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Introduction to Bishop Botean's Pastoral Letter on
Participation/Support of the Iraqi War

Center for Christian Nonviolence

In this Pastoral Letter, Bishop Botean declares to those who are actively one with him by Baptism and by faith in Christ and His Church that this war is intrinsically evil and therefore morally impermissible for them. It is the equivalent of a Church being informed by its highest spiritual authority that it is under a Divine mandate to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, if legally required to participate in this war. -> Download

Rejection of the War Against the People of Iraq

Bishop John Michael Botean

Bishop Botean states that any direct participation and support of this war against the people of Iraq is objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin. Beyond a reasonable doubt this war is morally incompatible with the Person and Way of Jesus Christ. With moral certainty I say to you it does not meet even the minimal standards of the Catholic just war theory.

-> Download

Refusal to Volunteer for Military Service on the Basis of Conscience

Conscientious Objection (CO)

Do you refuse on the basis of conscience to volunteer for the military? If you would like to proclaim your refusal publicly, we invite you to use our website. You may send us a letter expressing your conscientious objection, and we will periodically post or otherwise publicize it—to bear witness to your conscientious refusal, to encourage others to consider what conscience demands of them today and to promote awareness among other conscientious objectors that they are not alone.

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Behold the Lamb

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This professionally recorded retreat on the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies was given by Emmanuel Charles McCarthy at the Shrine of the Lamb in Knock, Ireland. It consists of sixteen presentations, which collectively contain what is considered to be the most comprehensive and spiritually profound proclamation of Jesus' vital Gospel message of Nonviolent Love.

He takes as his central theme the Nonviolent Lamb of God and focuses on this biblical symbol and reality as the true icon and transcendental model for encountering God as revealed by Jesus, and for understanding and following the Way of God as taught by Jesus. Every Christian, every Christian Church, indeed all humanity, should ponder if what is said here about God and God's Way as made visible by Jesus, the Lamb of God, is THE GOOD NEWS for which each human being, consciously or subconsciously, ceaselessly yearns—if what is said here genuinely fulfills the hopes and quenches the fears, that universally reside at the deepest recesses of each human soul.

The title of the talks are:

1. The Lamb: To Be Adored and Imitated
2. The Lamb: The Mystery of God’s Suffering Servant
3. The Mind of the Lamb
4. The Lamb Who Glorifies God
5. The Church: A Fold of Lambs
6. The Love That Is Lamb-Like
7. The Lamb in a Jungle
8. The Means of the Lamb
9. The Lamb Who Is Rich in Mercy
10. The Security of the Lamb
11. The Trustworthy Lamb
12. The Mystery of the Oneness in the Lamb: Baptism
13. The Lamb’s Lamb: Mary
14. The Lamb of Forgiving Love
15. The Lamb of Serving Love
16. The Resurrected Lamb

Questions & Answers on Gospel Nonviolence

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This series provides detailed and thoughtful answers to eight (8) of the most common and sometimes troubling questions raised with respect to the validity and practicality of Gospel nonviolence as a means of confronting the harsh and cruel reality of justified and/or chaotic (purposeless) violence.

The titles are:

1. Cleansing of The Temple
2. What if Someone Is Going to Kill your Wife or Children?
3. Just War/Just Revolution Theory
4. Violence in the Old Testament
5. Christians in the Military/Police
6. Surely this Is a Purist Gospel?
7. What about Hitler?
8. Buy a Sword? Luke 22:35-38

Music with Which to Follow The Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospel and His Way of Nonviolent Love of Friends and Enemies

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

The titles are:

1. Charity
2. I Believe
3. He
4. In The Garden
5. Tramp on the Street
6. Lead Kindly Light
7. Precious Lord Take My Hand
8. Impossible Dream
9. Silent Night

The words for the songs may be downloaded <here>.

Emmanuel Charles McCarthy is a priest of the Eastern Rite (Byzantine) of the Catholic Church. He was formerly a lawyer, university educator and founder and original director of The Program for the Study and Practice of Nonviolent Conflict Resolution at the University of Notre Dame. He is also a co-founder of Pax Christi-USA. For over forty years he has directed educational programs and conducted spiritual retreats throughout the world on the issue of the relationship of faith and violence. He was the keynote speaker for the 25th anniversary memorial of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

He is author of three books: All Things Flee Thee for Thou Fleest Me!: A Cry to the Churches and Their Leaders to Stop Running from the Nonviolent Jesus and His Nonviolent Way, August 9, and Christian Just War Theory: The Logic of Deceit. He has also authored numerous essays and articles on the subject of violence and religion. His audio/video series on Gospel Nonviolence, Behold the Lamb, is internationally recognized as the most spiritually penetrating and logically ordered presentation on this dimension of the person and teaching of Jesus available in this format. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his life's work on behalf of peace within people and among people.

All things flee thee for thou fleest Me

Essays on Gospel nonviolence, Revised 2003

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This book, which contains 11 essays written by Fr. McCarthy, is his quintessential expression of the power and the wisdom of Gospel Nonviolence. The secondary purpose of this book is to plead with the leadership of the Christian Churches to allow the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospel and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies to arise in the minds and hearts and lives of their communities. The primary purpose of this book is to beseech the laity of the various Christian Churches to accept Jesus as He is presented to them in the Gospel, that is, as personally nonviolent and as teaching a Way of Nonviolent Love as the Way of discipleship—as the Way of eternal life.   -> Download

Christian Just War Theory: The Logic of Deceit

Revised 2003

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Just War Theories have been around for about 2000 years. However, they did not infect Christianity until three hundred years after Jesus' Resurrection. St. Ambrose and St. Augustine were their original carriers into the Church. However, in fairness it must be acknowledged that by the time these two politically powerful bishops released the perpetually mutating moral virus of CJWT into the Christian community, the Church by its choices in favor of acquiring wealth and political power had lost just about all of the spiritual immune system that protected it from the moral pathogen of righteous homicidal violence.

The hope then of this little book is that it can serve as a partial but effective antidote for the catastrophic spiritual malaise of divinely supported homicidal violence that has metastasized throughout the entire catholic Church. The only complete cure, of course, is for the Church to unreservedly embrace the truth of the Message of the Nonviolent Jesus Christ. Hopefully this book, by exposing the intellectual and moral vacuousness of CJWT, will bring the hour of that embrace closer.   -> Download

The Stations of the Cross of Nonviolent Love

Meditations on the stations of the cross, Revised 2007

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This booklet contains personally assimilable and livable meditations on specific dimensions of Christ's nonviolent love as he endures each of the 14 stations of the cross, emerging finally at 15th station, the Resurrection, having conquered evil and death.

A new cover has been added and an additional prayer is included on the last page. It is hoped that these meditations will help nourish the understanding that the Christian cannot desire freedom from the cross of nonviolent love because the Christian has been specifically chosen to reveal the power of the cross-the power of Christlike love.

"Nonviolent Love belongs to the mystery of the Redeemer and redemption. The test is whether one shares in that mystery...Christ has shown that nonviolence is strength. The effectiveness of nonviolence is ultimately the open tomb."
—Fr. Bernard Häring, The Healing Power of Peace & Nonviolence
-> Download

The War in Iraq and the Requirement of Moral Certainty

Catholic Just War Theory must ultimately answer to Catholic Moral Theology, 2007

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Recognizing that Catholic Just War Theory as well as Catholic Moral Theology have a certain amount of practical elasticity built into them, nevertheless, this can be stretched to the moral breaking point. That point has been passed long, long ago in relation to this War on Iraq. The past four years of dead silence as death madly rampages through Iraq is false witness on a grand scale by the U.S. Catholic Episcopacy. False witness to what? False witness to the Gospel and to the most fundamental and well-established tenents of the Catholic moral tradition. Emotionally a person could experience this War as morally repugnant, but this is not what I am speaking about. I am speaking about the public dismissal, the undermining and the bracketing out of incontestable norms of Catholic moral truth. Silence is a moral choice. Silence that implies to the average person moral acceptability is an even more serious moral decision. Silence by the official moral teachers in a diocese or Church where ordinary folks need and depend on these men for the proper orientation of their souls toward God in order to travel along the authentic path (Way) to salvation is a most serious form of pastoral neglect, especially where the destruction and mutilation of human life is involved.

My judgement is that the U.S. Catholic Episcopacy can "get away" with their calculated silence because most Catholics have not been taught, regardless of their level of education, e.g., Catholic University graduates, the spiritual seriousness and the cognitive truths that govern the application of Catholic Just War Theory and Catholic Moral Theology. This booklet is an attempt to open up this failure to consideration, as well as, to give concrete examples from the present and the past of the pastoral and personal tragedies that occur when Catholics are nurtured in utterly inadequate or outright erroneous understandings of Catholic Moral Theology and Just War Theory. -> Download

Abortion & War

Expanding the moral conceptualization of abortion, Published 10/2004

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This is an up-date of a reflection written soon after Iraq War I commenced. Neither the political-religious right nor left is interested in publishing it for very different reasons. The left because it does not want to draw attention in any way to the evil of abortion. The right because it does not want to face its gross moral inauthenticity in simultaneously opposing abortion absolutely while endorsing with jingoistic enthusiasm the mass-murder operation the U.S. is executing in Iraq. However, whether acknowledged or not, the evil discussed in this article exists on a grand scale and is daily sowing—for future harvest—the seeds of evil in Iraq and in the U.S. on a grand scale. Church, bishop, priest, minister or deacon would find it helpful (spiritually necessary) to have the issue, herein discussed, brought to explicit consciousness.   -> Download

A True Hero of the Vietnam War

Distinguishing a true hero from the propagandizing "hero"

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

"Hero" in reference to a person, who unjustifiably kills people, serves as part of the indoctrination process for normalizing the evasion of truth, the denial of reality and the manufacturing of facts that allows those, who planned and executed the mass murder (unjust destruction) of hundreds of thousands of human beings in both Vietnam and Iraq to be called "hero." -> Download

August 9: Ave Crux, Spes Unica

Posted 02/2005
Homily in memory of Edith Stein, 09/1997

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This homily was delivered by Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, at the close of the Forty Day Fast for the Truth of Christian Nonviolence at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City, August 9, 1997. The end of the fast commemorates the date in 1942 that marks the execution Edith Stein (Sr. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross) by the Nazis at Auschwitz.

Sr. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross is Jesus' prophetic gift to His Churches because she voluntarily gives up all the accouterments of worldly power and wholeheartedly embraces the "powerless," unrealistic, vulnerable Cross of Christ-like love. She says, "Ave Crux," "Welcome Cross," not out of ignorance of alternatives nor out of defeatism. She exclaims with open arms, "Ave Crux" because she knows it is "spes unica," "our only hope"—the only power that can help, that can save.   -> Download

Baffled

Revised 01/2005
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

It is baffling—considering the fact that the justifications for the war currently raging in Iraq have proven to be fraudulent and that 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed—to know that the spiritual and moral leadership of Christian Churches in the U.S. are not screaming "bloody murder." The only possible way this war cannot be bloody mass murder is if it meets the standards of the Christian Just War Theory. (It is certainly in direct contradiction to Jesus' teaching of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies, which is the only other ethical option available to Christians.) But, it doesn't come close to meeting Christian Just War standards either in the jus ad bellum or the jus in bello dimension of the so-called Christian Just War Theory. Beyond any reasonable doubt, it does not!  -> Download

Blessed Are the Meek, for They Shall Inherit the Land

Homilies in the Papal Household, 2nd Lenten Sermon, March 16, 2007, in the presence Pope Benedict XVI, Posted 04/07/07
P. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap (Pontifical Household Preacher)

The beatitudes are a self-portrait of Jesus and thus, we should not only imitate them but also make them our own.

Father Cantalamessa's Lenten reflections have focused on the Eight Beatitudes; today's was: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." To understand the full meaning of meekness, the Pontifical Household preacher underlined two constant associations of the Bible and ancient Christian exhortations: meekness and humility, and meekness and patience. One shows the interior dispositions from which meekness springs; the other the attitudes one should have toward one's neighbor: affability, gentleness, courtesy.

The Gospels are the demonstration of Christ's meekness, in its dual aspect of humility and patience. The maximum proof of Christ's meekness is in his passion. There is no wrath, there are no threats: When he was reviled he did not revile in return, when he suffered, he did not threaten. But Jesus did much more than give us an example of meekness and heroic patience; he made of meekness and nonviolence the sign of true greatness. -> Download

Christian Just War Theory or Christian Just War Fantasy

Revised 12/2004
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

How much time needs to pass before a theory—that says the sun will rise in the West—ceases to be regarded as a theory or even as an hypothesis, and becomes self-evidently a fantasy? Is not "Christian Just War Fantasy" the accurate and truthful term that should be employed? Is it not grave evil to use a fantasy to evaluate whether the mass destruction of human beings is justifiable in the eyes of Jesus? -> Download

"Corruptio Optimi Pessima"

The corruption of the best is the worst.
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

"Corruptio optimi pessima." This is what Constantinian Christianity represents, is, has been for its 1600 years, and always will be so long as the Churches cling to it as their way of "being an extension of Christ in time and space." "Corruptio optimi pessima." This is what has become of the great gift of religious consciousness that the Logos has bestowed upon human beings by way of the brain given to them...Religious consciousness and the human brain that makes it possible are given so that human beings, unlike dogs or dinosaurs, can access the beauty and grandeur of the Holiness, Love and Truth that is their Source and Destiny, that is the "Father of all, over all, through all, and in all" (Ep 4:6). -> Download

Eulogy for Edward J. McDonough, C.Ss.R.

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

The Eulogy was given at the Mass of the Resurrection for Edward J. McDonough, C.Ss.R., at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Boston, Massachusetts, February 16, 2008. Fr. McDonough was perhaps the most well-known Marian healing priest in the world. He died on what in the Catholic calendar is the World Day for the Sick, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, that apparition of the Mother of God from whence has flowed an uncountable number of healings. -> Download

Fr. George Zabelka: A Military Chaplain Repents

An interview in which Fr. Zabelka categorically rejects the moral legitimacy of war and the Just War Theory.
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

In August of 1945 Rev. George B. Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Army Air Force, was stationed on Tinian Island in the South Pacific. He was assigned to serve the Catholics of the 509th Composite Group, which was the Atomic Bomb Group. In that capacity he was the priest for those who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After 22 years as a military chaplain he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.

"I want to expose the lie of 'Christian' war. The lie I fell for and blessed. I want to expose the lie of killing as a Christian social method, the lie of disposable people, the lie of Christian liturgy in the service of the homicidal gods of nationalism and militarism, the lie of nuclear security." -> Download

Franz Jägerstätter: The Man Who Chose to See

Revised 10/21/2007
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Franz Jäggerstäter, an Austrian martyr, is among the new Blessed announced by the Vatican.

The life of Blessed Franz Jägerstätter was a simple life. An Austrian peasant from the village of St. Radegund, he was a devout Catholic, a daily communicant who prayed the rosary while doing farm chores. Sexton of his parish church, he married and had three children. On August 9, 1943, Franz Jägerstätter was killed by the German Military for refusing to kill for the German Military. -> Download

General George Patton and the Christian Churches

Purveyors-in-arms of the grand illusion as the path of glory
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This reflection is a request for those Christians, who see that the Jesus of the Gospel is Nonviolent and teaches by word and deed a Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies, to honor their Baptismal total immersion into Christ, their Baptismal commitment and their Baptismal grace of a prophetic vocation on behalf of the Spirit and the Truth of Jesus Christ and speak-up and speak-out in their parishes and Churches for that truth.

Further, this reflection is a presentation of how Constantinian ecclesiastical major-domos and bureaucrats will continue to drag the Churches of Christianity down paths that Jesus never would have taken His beloved brothers and sisters, if this prophetic charism is not exercised by those who are Baptized into Christ and who know that both Jesus and His Way are irremovably rooted in a Nonviolent Love of each and every son and daughter of our mutual Heavenly Parent. -> Download

Homily: Mass of the Resurrection for Audrey Santo

St. Paul's Cathedral, Worcester, MA, Published 04/18/07

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

From all over the world people have journeyed to the home of Audrey Santo and have witnessed the miraculous. Perhaps they came to see consecrated communion hosts that have bled, the religious statues and pictures that have wept tears of blood or shed streams of oil. Possibly they came with the hope of receiving a miraculous cure. But most of all, they came to see to little Audrey whom God chose to surround with these miracles.

Audrey was the tragic victim of a drowning accident at age three. She lived for 20 years confined to her bed in a coma-like state known as akinetic mutism. She received around-the-clock care from a staff of nurses and family. For some reason, God used her life in a special way. From what appeared to be the Sacred Stigmata, to claims of prayers miraculously answered through Audrey's reported intercession, this silent, suffering child became a testimony of life in a culture of death. -> Download

Joan of Arc

Posted 01/2006
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

The Issue: "What of Joan of Arc and Jesus' nonviolence? She is a saint, yet she was a soldier who engaged in homicidal combat. Therefore, lethal violence on behalf of a state or king is consistent with the Way of Jesus to eternal life, isn't it?" This question, which is raised at almost every extended introductory conference on Gospel nonviolent love that I direct, is what the attached reflection responds to. It is not a trivial question nor is it a question that only pertains to the Catholic Church. Just about every mainline and Evangelical Church in practice is subject to the awful reality that Joan of Arc represents.

This reflection is an attempt to bring good out of evil, life out of death, truth out of untruth, the Spirit of Christ out of the spirit of Cain, nonviolent monotheism out of violent theism. -> Download

Mother's Day Proclamation: A Day of Peace, Nonviolence & Reconciliation

Julia Ward Howe, 1870

Posted 05/2007

Take a moment to contemplate the real origins of Mother's Day: the belief that women can create peace and justice through nonviolent love and community rooted in humanity rather than in geographical gangs.

The movement to set aside a day for women's peacemaking began with two women: Anna Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe. Jarvis, a West Virginia mother of 11, worked to improve rural sanitation and healthcare before and during the Civil War. When the war ended, she worked to reconcile Union and Confederate families in her state.

Julia Ward Howe, the author of Battle Hymn of the Republic, witnessed the atrocities committed by both sides during the Civil War. Howe was appalled, not only by the fatal casualties of violence, but by the other effects of war: economic devastation in both the North and the South, disease, and physical and mental disability. She devoted herself to building an international community of women creating peaceful resolution to conflicts.   -> Download

The Nonviolent Palm Sunday and the Nonviolent Holy Week of 33 AD

The events and revelations of Holy Week are united with the Nonviolent Jesus, Revision Posted 04/05/07 [21:51 EST]
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Just in case your Palm Sunday and Holy Week liturgies do not communicate it clearly, or just in case your priest, minister, bishop, preacher or pastor do not tell you it from the pulpit, Palm Sunday and Holy Week are 100% about the victorious and salvific Nonviolent Coming of God into His Nonviolent Kingdom through the Nonviolent Messiah Jesus. -> Download

On the Revolution of Love It "Changes the World without Making a Noise"

Vatican City, February 18, 2007

Pope Benedict XVI

It is thus understood that nonviolence, for Christians, is not mere tactical behavior but a person's way of being, the attitude of one who is convinced of God's love and power, who is not afraid to confront evil with the weapons of love and truth alone. Loving the enemy is the nucleus of the "Christian revolution," a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political or media power. The revolution of love, a love that does not base itself definitively in human resources, but in the gift of God, that is obtained only and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Herein lies the novelty of the Gospel, which changes the world without making noise.

....and a commentary on Pope Benedict's address:

Revolution: Without Making a Noise

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This is one superbly crafted statement on the importance, indeed the centrality, of Jesus' teaching of nonviolent love of friends and enemies, and on this being "the nucleus of the Christian revolution" and hence axial to a correct understanding of the Gospel. For those who spend the time with it that it deserves, it will be an illumination of a truth hidden or obscured, perhaps since their Baptism. -> Download

The Passion of The Christ: A Meditation on A Film

Film review, Published 04/2004

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

The Passion of The Christ, produced and directed by Mr. Mel Gibson, is the single finest cinematic representation of the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies ever presented to the consciousness of humanity...

...The Passion of The Christ was about love—not Caesarian love, not Aristotelian love, not Platonic love, not nationalistic or ethnic love, not Hollywood love. It was about Christic love. That is, it was about the love that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, was ordained by Love Itself to reveal and to bestow on humanity by His words and deeds, for its temporal good and its eternal salvation. It was about the only kind of love, the only kind of power, that can conquer evil, vanquish death, bring peace and lead one and all to an eternally graced union with God...It was about the omnipotence of Christ-like love and the omnipotent God who is love (agapé).

-> Download

Pilate Lives! Boston College Washes Its Hands of the Blood of the Innocent

Posted 05/2006

Can there be greater compounding of spiritual laxness for a Catholic institution than going beyond silence about the killing of over 100,000 civilians in Iraq and the maiming of hundreds of thousands more, to explicitly honoring the perpetrator of what is gravely intrinsically evil, i.e., unjustified homicide-murder? Condoleezza Rice, who is to speak at graduation and receive an honorary degree, is one of the people primarily responsible for the planning, the execution and the propagandizing—as just—a war that has led to the large-scale destruction of the civilian population of Iraq. -> Download

Preemptive Truth: "What did they know and when did they know it?"

War in Iraq Revisionists, Published 05/04/07

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

"He who controls the present controls the past, and he who controls the past controls the future." 1984 (George Orwell)

The intentional presentation of historical falsehoods as historical truths is the evil of lying. The use of historical untruth to cover-up a person's or institution's participation in another evil makes the historical lie doubly evil. When that historical lie is passed on by nurturing to a new generation of innocent children, then the historical evil and the historical lie meant to cover it up become a spiritually venomous virus with innumerable awful mutations within its range of possibilities-mutations that can reach to the third and fourth generation, and beyond.

Recognizing that it is impossible for Satan to drive out Satan, for evil to drive out evil, this brief reflection might be of assistance in discerning truth and the choices consistent with truth in your Church and within the various human communities with which you are associated. Being unheeding of evil in one's midst-because evil has become normalized-does not reduce evil's power to destroy in the present or in the future. -> Download

Remember: August 6

A reflection on Hiroshima and the "Killing Chair," Published 08/2004

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Throughout the world August 6 is rightfully remembered as the day that humanity entered into a never-before-seen form of homicidal violence—the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. Unlike the Fourth of July in the United States, Independence Day, or the Fourteenth of July in France, Bastille Day, August 6 is a planetary day of remembrance. What is done on that day in 1945 is utterly new in human history—death finds a new doorway into life. So we remember.

But, we forget. We forget that on August 6, 1890 another never-before-seen form of homicidal violence entered human history—death by the electric chair. On that day William Kemmler, age 30, an illiterate alcoholic from the slums of Buffalo, NY and a convicted murderer is executed by electricity at Auburn State Prison. Something utterly new enters human history—death finds a new doorway into life. But, we do not remember. Why?   -> Download

Rorschach Jesus: The Ignorant Messiah

Transforming Jesus into a Rorschach inkblot—a transcendental justifier of violence, 12/2004

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Could Jesus have been wrong and still have been the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Word of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Savior of the world? If Jesus is "like us in all things except sin" (Phil 2:7; Heb 4:15; Rom 8:3), then does it not follow that He was fallible, since humans are universally fallible. Ignorance, making mistakes, speaking untruth believing it to be truth may be many things but it is not sin.

How else is it possible to explain that the vast majority of Christians today, who believe that Jesus is Lord, simultaneously and vigorously repudiate His teaching on the rejection of violence and enmity?  -> Download

Sacerdotal Flagism

Posted 11/2005
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Should the Flag Be Permanently Displayed in Church Sanctuaries or Other Explicitly Christian Environments?

The more zealous a person is for uniting the flag and the cross as complementary and compatible realities and symbols, the more important it is that he or she be made aware of the problems involved in holding such a view. And, the more important it is to begin a dialogue with those holding this view. This essay could serve as the basis of such a dialogue.

This should not be dismissed as if it were a trite matter. If it were such a minor matter why are so many so incensed and hostile when the issue is raised or when people by their actions refuse to acknowledge the unity of the flag and cross. Remember in 1943 at the height of WW II the government tried to impose a pledge of allegiance to the flag on students and did it with the backing of Church officials of practically all denominations. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that enforcing such a pledge in a classroom was unconstitutional because "Here it is the state that employs the flag as a symbol of adherence to government as presently organized. It requires the individual to communicate by word or deed his acceptance of the political ideas it bespeaks. Objection to this form of communication when coerced is an old one, well known to the framers of the Bill of Rights." [FN 13]

[Footnote 13] "Early Christians were frequently persecuted for their refusal to participate in ceremonies before the statue of the emperor or other symbols of imperial authority."

How strange that judges on a secular court see the power, the moral-theological seriousness and the religious dimensions of the symbol of the flag of a nation-state, but bishops, priests and ministers remain oblivious to it—or if they do see it then they persist in the irrationality of insisting that the symbols of the flag and the cross communicate compatible truths.   -> Download

The Sword of Peter

March, 2005
(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Christ ordered Peter to put up his sword and yet today the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of Peter possesses the oldest continually-active military corps in the world—the Papal Swiss Guard.   -> Download

To Teach What Jesus Taught: A Call to Fidelity

Thoroughly enter into the depth of the issue of Gospel Nonviolence by pondering this reflection

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

-> Download

Who is Your King? Who is Your God?

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
Posted 01/2006

A meditation on the eternal contribution and challenge to Christianity and to humanity made by the servant of God-the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is the address that was delivered between five and six o'clock by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy on April 4, 1993 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated there at 6:02 P.M., twenty-five years earlier on April 4, 1968. The Lorraine Motel is now the National Civil Rights Museum.

-> Download

The Nonviolent Eucharistic Jesus: A Pastoral Approach

A reflection on the Eucharist

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

-> Download

The Eucharist, Sacrament of Nonviolence

A reflection on the Eucharist, Posted 10/2006

Archbishop Cyril S. Bustros

Recently the Catholic Church held a Synod of the World's Catholic Bishops in Rome (October 2-23, 2005). A World Synod is not an Ecumenical Council, but it is the most serious gathering of bishops short of that. Bishops are selected for it by their fellow bishops in a geographical area and some are designated to be there by the Pope. A Synod can deal with many topics or just one topic. In the case of the recent Synod the only topic it dealt with was the Eucharist. In this particular Synod each official participant was allowed one presentation to the Synod. The Eucharist, Sacrament of Nonviolence, is the presentation given to the Synod by Archbishop Cyril S. Bustros, a Papal designee.  -> Download

Eucharist Is "God's Absolute 'No' to Violence"

A reflection on the Eucharist

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

The Sermon, Eucharist Is "God's Absolute 'No' to Violence," was the third in a series of weekly Lenten meditations delivered by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, the Preacher to the Papal Household. In the sermon he states that "Christ defeated violence, not by opposing it with greater violence, but suffering it and laying bare all its injustice and uselessness." He also affirms that, "The Eucharist is the sacrament of non-violence."  -> Download

The Nonviolent Eucharistic Jesus: A Scholarly Approach

A reflection on the Eucharist, Revised 08/2004

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

The Nonviolent Love of Jesus for both friends and enemies is historically at the heart of His passion and death, it must therefore be communicated as being ineradicably at the heart of the Eucharist...The passion narrative is about the Lamb of God, who goes to His death rejecting violence, loving enemies, returning good for evil, praying for His persecutors—yet conquers and reigns eternal...The sacrifice of Christ is not about salvation through mere physiological pain. It is about salvation through the Nonviolent Suffering Love of Jesus toward all and for all, even lethal enemies. It is about revealing the true nature of Divine love, the true and authentic Face of God. As the United States’ Catholic Bishops teach in their Pastoral, The Challenge of Peace (1983):

In all of his suffering, as in all of his life and ministry, Jesus refused to defend himself with force or with violence. He endured violence and cruelty so that God’s love might be fully manifest and the world might be reconciled to the One from whom it had become estranged.

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'Miracle' Did Auschwitz Victim's Intercession Save Benedicta's Life?

[May 14, 1987]

Teresia Benedicta McCarthy is a happy, healthy little two-year-old named after a Jewish Carmelite nun killed at Auschwitz by the Nazis in 1942. A few weeks ago, Benedicta was literally at death's door from accidental poisoning. Many who know the child, including doctors and nurses who were caring for her, believe that her complete recovery is due to a miracle. Her family and the legion of friends who prayed for a healing are convinced Benedicta is alive today through the intercession of Blessed Teresia Benedicta (Edith Stein) who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Cologne, Germany on May 1, 1987.  -> Download

Some Guiding Reflections on the Icon of the Servant of Yahweh: Blessed Teresia Benedicta of the Cross

Posted 02/2005
Auschwitz, 1992

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

An icon is meant to be a manifestation of the living God. It is meant to bring forth a reverent awe of God through contemplation of his inscrutable mercy at work in the life of a person or of persons for the benefit of all humanity.

To contemplate a holy icon is to ponder, with the heart of faith, God who is love. It is to see Divine Mercy acting in ways that are as far above our ways as the heavens are above the earth. It is to feel infinite Love creating some great end which is quite beyond human comprehension. It is this God, made flesh in His Word, Jesus, to whom a person shows reverence, love and gratitude when he or she bows down before or kisses an icon. It is this God to whom people say 'Yes' when they cross themselves in front of an icon. Blessed Teresia Benedicta of the Cross is the instrument of this God, made in His image, born into His Chosen People, baptized into His Chosen Servant. This icon is an image of her within her patently Providential history, revealing to 'those who have eyes to see' the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and always and unto ages of ages.  -> Download

Pondering a Miracle and The Living Mystery Beyond It

Posted 05/2005
The Canonization of Edith Stein

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

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DOW-CIA: November 18, 1969-November 18, 2004

A legal brief used in defense of 10 students expelled from the University of Notre Dame, 1969

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

This document includes a letter written in November 2004, by Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy to the students who were expelled from the University of Notre Dame in December of 1969 for nonviolently protesting the presence on the Notre Dame Campus of DOW Chemical and the CIA, who were both were actively recruiting students at the height of the Vietnam War.y (also a lawyer) and the ten expelled students-which was used in their defense.  -> Download

Transcripts (return to top)

Subtitles for the DVD: Franz Jagerstatter—The Refusal