Six Arrested Marking and Blockading 10 Downing St. on 10th. Anniversary of the War on Afghanistan

by Ciaron OReilly

Six anti-war activists, associated with the pacifist Catholic Worker movement, were arrested Friday morning October 7th after a nonviolent  resistance action in Downing Street/ London to mark the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. A dozen other anti-war activists gathered in support of the action and against the war, reading the names of Afghan and British war dead around a banner, 

"Mourn the Dead!  Heal the Wounded!  End the Wars!" 

Red paint was poured on the pavement outside the gates to symbolise the blood of the 25,000 civilians and 2,500 soldiers who have been killed or wounded in the last decade. They then blockaded the entrance to Downing Street for an hour before they were arrested. The six are: John Lynes, Ciaron O’Reilly, Maya Evans, Ben Griffins, Chris Cole and Martin Newell. 

  

In a jointly prepared statement the six declared: "Today, 7 October 2011, marks ten years of non-stop war. For a decade British, US, Australian and NATO forces have been engaged in an on-going war in Afghanistan which has caused the deaths of thousands , wounded countless numbers, destroyed local communities and uprooted families. 

"The war has been going on so long we have forgotten the reason it started. Was it to capture Bin Laden? To remove the Taliban? To bring peace and human rights to the people of Afghanistan? To make the world a safer place? All these reasons - and more – have been used to try to justify the death and destruction. 

"The reality of course is that war cannot bring peace, nor armed violence solve political problems. Just the opposite in fact. Ten years is much more than enough time to learn this lesson. Let us bury the dead, heal the wounded and end the war. 

"By coincidence today also marks the 500th day of US Army Specialist Bradley Manning's imprisonment. Bradley has been accused of releasing footage of a US helicopter gunship massacre of civilians in Iraq (see the footage at www.collateralmurder.com). We call for the immediate release of Bradley Manning and also for the release of British military refusenik Michael Lyons.” 

The six were arrested, handcuffed, transported to West End police station, held for 11 hours under suspicion of "causing criminal damage". 

Those awaiting an initial court appearance on November 1st. are presently bailed away from Westminister. The defendants include; 

Fr. Martin Newell and Ciaron O'Reilly who are live in community members at Giuseppe Conlon Catholic Worker House http://londoncatholicworker.org/ in Harringay/ London. 

Veterans for Peace http://veteransforpeaceuk.wordpress.com/ Ben Griffin who is a British veteran of wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, 

John Lyons is an 82 year old Quaker from Hastings who has been active in CPT teams in Palestine, 

Maya Evans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Evans from Hastings and Peace News

Chris Cole http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/ is an Oxford-based Catholic anti-war activist, and father of three. 

Ciaron O'Reilly, <ciaronx@yahoo.com> born in 1960 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia is a long-time Catholic Worker now living in London. 

Ciaron O'Reilly Blog http://ciaron.wordpress.com 

Drone Protest Leads to Arrest at Tucson’s Raytheon Missile Systems

TUCSON--A dozen activists gathered outside of Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona at 7 a.m. Monday morning, October 3 to protest drone warfare and war profiteering.  The group held signs reading "No to War Profiteering", "We Have Guided Missiles and Misguided Men - MLK", and "Drone Attacks Inspire Hatred of the U.S.," as employees drove into the factory.

Tucson Quaker and Catholic Worker John Heid <jefhsparrow@yahoo.com>, holding a sign that said "Make Us Instruments of Peace", walked toward the Raytheon gatehouse to communicate with workers about weapons produced there (including Standard Missiles, Star Wars "kill vehicles", Mavericks, AMRAAMs, microwave crowd control beams, pilotless drones, cluster bombs and cruise missiles) and particularly about his concerns regarding drone warfare.

Heid was stopped while nearing the gatehouse, arrested and taken to jail.

John Heid

Earlier he stated, "Today, October 3rd, sandwiched between Gandhi¹s birthday and the feast of Francis of Assisi, I come to Raytheon with a plea: Make me an instrument of peace!  I come with Gandhian nonviolence and a Franciscan spirit to urge Raytheon Corporation to use its genius, its imagination, its fiscal and scientific resources for the creation and manufacture of those products that enhance life, not destroy it.  I come with the knowledge that Raytheon Missile Systems is one of the world¹s leading manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) components and missiles. I come with the knowledge that U.S. drones are responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates that 957 civilians were killed in their country alone last year.  I urge Raytheon to make things that make for peaceŠ Make us instruments of peace!"

The peace vigil is one of dozens around the world happening from October 1-8, Keep Space for Peace Week: International Week of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space.  There was also an October 3 peace vigil at Raytheon Headquarters in Massachusetts.

A complete list of global protests can be found at www.space4peace.org

The Raytheon Peacemakers have been vigiling once a month outside Tucson’s Raytheon plant for the past 12 years.  They continue to demonstrate against war and those who profit from it, firmly believing that survival demands better ideas, not better weapons.

Contact in Tucson:

Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa at nukeresister@igc.org, 520-323-8697

A call for nuclear weapons cuts at Offutt AFB

OFFUTT AFB--In this time of economic hardship, with unemployment near historic highs and with budgets stretched tight at all levels from the federal government down to the local school boards, it is not right to be spending billions of dollars on nuclear weapons.

That was the message some 150 Catholic activists carried Oct. 2 to the gates of Offutt Air Force Base, near Omaha, Neb., home of U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for the planning and targeting of the nation’s nuclear weapons.

Three of the activists, including a Franciscan sister and a member of the Des Moines, Iowa, Catholic Worker community, were arrested after crossing onto the property of the base in a symbolic act of civil resistance.

The event was sponsored by the Dubuque, Iowa, Sisters of St. Francis.

The timing, said Sr. Pat Farrell, vice-president of the Dubuque Franciscan community and president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, “expressed our own commitment to peacemaking as Franciscans.”

In a press release, the Dubuque community said it planned the date of the event partly to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s Oct. 4, 1986, Interreligious Prayer for Peace Gathering in Assisi, Italy, and the annual Oct. 4 feast day of St. Francis of Assisi.

But, for Franciscan Sr. Marian Klostermann, one of the three who was arrested for stepping onto the base, one of the primary reasons for the action was to focus on nuclear weapons spending.

With the economic downturn affecting families across the country, she and the other activist said, it should affect nuclear weapons spending too.

The action, which Klostermann said in a phone interview saw activists from “at least ten” cities converge on the base, was meant to signal that President Obama’s dedication of $80 billion towards the U.S. nuclear weapons complex over the next 20 years is “totally unjust.”

“We’ve tried everything and our representatives do not hear,” said Klostermann. “They continue to fund these weapons, even when so many social programs are being cut….It is totally unjust. Since they don’t hear us, we are using our bodies to give another message because the words don’t seem to be convincing anyone.”

Farrell was also present the action. In a phone interview she said that the activists prayed together for about an hour before the three crossed onto the base.

Several speakers also addressed the crowd, including Martha Hennessy, a granddaughter of Dorothy Day, who cofounded the Catholic Worker with Peter Maurin in 1933.

After the prayers and speeches, Klostermann said, the three who crossed the line received a blessing from the crowd, sang together a rendition of the traditional hymn “Peace is flowing like a river,” and then walked onto the paved walkway leading to the base and were immediately taken into custody.

Just before their arrests, Klostermann said, Hennessy placed blue scarves among the three line-crossers necks. Brought home by the Catholic Worker legacy-holder from a recent trip to Afghanistan, they represented hopes for peace from around the world.

The two others who walked onto the property were Gilbert Landolt, a member of Veterans for Peace and a member of the Des Moines Catholic Worker community, and Marilyn Riley, a retired school principal.

Farrell said the peace action also re-emphasized the mission and vision of vowed religious.

“We’re to be a prophetic in the church and the world,” said Farrell. “That’s an identity that, over the years, has only become clearer to us. And to be a prophetic presence from a place of deep prayerfulness is a strength that we’re discovering more and more.”

Klostermann, who has been with the Franciscan order for 58 years, said the three line-crossers were briefly held after their arrests to be processed and then released, and each expect to receive separate notices of court dates in coming weeks. They each face up to six months in prison for federal trespass.

Sunday’s action at the base is the latest in a years-long campaign to draw attention to the U.S. Strategic Command, also known as STRATCOM. Four others walked onto the property in an act of civil resistance in August, 2010.

One of the four, Omaha, Neb., Catholic Mark Kenney, is serving a six-month sentence for that action, and is expected to be released this month.

As for Farrell, she said actions like these reflect the identity of women religious around the U.S.

“We’ve been learning that prophetic contemplation and prophetic prophecy are ways of expressing our identity in ways that are becoming more clear to us.”

Source:

http://ncronline.org/news/peace/offutt-activists-call-nuclear-weapons-cuts

Turning Guns Into Flower Pots and Creating the Beloved Community

Soldiers positioned around Azadi Square, Suleimaniya Iraq

by Michele Naar-Obed

In June, I returned home to the Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker in Duluth MN after finishing another five-month stretch in the Kurdish North of Iraq working with the human rights, violence-reduction organization Christian Peacemaker Teams. This would end my sixth year of spending five months each year in the Middle East. It was a hard but inspiring five months. Like many others in the Middle East, the Iraqi Kurds had enough of corrupt foreign and domestic policies, poverty, and misappropriation of their resources. 

A portion of the Peace Wall, positioned between the soldiers and the 

demonstrators, Suleimaniya Iraq

After 20 years of rule by two party leaders accused of nepotism and corruption, the people rose up. From February to April, thousands of Iraqi Kurds gathered daily in the cities of the Suleimaniya Province in their Azadi (freedom) Squares to voice their complaints and create their road map to peace. The commitment of the organizers to nonviolence was remarkable. Every day they faced government provocateurs and security forces, many of whom were trained by US forces in crowd and riot control, who were bent on turning these daily nonviolent demonstrations into violent chaos in order to take it down by force. Every day the organizers, many of whom were students and youth, trained through the lessons of Gandhi and M.L. King, found creative strategies to diffuse the tensions in the square and persevere with their plans to build their “beloved community.”

Scores of deaths, hundreds of injuries, and thousands of arrests later, the Kurdish security forces put the demonstrations to a temporary end. In the midst of fires, tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets and live ammunition the people cried out, “you broke the square but you can't break us”. They mourned their dead, visited their wounded and fought for the release of their imprisoned with the help from groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Christian Peacemaker Teams.

I spent 62 days in Azadi Square with these valiant nonviolent warriors and I will never forget them or the lessons they taught me about waging a campaign for freedom from oppressive and unjust rule. More than nonviolent resistance tactics,  the Kurds taught me how to maintain hope and vision in the face of death and despair. They know how to build relationships even with their enemies because they know that when it comes right down to it we all need each other. There were times when I literally saw guns melt in the face of love and right relationships. I don't say that flippantly nor am I trying to be overly dramatic.

I've found it really hard to adjust to life in the US after these experiences. I know our oppressive rule under the US empire is not only lethal to the majority of its own citizens but its lethality extends to most of the world.  I know that it is too big for any small group of us to take it down. There are no individual heroes, but together with the power of the Divine Force pulsing through us, we might be able to rope down the giant.

Like every empire that has gone down in the past, I also know that over time it will fall on its own. I hope to hasten the process in an effort to reduce the number of casualties. I applaud the Wall Street Occupiers and support their efforts. Their efforts are combined with all the efforts of nonviolent resistance that many of us in the Catholic Worker movement have participated in both past and present.

Combined with the efforts of dismantling oppressive systems are the works of building the new “beloved community”. This is the vision that Peter Maurin gave us and I saw it radiate throughout the Midwest Catholic Worker communities as they shared their ideas, their successes and their failures in creating the new community at this year's regional Catholic Worker gathering in Iowa. Like the vision of the Kurds, Peter's vision hasn't died in hopelessness and despair either.

So where am I in this circle of tearing down and building up? Where does the Divine Force want me? It's really the work of the Spirit and we are the vehicles out of which that work can be carried out. For now, I find myself called to the work of urban farming, of developing relationships between my city of Duluth and the city of Rania in Iraqi Kurdistan, of re-committing myself to the life of the Catholic Worker movement and of putting flesh on the bones of the “beloved community” in the face of the dragon. Greg, Rachel and I remain bound together as family and although we use our life skills differently, we remain committed to the common good. I guess until I hear differently, this is where I'll be. Thank you to all my sisters and brothers of the uprisings throughout the world for keeping hope alive and for counting me in the circle of life.

The Circle of Life: soldier, peace wall, and demonstrators together.

Michele Naar-Obed, husband Greg and daughter Rachel live at the Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker in Duluth MN

obedsinduluth@yahoo.com

Report on the Kansas City Nuke Plant Trial

Women join hands before heavy equipment at Nuke Plant site.

by Art Laffin

It was a long fruitful day of truth-telling in Kansas City Municipal  Court for 27 peacemakers, mostly Catholic Workers, arrested last May 2nd at the site of the new Kansas City nuclear weapons plant. Those arrested were part of a larger nonviolent witness, including 26 others who were also arrested, calling for the transformation of the Bomb parts plant currently being constructed. Ruth O'Neill and Henry Stoever, who were exceptional throughout the trial, represented all but two of the defendants: Greg Boertje-Obed and I went pro-se.

The day began with nine people pleading guilty and receiving the following sentence: 1 year probation, 25 hours community service and court costs.

This was followed by a trial for sixteen people before Judge Ardie Bland. The city prosecutor called three witnesses: a police officer, a supervisor from J.E. Dunn Construction Co., and Jim Cross, the senior VP who works for Centerpoint Properties, a real estate developer who claims his company is the owner of the construction site. However the real owner of the site, many contend, is a municipal entity called Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA). Following their testimony, and cross examination by the defense, which sought to clarify legal questions of trespass, establish true ownership of the plant site, and invite Mr. Cross to consider the moral implications of building a new bomb plant, the city prosecutor rested.

A motion for judgment of acquittal offered by the defense was presented and quickly denied.

Chrissy Kirchoffer

The defense case consisted of six people testifying. Eric Garbison, Ron Faust, Chrissy Kirchoffer, Dan Wilson, Jerica Arents and Josh Armfield. Each gave eloquent testimony about their faith and why the new plant should not be built from a human, economic, environmental, legal and moral perspective. The defense rested and closing statements were offered. (click here for Art's closing statement). Our motion for acquittal was renewed and denied again by the judge. The judge then took a short recess.

Upon his return to the bench, the judge dismissed charges against Gina Cook and Amy Nee as the city witnesses could not identify them. He then began by applauding us for our convictions stating that this country is great because of people like us who stood for change. He also said that as a man of faith he admired the faith aspect of our testimony and witness. He then proceeded to find us guilty. He then stated that anyone who was part of the Catholic Worker, and didn't have jobs, would be given a sentence of community service. And people who had jobs would be given a fine plus community service. This part of the sentence would be amended. Greg and Eric told the judge they would not accept or cooperate with fines and community service and requested jail time instead.

When all was said and done the following sentences were rendered:  

*16 people were given one year probation, one year stay away order from the plant, 10 days suspended jail sentence and 50 hours community service.

Eric Garbison

* Greg Boertje Obed - Duluth CW obedsinduluth@yahoo.com  and Eric Garbison - KC CW jegarbison@gmail.com movingly told the judge why they would prefer jail over the sentence he pronounced and Greg appealed to him to speak out against nuclear weapons. They were both given 7 day jail sentences.

Deo Gratias for their life-giving witness!

The truth was once again proclaimed, loud and clear, in a court in the heartland of the U.S. Yet once again we were found guilty. Another deeply held conviction! I thank God for everyone who witnessed today in court, especially those who spoke for the first time. Meanwhile, the structure of the new bomb plant has neared completion. And the nonviolent campaign to stop it full construction continues!

With deep gratitude to all who have been praying for those of us in court today as well as for the judge and the prosecutor!

We keep our yes on the prize and hold on!

________

Link to Art Laffin's Closing statement:

http://catholicworkercommentary.blogspot.com/2011/09/art-laffin-closing-statement-at-sept-28.html

  

Art Laffin <artlaffin@hotmail.com>

Dorothy Day CW House

503 Rock Creek Church Road, NW

Washington, D.C. 20010

Phone: 202.882.9649 or 202.829.7625

http://dccatholicworker.wordpress.com/

Catholic Worker Movement Featured on Huffington Post

The Catholic Worker Movement was recently featured in Huffington Post in an article titled: “The Catholic Worker: Translation Doctrine into Practice.”  Below is a reprint of that feature.

The Catholic Worker: Translating Doctrine Into Practice

by Kok Hou Chia

In the winter of 1932, Dorothy Day was covering the Hunger March in Washington D.C. as a reporter for a socialist publication. She had recently just converted to Catholicism. As she watched the protesters march past her, demanding a solution to their economic woes, Day would never forget the bitter disappointment she felt then at the lack of Catholic leadership in social activism on behalf of the poor. When she met the French priest, Peter Maurin, not long afterwards, they started The Catholic Worker, a Catholic social publication. The first issue appeared in May 1933 -- during the depths of the Great Depression. Their vision was to reform the political, social and economic aspects of the social order based on Christian principles and ethics.

Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin

The Catholic Worker movement "radicalized" Catholicism. At a time when the popular perception of American Catholicism was that of an "otherworldly" faith with no real social consequences, the Catholic Worker struggled to bring Catholic doctrine to bear on social issues. This could be seen, for instance, in its staunch advocacy of racial justice in the 1930s. The Catholic Worker not only published regular columns and articles from other interracial publications that opposed the economic exclusion and lynching of African-Americans, but consolidated Catholic support for racial justice as its circulation steadily increased during the early years of its publication. Black Chicago physician and civil rights leader Arthur Falls, for instance, saw the Catholic Worker as an unprecedented ally in his campaign to combat racial discrimination and challenge the status quo of race-relations within the American Catholic Church (which for centuries had practiced segregation in the churches). Most significantly for Falls, the Catholic Worker proved his point that it was not Catholicism per se that was racist, but that racism was the result of the failure of Catholics to live up to true Catholic doctrine. Though the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ proclaimed the universal brotherhood of all men, secular conventions, Falls believed, nevertheless impelled Catholics to think and act otherwise.

The Catholic Worker promoted social activism amongst Catholics through an action-oriented spirituality rooted in an ethic of poverty and the individual practice of the works of mercy. During the Depression era, the social indifference of the Catholic Church had disillusioned many young Catholics. As a result, they found the gospel radicalism of the Catholic Worker spiritually revitalizing and more importantly, faithful to biblical witness. To serve Christ, according to the Catholic Worker, meant to take seriously -- and literally -- the Savior's precepts to feed the hungry, relieve the thirsty and shelter the homeless. Thus, the works of mercy were practiced on a daily basis in the houses of hospitality.

The houses of hospitality were, in an important sense, an embodiment of the personalist philosophy of the Catholic Worker i.e. taking individual personal responsibility to effect social change. It was the belief that social revolution would come about only if individuals took personal responsibility to alleviate the suffering of their neighbors instead of relying on the bureaucratic charity of "Holy Mother State." In the Catholic Worker context, this often entailed self-sacrifice, such as the sharing of one's private property for the benefit of the community.

Helen Caldwell Day

Llewellyn Scott, Helen Caldwell Day and Mary Frecon each started a house of hospitality to meet different but equally desperate human needs; Scott to cater to the needs of socially ostracized African-American men in Washington D.C., Frecon to provide a social avenue for neglected black children in the slums of Harrisburg, and Helen to serve the needs of black women who could not afford day care for their children. However, their immediate communities for the most part did not look highly upon their philanthropy. Nor were their communities impressed by the undeserving "street bums" who frequented these houses of hospitality and whom Catholic Workers piously elevated to the status of the "Ambassadors of God."

Therefore, running a house of hospitality was more often than not a lonely, socially isolating endeavor. Sometimes, Catholic Workers even provoked public outrage and invited social ostracism through their activities, as when Helen deliberately breached a social taboo and convened an interracial discussion group in segregated Memphis with the goal of overcoming racial prejudice in the South. Through these individual acts of solidarity with the poor, Catholic Workers sought to transform the values of public life by living out the commands of Jesus as laid out in the Sermon on the Mount. Religious faith was to serve as the basis for social action.

One integral feature of the early Catholic Worker movement was its ethic of poverty. To be sure, the Catholic Worker recognizes a distinction between voluntary poverty and involuntary poverty. While the former could be "good and dignified," and could conceivably be adopted as a way of life, the latter was understood to be a consequence of social injustice and should be opposed. Voluntary poverty was akin to Gandhian simplicity, or the notion that it was a lower standard of material living, not higher, that could lead to spiritual liberation and human freedom. To live in poverty was to embrace the principle of non-accumulation and to contribute to the common good through sharing one's private resources. In this way, voluntary poverty was intricately linked to Catholic Worker notions of love, justice, charity and empathy.

But early Catholic Workers had not always found it easy to embrace a lifestyle centered on radical poverty. In the twentieth century pre-Civil Rights era, there were actually few leaders in the Catholic Worker movement who were African-American. After all, voluntary poverty must have seemed like a self-defeating ideal for a historically marginalized race. Indeed, Helen's family objected to her acceptance of poverty as racial masochism. Helen herself was initially perplexed by the Catholic Workers' way of life. However, during the course of her stay at the St. Joseph's house of hospitality on Mott Street, she experienced a spiritual transformation. Seeing the compassion and forbearance that Catholic Workers brought to each human encounter amidst the daily chaos, she began to understand the essence of living a Christ-like life. Between 1935 and 1967, Llewellyn Scott, another African-American, also contributed most of his time, income and energy to maintaining a house of hospitality in Washington D.C.

In the final analysis, the Catholic Worker activated the core of Catholic spirituality at a time when the Church was seen as socially lethargic, bringing Catholicism out of the zone of private morality and merging it with the public sphere of human values.

Source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kok-hou-chia/catholic-worker-translating-doctrine-practice_b_966981.html

Jim Forest to Speak in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH--Long-time Catholic Worker Jim Forest will be in Pittsburgh Oct. 14 and 15 to speak about his new biography of his friend Dorothy Day. One of the sessions will take place on the grounds of the Holy Family of Nazareth, where Ms. Day used to go on retreat with Father John Hugo, a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Mr. Forest has been an Orthodox Christian since 1988, but the founder of theCatholic Peace Fellowship maintains strong ties to the Catholic Church, and his appearances here are sponsored by a long list of Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and interfaith organizations.

His first lecture and book signing will be Friday, Oct. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral, 3400 Dawson St., in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. A $5 donation is requested.

The second event, a full day of reflection, will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Holy Family of Nazareth, 285 Bellevue Rd., near the Perrysville exit of I-279 North. A $30 donation includes lunch.

Mr. Forest grew up in New Jersey, was baptized an Episcopalian and converted to Catholicism in 1960 while serving in the Navy  near Washington, DC. His conversion coincided with a growing conviction that it was wrong to take human life under any circumstance. In 1961 he obtained an early discharge from the Navy on the grounds of conscientious objection.

Photo of Dorothy Day and a younger Forest at the NY Catholic Worker

He then joined the Catholic Worker Community in New York City. It had been founded by Dorothy Day, a convert to Catholicism whose faith led her to devote her life to serving the poor.  Forest became managing editor of her newspaper, The Catholic Worker. “All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day” is his second book about her life.

In 1965 he founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship to promote the possibility of conscientious objection to military service in an era of the draft. He was influential enough that the Trappist monk and peace activist Thomas Merton dedicated one of his books to Mr. Forest.

In 1969 he was imprisoned for 13 months for burning draft records along with a group of Catholic priests and laity in Milwaukee. In 1973 he became editor of Fellowship, the magazine of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace group. In 1977 he moved to Holland, where he and his wife Nancy still live, to become general secretary of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.

During the 1980s he wrote two books on religious faith in the Soviet Union, which led to his conversion to Orthodoxy in 1988. He is now international secretary of theOrthodox Peace Fellowship.

He had suffered illness in recent years, and in 2007 received a living donor kidney from his wife, Nancy. They have six children and five grandchildren.

For more information contact Mimi Darrach at  mimidarragh@aol.com

or Molly Rush at molly.rush@verizon.com

Photos courtesy of Jim Forest

Source:

http://blogs.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/news/faithburgh/29652-jim-forest-co-worker-of-dorothy-day-to-speak-about-her-life-oct-14-15