The Peace Bishop

So who are these people, the Pax Christi? I first ran into them in the early 80's and they were people completely outside of my experience.

I was a backslid Baptist and had no interest whatsoever in self-sacrifice for any purpose. These people seemed to waltz into prison without a second thought. And not even for some risk that might have brought a shot at some big bucks. Incredible.

There didn't seem to be very many of them. I supposed going to prison for religious reasons tended to winnow those few pieces of weighty grain from all the rest of us light little pieces of chaff the wind could blow away.

For me, Bishop John Fitzpatrick was the center of it all. He was the Bishop in Brownsville from 1971 until 1991 and I bumped into him only rarely, at a restaurant or a meeting. I wish I could report I felt some type of religious awe, but in those days (and maybe now) my religious awe receptors were blunted. I felt a different type of awe. The type of awe I felt around dangerous people: Billy Jack the junior high school bully, biker friends of my brother in Austin, the antiquities smuggler from Mexico, the reputed hit-man from up the Valley.

For one thing, he scared me because he was unafraid of a federal judge.

The Bishop and the Federal Judge were in a head to head dispute. The Federal Judge was a devout Catholic and was standing on THE LAW. The Bishop, GOD'S LAW.

The faithful, including the director of Casa Romero, were helping refugees from El Salvador. They were "transporting" refugees in violation of federal criminal law. So they were being prosecuted.

This is how the Fifth Circuit describes the Bishops position:

Bishop John Fitzpatrick, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, testified that meeting material human needs represents an essential aspect of Christianity, and that each individual remains free to fulfill this obligation according to the directives of his or her own conscience. Although no law of the Roman Catholic Church specifically requires Roman Catholics to provide sanctuary or rides to Salvadorans, Bishop Fitzpatrick believes that providing such assistance constitutes an appropriate expression of the Christian gospel.

I was, in those days, still trying to be a good lawyer which I thought meant supporting THE LAW. But in this dispute I knew that the Bishop was expressing one of those self-evident truths. You, know, that thing about being created equal and endowed by our Creator with those inalienable rights. So, I knew the Bishop was right and the Judge was wrong. This from a backslid Baptist.

Of course, though when the law and God's law come into conflict, people of conscience go to prison. This was the Pax Christi.

So who are these Pax Christi? They support "Christian nonviolence on the personal, communal, national and international levels...nuclear, conventional and domestic disarmament, an end to the international arms trade, economic conversion to a non-military economy, conscientious objection, and nonviolent alternatives to war...the struggle against economic injustice, militarism, and environmental destruction which are particularly harmful to those who are poor, minorities, children, and women...and universal human rights, both at home and abroad, through solidarity with oppressed and marginalized people struggling for dignity."

The group was formed just after World War II when German and French Catholics met to discuss the senselessness of having killed each other by the millions in just a few years. It came to the United States in 1972.

OK, how did that fit me? Well, first I wasn't religious and second I hadn't exactly been a pacifist. It is true, I had opposed the Viet Nam war, but this conviction only came after I drew a number 53 in the draft lottery, pretty well assuring if the war didn't end, I'd be draft. (It did. I wasn't.) Before I drew my lottery number I favored stopping the dominoes and I expressed the certainty that, "Some things are worth fighting for." (Yes, even the grammar was bad).

And not being a pacifist, although I had the courage for the occasional fist fight in High School, I certainly didn't have the courage to stand up to a federal judge as a lawyer. So before the Pax Christi Bishop and the Pax Christi members, I stood in dread and wonder.

I haven't gotten much braver as the years have passed, but I have come to the view this fearless, small group are right about most everything. Kathy and I converted to Catholicism. And now, when I have money for dues, I join to get the newsletters and to the extent my faint-heartedness permits, I participate.