December, A.D.2015

Dear Friends,

Greetings and peace! As we begin the season of winter in these late days of Advent, I offer on behalf of everyone with the Catholic Peace Fellowship heartfelt thanks to you for your prayers and support in 2015.

If you have not yet had an opportunity to read Deacon Tom Cornell’s Advent Sermon for the CPF, I invite you to do so.

Finally, I share with you a review of the Catholic Peace Fellowship’s work over the course of the past year.

Blessings!

In Christ – Emmanuel,

Shawn T. Storer, Director

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Catholic Peace Fellowship 2015 Year in Review

The CPF staff continues to offer practical and pastoral support to military and veterans who are struggling with the contradiction between their personal participation in war and their consciences. Over the past few years, we have accompanied sixteen military Conscientious Objectors (COs) (most of whom were Christian, many of whom were Catholic). We are overjoyed and grateful to report that in the four months of 2015, three military COs whom we had been accompanying were granted honorable discharges.

CPF’s David’s Heart Ministry to former military and their loved ones (the name of the ministry is inspired by Psalm 38), has communicated directly with 153 people since we began a few years ago. We have worked closely and in a sustained way with thirty-eight veterans and families. For the second year in a row, CPF staff have been on the planning committee for the Michiana Stand-Down for Homeless and Transitioning Veterans. We have been connecting with veterans and their families at the this event for the past three years. Our David’s Heart resources have reached hundreds of others at events, veteran’s retreats and via our websites. We ask for your continued prayers for all these aforementioned men and women.

The Catholic Peace Fellowship traveled extensively this past year sharing its work and mission with people in many parts of the country.  In late October 2014, CPF co-sponsored an event co-hosted by the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University and the International Thomas Merton Society (ITMS) entitled Pursuing the Spiritual Roots of Protest, 1964-2014, which marked the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Peacemaking Retreat that Thomas Merton hosted at Gethsemani which gave rise to formation of the Catholic Peace Fellowship (We invite you to listen to reflections by retreatants Bob Cunnane and CPF co-founders Jim Forest and Tom Cornell here). Friendships formed at the this event last year flourished into the CPF staff being invited to give the final keynote address this year at the Chicago Chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society’s Celebration of the Centenary of Merton’s birth and being invited to prominently share our work at the ITMS Centenary Celebration in Louisville, KY in June just prior to the keynote address by Rowan Williams. CPF staff members were also invited to give presentations and share our work at the Joy and Hope: Catholic Social Tradition Conference at the University of Notre Dame, the 2015 Notre Dame Student Peace Conference, the Dorothy Day Conference at University of St. Francis, the International Lay Ministry Gathering (at Catholic Theological Union), the Annual Assembly of the Congregation of Major Superiors of Men’s Religious Orders, St. John Neumann’s Parish in Charlotte, NC, and the Community of Sant’Egidio’s North American Meeting for Peace. In May, CPF staff led veteran writing workshops at the Second Military Experience and the Arts Symposium in Oklahoma. Our staff was also welcomed by a chaplain staff from a regional hospice care network to present on listening to and ministering to veterans suffering from anguish of the soul after war, and we continue to serve as advisers to a Catholic college peace studies program and several high school theology departments. By our estimates, our educational efforts have reached more than 12,000 people over the course of the past year.

CPF marked its third year of creating and hosting reading circles on peacemaking and Christian discipleship, taking up books such as Loving Our Enemies by CPF co-founder Jim Forest and Peace in a Post-Christian Era by early CPF adviser Fr. Thomas Merton along with Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si‘. We are excited to share that CPF chapters have begun to take root and flourish as well. There is chapter that has started in Charlotte, NC, a revitalized student chapter at the University of Notre Dame, and the beginning movements toward chapters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Alaska and California. Please contact our staff if you are interested in starting or joining a reading circle or chapter in your area.

In addition to CPF prayers remembering Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, Franziska Jägerstätter, Ben Salmon, Joshua Casteel,  Thomas Merton, Gordon Zahn, the CPF has had weekly Friday prayers praying for the canonization of early CPF adviser the Servant of God Dorothy Day Dorothy Day culminating in a simple pilgrimage to Saint Procopius Abbey (where Dorothy was an oblate) on the anniversary of her death to pray for her cause for canonization along with the monks of Saint Procopius, and members of the Dorothy Day Guild and Thomas Merton Society. Over the course of the past year, CPF hosted monthly rosaries for peace and for our Christian brothers and sisters suffering persecution around the world. On Palm Sunday, CPF co-sponsored and participated in the Prayer for the New Christian Martyrs with the Community of Sant’Egidio at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend. For the second year in a row, CPF has been invited to host a weekly Advent and Lenten prayer series at the Congregation of Holy Cross’ Moreau Seminary. In August, the CPF was humbled to be invited by the Bridgefolk Movement to help plan and orchestrate a prayer service of lament and remembrance marking the 70th Anniversary of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at their North American Gathering at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. The prayer included Mennonite and Catholic Christian participants from both the United States and Japan. In October, CPF once again co-planned and co-hosted the annual celebration of the Feast of Saint Marcellus in South Bend/Notre Dame. Several hundred people attended events over the two-day celebration which included an ecumenical pilgrimage, supper, dramatization, prayer service and Lucernarium service on the 29th and Masses and a rosary for peace and an end for the preparation for war on the 30th. We invite you to  view and read Fr. Emmanuel Katongole’s hauntingly beautiful keynote address from this year’s Saint Marcellus Day prayer service here. Finally, on the feast of St. Martin of Tours, the Notre Dame Chapter of the Catholic Peace Fellowship hosted a Mass for Peace and Justice.

One of the most notable CPF highlights of this past year took place in the undercroft of St. Vincent DePaul Catholic Church in Baltimore on the evening of Tuesday, November 17, 2015. On that night the Alliance Catholic Worker hosted its 3rd Annual Peace Dinner at St. Vincent DePaul Parish in Baltimore, MD. This year the event was co-sponsored by the Community of Sant’Egidio, Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, and the Catholic Peace Fellowship. The Community of Sant’Egidio began the evening by leading those gathered in a prayer for peace which was followed by a simple supper provided by Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore and St. Vincent DePaul Parish. Those present for the prayer included Archbishop Joseph Tobin, Bishops John Michael Botean, Anthony Taylor, Frank Dewane, Mark Seitz, John Stowe, Richard Pates, Michael Warfel, Peter Baldacchino, Abbot Nicholas Zachariadis and around thirty Christian peacemakers. The Catholic Peace Fellowship was invited to present a panel on War, Peace and Christian Conscience Formation. The CPF panel, framed and introduced by director Shawn T. Storer, included elaborate and personal reflections by Raquel Falk, Daniel Baker, and past CPF-St. Marcellus Award recipient Kristi Casteel with invited responses by Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock and Martha Hennessy of Maryhouse Catholic Worker in New York. A rich roundtable discussion moderated by Tomas Murray of the Alliance Catholic Worker followed the CPF panel. We invite you to view a recording of the CPF panel from that evening here.

We invite you to consider how you can join us in this holy work. You can make a tax-deductible donation in support of the Catholic Peace Fellowship and the people it serves here (or you can mail donations to the CPF at P.O. Box 4232 South Bend, IN 46614). We ask your prayers for the Catholic Peace Fellowship as we continue to seek and strive for the peace of Christ before, during and after war…one person at a time. Know of our prayers for you during these holy seasons of Advent and Christmas.Ω

“Every boot that tramped in battle, every cloak rolled in blood, will be burned as fuel for flames. For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.” – Isaiah 9:4-5