

“I myself don’t feel a call to ordained ministry, but it will be a difficult day, when I have a daughter, to tell her that, ‘You can do anything in this world except be an ordained member of our faith community.’”

Mougey made her comments following the traditional Saturday Jesuit vigil mass that drew more than 3,000 worshippers at last weekend’s SOA Watch events.
In the 19 years SOAW has been holding its annual fall event near Ft. Benning, women’s ordination has often been among the wide array of social justice topics addressed through the offering of workshops and/or petitions.

By PATRICK O’NEILL

COLUMBUS, GA
High school junior Ben Stracquatanio certainly looked out of place among the myriad peace activists gathered along Benning Rd. Sunday as part of the annual SOA Watch rally and mock funeral procession.

The St. Peter Prep junior was sporting a T-Shirt with the message: “Peace Through Superior Firepower.”

Stracquatanio, 16, traveled with 15 of his classmates from Jersey City, NJ to join other Catholic high school and college students who make up a huge percentage of the folks who come to the gates of Army Post Ft. Benning each fall to protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas, SOA), a US Army training school for Latin American soldiers.

“I’ve always had a very militaristic view of the world,” Stracquatanio told NCR. “So I came to learn more about the other side and hear more about the people who had died through this program -- tortured, executed, disappeared.”

In his Online column this week, Fr. John Dear reflects on the SOA. He writes:

"Thousands of us gathered this weekend, Nov. 21-23, for the annual funeral procession at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga., there to call for the closing of the notorious "School of Assassins," where the United States trains the Latin American death squads that, over the past few decades, have killed thousands. We gather there each year around Nov. 16 -- the anniversary of the massacre of the Jesuits in El Salvador. This year, the sole Jesuit at the University of Central America to have survived the attack, liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, was our guest of honor."

COLUMBUS, GA
When it was founded 25 years ago, Witness for Peace would send delegations of North Americans into Nicaraguan war zones where the US-backed Contra rebels were waging a guerrilla war that had deadly consequences for Nicaragua’s compasenos.

Once in place, even in the areas of heaviest fighting, the presence of North American civilians would force a Contra pullback. The rebels feared the consequences of killing a North American peace activist.

Putting North Americans in harm’s way is still part of WFP’s presence in Colombia, the South American nation where the US has poured in $6 billion in military aid, said WFP executive director Melinda St. Louis, but in the other four nations - Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Mexico - where Witness maintains a presence, the group’s emphasis over the years has looked more and more deeply into the economic realities of US policy on these Latin American nations.

Under the motto: Stop the War Against the Poor, Witness for Peace “started as a one-issue organization,” St. Louis said. “Our goal was just to stop the Contra war, to stop the US funding for the Contra in the 1980s in Nicaragua.

Fr. Roy Bourgeois has had his share of troubles with authority figures. The 69-year-old Maryknoll priest has spent about four years in jail and prison for acts of civil disobedience; he has been kicked out of Latin American countries for his rabble rousing on behalf of the poor, and he once called for the ordination of women while a guest on Vatican radio.

Even Bourgeois admits, however, he wasn’t expecting the international firestorm his latest run in with the Catholic hierarchy has stirred up. Last August, Bourgeois preached at the ordination of a Catholic woman priest. In October, he received a letter from the Vatican ordering him to recant his support for women’s ordination or face excommunication.

“This is the biggest beehive I’ve ever poked, the patriarchal beehive,” Bourgeois said Sunday just minutes after the final curtain was lowered at the 19th annual School of the Americas Watch weekend of protests outside the south gate of Army Post Ft. Benning. “And those bees in Rome, they are angry.

Hope, excitement, ambition and motivation seem the profit of the first two days at the SOA Protest and Ingnatian Family Teach-In. If that's the case, it's all underwritten by the solemn reflection that takes place on the event's final morning.

After two days of discussion and sharing ideas - the silent procession in remembrance of those throughout Latin America, victims of the SOA's training, is powerful in its simplicity. I was unable to learn how many entered the Fort's grounds this year, though one of the event's organizers told me last night he thought there would be about ten people.

COLUMBUS, GA.
In the early 1990s, the words global warming were infrequently heard. Times have changed, said Bellarmine College Prepatory science teacher, Casey McCullough.

McCullough and partner, Joseph P. Carver SJ, spoke to a full house of mostly college students Saturday as part of the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice workshop titled: “Creation Our First Teacher: God’s Invitation and Our Human Response.”

McCullough told his audience that global warming was, ”The most compelling social justice issue we confront today.”

COLUMBUS, GA
While nothing was said about the impending excommunication of Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois at Saturday night’s massive Jesuit vigil mass, concelebrant, Detroit auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton did offer words of support for the founder of the School of the Americas Watch movement.

In an interview with NCR following the Mass, Gumbleton said Bourgeois will be excommunicated for his support and for his participation in the Aug. 9 ordination of Catholic priest, Janice Sevre-Duszynska.

“He’s going to be excommunicated, there’s no question about it,” Gumbleton said. “I think it’s an unnecessary penalty.”

COLUMBUS, GA
Among the scores of Catholics gathered this weekend for the annual School of the Americas Watch witness at Ft. Benning, SOAW founder Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois is a bona fide hero.

This year, Bourgeois has an unprecedented distraction. A month ago, he was informed by the Vatican to recant his support for women’s ordination or face excommunication.

As promised, here are photos from this afternoon's events at the gates of Ft. Benning. Tomorrow morning, the silent procession and vigil will take place. Today, however, offered music, dancing, and a gathering of people looking for the opportunity to share a common belief in peace and justice - under a gorgeous Georgia sky.

This morning began with the same enthusiasm last night ended with. The crowd gathered early in the hall of the Convention Center to hear Pamela Bowman deliver the annual update regarding the legislative effort to shut down the School of the Americas. Her news was, from those I talked to who have been attending the event regularly for years, more optimistic than ever.

She noted that last year, legislation put before the U.S. House of Representatives fell just 7 votes shy of passing. Turnover in the recent elections has left her, and others, hoping this is the year efforts to shut down the School receives the legislative support it needs. A hopeful morning for those looking to bring about change.

COLUMBUS, GA
With global poverty at an all-time high, and getting worse, Jesuit Fr. John Sobrino said the gap between the haves and the have-nots has reached a new moral low: In the minds of the haves, the poor no longer exist.

Sobrino, who was in town to accept Pax Christi USA’s annual book award for “No Salvation Outside the Poor,” said North Americans and some Europeans exist in a “civilization of exclusion.”

COLUMBUS, GA
As he has done for the past five years, Edwin Ross Lewinson is back in town for the annual School of the Americas Watch gathering to call for the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

Lewinson is a celebrity among the so-called “prisoners of conscience,” the name given to those who opt each year to trespass onto Army Post Ft. Benning. The 78-year old professor emeritus at Seton Hall University, is totally blind, Despite “crossing the line” for three years in a row, Lewinson couldn’t get his charges to stick. A local magistrate kept dismissing Lewinson’s case. On his fourth try, Lewinson got his wish -- to be treated like everybody else. At his trial in January, he told Magistrate Mallon Faircloth: “If a blind person were a drug dealer, he would be sent to jail.”

So, Lewinson received 90 days in federal prison.

“I’d do it again because I think people should have a commitment,” Lewinson said Friday night. “If we want change we have to have a commitment.”

COLUMBUS, GA
On Friday’s opening night of the annual School of the Americas Watch gathering in this southwest corner of Georgia, the talk was less about Latin America, and more about the plight of SOA Watch founder, Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois, who was given 30 days, which were up today, by the Vatican to recant his support for women’s ordination or face excommunication.

At a local Howard Johnson motel that serves as headquarters for many of SOAW activities, recently ordained Catholic priest Janice Sevre-Duszynska celebrated a Eucharist. It was at Sevre-Duszynska’s Aug. 9 ordination in Lexington, KY, that Bourgeois con-presided and preached, an action that drew a quick and harsh response from Rome.

In a roundtable discussion following the Liturgy, mo st attends praised Bourgeoise as a hero and prophet. The gathering was sponsored by the Washington DC-based Women’s Ordination Conference, a group that has sent representatives to the gathering the last five years, said executive director Aisha Taylor.

Check out photos from tonight's events. There are a relative few, as the evening was busy and pretty much confined to a single room. Tomorrow, I promise more photos. See them here.

Fort Benning, Georgia
Stroll the halls of the Columbus convention center during the first night of events at the Ignatian Solidarity Network's Family Teach-In, and you could easily think you'd wandered into the first day of freshman orientation. Students, sporting sweatshirts that trumpet high schools, prep schools, colleges and universities from across the country wander in small groups. Some spot friends they'd met, a year ago, at this same event. Others walk slowly, taking in the booths and tables that offer any myriad causes to support.

I made my first trip to the annual School of the Americas Watch protest and Ignatian Solidarity Network's Family Teach-In two years ago. (The school was officially renamed the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, but is still commonly referred to as the S.O.A. by participants in this event). I'd been aware of the event from my faith community when I was younger, and I'd read about the protest's most recognizable leader, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, in the pages of NCR and elsewhere as I got older. However, I realized quickly upon arriving in 2006, that the weekend had become something more than the profound act of remembrance carried out at the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia. The event brought together all ages from all corners of the U.S. (and several other countries). It was a gathering of the Catholic community old and new - all in the name of justice, education, and service. I can still recall vividly moments from that weekend. Last year, I was unable to attend. So when presented with the chance to go this year, as well as lead two of the Teach-In's break out sessions, I jumped at the opportunity.

The news that peace activist Fr. Roy Bourgeois was threatened with excommunication for his support of women's ordination unleashed a storm of commentary and reaction from various Catholic interest groups and around the blogosphere.

Human rights activists, religious leaders, and military veterans will descend on Fort Benning, Ga. this weekend to demand the closing of a notorious military training facility that has tutored some of Latin America’s most brutal soldiers and dictators.

The U.S. Army School of the Americas, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001, has a long and shameful history of teaching torture, extortion and execution to infamous graduates like Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama. Nearly 60,000 alumni have returned to Bolivia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to suppress human rights leaders, political dissidents and innocent civilians swept up in the region’s often violent struggles for social justice.

Rockhurst High School SOA contingent: Front Row (left to right): Matt Ryan, Tony Trabon, Marvin Grilliot. Back Row: Braden Agpoon, Matt Bommarito, Michael Dehner, Zach Poskin, Jace Allen, Brandon Busenbark. (Not pictured Andrew Lombardo.)Jesuit-run Rockhurst High, in Kansas City, Mo., boasts a superb college preparatory education, enriched by Ignatian spirituality, which combines, prayer, reflection and a commitment to justice.

And while the school says academic excellence is its hallmark, it does not shy from letting people know that it has had more than a few athletic successes in recent years. For example, Rockhurst has produced state-acclaimed championship teams during the 2007 or 2008 seasons in football, golf, lacrosse, soccer, swimming and tennis.

From NCR Nov. 11:

Maryknoll Fr. Roy Bourgeois has been threatened with excommunication by the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for his support of women’s ordination, according to a letter made public (Nov 11).

The letter was written by Bourgeois and addressed to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. It was distributed via e-mail by Bill Quigley, a New Orleans lawyer who represents Bourgeois.

NCR has been covering the weekend of protests against the Army School of the America's and demonstrations of solidarity with the people of Latin American since the movement began nearly 20 years ago.

You can read more about it here: Past coverage of SOA in the pages of NCR