Faith

Questioning Consensus

June 10, 2015 L.A. Kauffman, www.berkeleyjournal.org Strategize! Consensus, Faith, Grassroots, Process

Proponents make broad claims for consensus process. They argue that it is intrinsically more democratic than other methods, and that it fosters radical transformation, both within movements and in their relations with the wider world. As described in the action handbook of an Earth Day 1990 action to shut down Wall Street, which included a blockade of the entrances to the Stock Exchange and led to some 200 arrests, “Consensus at its best offers a cooperative model of reaching group unity, an essential step in creating a culture that values cooperation over competition.” Few, though, know the origins of the process, which shed an interesting and surprising light on its troubled real-world workings.

Released From Prison, Anti-Nuclear Activist Nun Speaks Out

June 6, 2015 Lisa De Bode, www.america.aljazeera.com Resist! Anti-Nuclear, Faith, Political Prisoner

Megan Rice, an 85-year-old nun who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 2012, along with fellow anti-nuclear activists Michael Walli and Gregory Boertje-Obed, was charged with sabotage and damaging federal property and spent about two years in federal prison. They were released on May 16 after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned their sabotage convictions while upholding their convictions for the less serious crime of injury to government property and ordering the original court to resentence them on the lesser crime. They don't regret their actions, and remain devoted to their cause.

Theology of Liberation To Inspire White Anti-Racist Organizing

June 2, 2015 Chris Crass, www.truth-out.org Resist! Allies, Faith, Liberation Theology, Racial Justice

By Chris Crass in Truthout - With tens of thousands of white people coming into consciousness and thousands of experienced white anti-racists trying to figure out how to step up, this interview with Unitarian Universalist leader Ashley Horan, and this series of interviews with white racial justice leaders and organizers around the country who are engaging and moving white communities, are some of my efforts to meet the need my comrade Opal Tometi and so many others have made plain. I first came into my own Unitarian Universalist faith when I was brought in as a member of Catalyst Project to lead anti-racist organizing trainings for hundreds of fired up, passionate UU youth from around the US and Canada.

Saskatoon Cathedral Rings Bells For Missing And Murdered Women

May 29, 2015 The Star Phoenix, www.thestarphoenix.com Resist! Canada, Faith, Indigenous Women

The chimes atop St. John's Cathedral in Saskatoon will ring out this week in honour of Canada's missing and murdered aboriginal women. As part of national initiative by the Anglican Church of Canada, the bells in Saskatoon will ring 1,017 times — one chime for each aboriginal women and girls murdered between 1980 and 2012, according to a press release by the church. The chimes will also ring for 105 times for the women and girls "classified as missing in suspicious circumstances." The chimes will ring for five sessions over a span of 22 days, starting May 31, the day Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s closing events commence.

Vatican Officially Recognizes Palestinian State In New Treaty

May 14, 2015 AP, www.AP.org Resist! Faith, Palestine, Pope Francis, Statehood

The Vatican officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty finalized Wednesday, immediately sparking Israeli ire and accusations that the move hurt peace prospects. The treaty, which concerns the activities of the Catholic Church in Palestinian territory, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic recognition from the Palestine Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine. The Vatican had welcomed the decision by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012 to recognize a Palestinian state. But the treaty is the first legal document negotiated between the Holy See and the Palestinian state and constitutes official diplomatic recognition. "Yes, it's a recognition that the state exists," said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. The Israeli foreign ministry said it was "disappointed" by the development.

Pope Francis Orders Vatican To Open Files On Argentina Dictatorship

May 1, 2015 Uki Goñi, www.theguardian.com Educate! Argentina, Faith, History, Pope Francis

Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican to open its files on Argentina’s military dictatorship, a move that could help the families of thousands of victims of the military regime finally discover the fate of their loved ones. “This is the pope’s wish – for something to be done – so he has asked the secretariat of state to take charge of it, and work has already begun on declassifying the Vatican archives related to Argentina’s dictatorship,” Father Guillermo Karcher, an Argentinian priest who is a close aide of the pope, said in an interview with a Buenos Aires radio station. During the 1976-83 dictatorship, 20,000 people were made to “disappear” by the Argentinian authorities, who saw them as subversives. The Vatican collected a large amount of information on these cases, principally through the papal nuncio’s office in Buenos Aires.

IFCO & VB: Relevance Of Civil Disobedience In Solidarity With Cuba

April 25, 2015 Nalda Vigezzi, www.nnoc.info Resist! Cuba, Faith, Peace, usa

The blockade is still in place. Travel restrictions still exist. Guantánamo Bay is still illegally occupied by the U.S. military and used as a venue for imprisonment and torture. And the U.S. government still funds USAID projects aimed at undermining the Cuban government. While this is undoubtedly a time for celebration, it is critical today more than ever that the VB, IFCO, and all friends of Cuba unite and are persistent in defending Cuba’s national sovereignty and right to self-determination. Today, energized by the example of the Cuban Revolution and empowered by community activists who came before them, members of IFCO, the VB, and other international Cuba solidarity movements continue to look to Cuba as a role model. Cuba has shown us that another world is possible. In the words of the late Reverend Lucius Walker, founder of IFCO/Pastors for Peace: “We act not just in defiance of our government, but in obedience to our conscience.”

Declassified Documents, Gag Orders, & Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

April 15, 2015 Raed Jarrar, www.afsc.org Educate! Faith, Israel, Wars and Militarism

It is no secret that the U.S.-Israeli relationship is suffering from unprecedented levels of tension, mainly instigated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whether it was his controversial speech in Washington, D.C., which railed against any peaceful resolution with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, or his declaration – and subsequent flip-flop - that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch, Netanyahu has dominated the media here and abroad. Amid all this noise, important revelations about Israel’s nuclear weapons program have gone unnoticed. A few weeks ago, a 1987 Defense Department report that confirms Israel has nuclear weapons was declassified by the U.S. government. More significantly, the report also confirms what many have suspected all along: The U.S. government helped Israel develop their nuclear bomb.

Indiana Religious Freedom Law Rewrite A Victory Over Discrimination

April 4, 2015 Zack Ford, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Faith, Indiana, Law, LGBTQ

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) and state Republican leaders have been playing damage control this week, claiming that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is not a law that enables anti-LGBT discrimination. Meanwhile, however, the conservatives who advocated for the bill have been spurning this attempted walkback, asserting in the process that the goal was ensuring discrimination all along. At the forefront of the conservative reaction is Micah Clark, who serves as executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana and who stood right behind Pence as he signed the bill. Speaking Monday to Tim Wildmon, head of the national American Family Association, Clark explained that conservatives should oppose any effort to clarify that the law does not legalize discrimination. “That could totally destroy this bill,” he explained.

The Good Samaritan, A Catholic Worker On LA’s Skid Row

April 4, 2015 Sr. Rose Pacatte, www.ncronline.org Create! Faith, Los Angeles, Workers Rights and Jobs

This new book is autobiographical for Dietrich and is again a collection of essays from Los Angeles Catholic Worker newspaper, Catholic Agitator. These reflect Dietrich's untiring service of feeding and aiding the poor, and his unabated passion for speaking truth to power. As I write this review, I am listening to the news about the killing of another homeless person, a man on Skid Row, a 50-square-block section of downtown Los Angeles. No one knows his real name, but he was known by his street name, "Africa." The Los Angeles Police Department's long-standing crusade against the homeless, especially veterans, is well-documented in The Good Samaritan: Stories from the Los Angeles Catholic Worker on Skid Row, which details some of the court cases won by the homeless, with support of the American Civil Liberties Union. Dietrich describes the city's uneasy and sometimes cruel relationship with the homeless and calls it "punitive policing."

Mauna Kea Telescope Protest

April 3, 2015 Kamahana Kealoha, www.islandbreath.blogspot.com Resist! Faith, Hawaii, Indigenous Rights

Today marked the sixth day and sixth night since a group of Kanaka Maoli warriors representing several islands in the Hawaiian Islands and a multi-ethnic group of supporters formed a blockade at 9,000 feet above sea level at Mauna Kea also known as Mauna A Wakea on Hawaiʻi Island. They are protesting the construction of a 30-meter telescope (TMT), which they say is a desecration of the most sacred place in the Hawaiian Islands. The peaceful protest has been ongoing for several years but in the past several months has gathered more momentum and support from Hawaiians and other non-Hawaiians around the world. Today also marked the first day that TMT workers showed up since the protest began six days and six nights ago.

Anti-Islam Group Cancels March As Anti-Racists Convene

March 30, 2015 Tracy Lindeman, www.cbc.ca Resist! Canada, Faith, Immigration, Racism

A march organized by sympathizers of a Europe-based anti-Islam, anti-immigration group called PEGIDA was cancelled on Saturday after hundreds of people showed up to protest against PEGIDA itself. The self-described leader of the relatively new PEGIDA Québec chapter, Jean-François Asgard, told Radio-Canada that "Islam needs to reform itself or leave the West." Jaggi Singh of the No One Is Illegal activist group helped organize Saturday's counter-protest. Hundreds of people toting signs denouncing racism and Islamophobia arrived 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start time of the PEGIDA march, set to take place in a largely Muslim community in Montreal called Little Maghreb.

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