I was late to the peace vigil. A few dozen people were semi-circled in the main downtown park of the former New England mill city where I live. I stood at the edge of the crowd, and soon an older man wearing a bright orange safety vest wordlessly approached me and handed me a small candle with a little paper cuff to keep hot wax from sticking to my mittened fingers. He tilted his own candle towards mine and shared his flame. In the intimacy of this small act, I felt immediately welcomed.
The vigil took place two days after the murder of Renee Good. A ragtag group of folks huddled in 20-degree weather. Soon, a minister from a local Unitarian Universalist church began the vigil with a prayer over a bullhorn that wouldn’t work, so she raised her voice to the crowd. Her message was one of hope and sorrow, inclusion and justice, pain and community. Like so many people, I came to this local vigil, thousands of miles from Minneapolis, to be with others who felt the need to mark and mourn not only Good’s death, but the growing terror and uncertainty brought on by the immigration crackdown and the ICE kidnappings.
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We sang songs I knew well from my college days protesting the Iraq War: “We Shall Overcome” and “This Little Light of Mine.” Earlier that winter, my spiritual director, a wise and kind Sister of the Sacred Heart, had encouraged me to be the light in the darkness. Her words came back to me now as I lifted my little candle to the wind amidst the streetlights.
After a few community faith leaders and nonprofit professionals spoke, they invited comments from the crowd. An older woman spoke vulnerably and courageously about having grown up abroad under an oppressive government and how important it is to speak out. Then another woman asked, “I want to know where the Catholic priests are? Why aren’t they here?” I knew who all the Catholic priests in our small city were, and she was right, none of them were there. I had to ball my fists in my aforementioned mittens to keep myself from raising my hand and shouting, “I’m here!” I wanted to list my Catholic bona fides: teacher, chaplain, master’s degree. But I wasn’t there to represent a parish or the Church. I was just an unknown laywoman holding one candle in the dark. So I said nothing.
I knew the Jesuits who educated me were no doubt talking about this on college campuses, and I knew the nuns were always at work, heralding the good news and a call to action. But here outside the city, there was very little, if any, acknowledgement from the Catholic Church about what was happening, never mind any kind of call for responding to the injustice.
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I was a 20-year-old cradle Catholic in an undergrad Theology class before I knew the Church had a tradition of pacifism and anti-war activism. I soon met the young Jesuits, wise BVM sisters, and lay campus ministers who showed me how to live my faith with my feet. We went to soup kitchens, on service trips, and to peace vigils. All these activities, I learned, were interconnected. Dorothy Day told us that “Peace begins when the hungry are fed.” So we volunteered at the homeless shelter on Thursdays and went to the peace vigil every Friday and then Mass every Sunday. They became practices of my faith just as much as the Rosary or the Stations of the Cross.
The Catholic faith I was raised and steeped in — years in parochial school, my grandmother’s devotion to the Blessed Mother — had brought me to these moments of action and engagement. The Jesuits talked about being “Contemplatives in Action.” I grew up knowing Church as the quiet moments when my hands were buried in my face in prayer after communion, leaning against the dark mahogany of my home parish’s pews, blessing myself with holy water on entering and leaving, reciting my prayers. My time in college lit a match to that faith and set it forth in a way I could not have anticipated. It took the orthodoxy and devotion of my youth and gave it legs.
I didn’t realize then that this engaged and active part of the Church was not going to be there for me forever. When I’d found out the Catholic Church of my birth was committed to peace, I didn’t realize my accessibility to a Church committed to social justice was liminal. I was lucky enough to work at a Catholic school, attend grad school, and find a large urban parish that had a social justice committee. For 15 years or so after undergrad, I was surrounded by and active in a Catholic life that intertwined the liturgy with a sense of responsibility to the poor, the marginalized, and outsiders. Now in early middle age, away from the city and back where I grew up, I was in a desert, feeling like I’d been a part of a different church.
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I think most Catholics never learn about the peace tradition of the Church, and if they do, they see it as optional as opposed to foundational. It can also often be misunderstood. I have to teach my students that pacifism is different from passivity. In a culture (and sometimes a Church) where power is put on a pedestal, I understand their confusion. The students are surprised when they learn the Catholic Church has a tradition of social activism and nonviolence. I can’t blame them — outside of universities and large urban parishes, I have not seen our rich peace tradition brought up in liturgy or formation. It’s a lost opportunity for building disciples of peace amongst everyone in the Church.
This year, Pope Leo XIV has been criticized forsimply stating the Gospel, that “Jesus is the King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war…He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” I wish every Catholic sermon reaffirmed this teaching. I don’t want to be the only Catholic at my local peace vigil.
This is a time when we deeply need this tradition and the words of our prophets — Dorothy Day, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, St. Oscar Romero, and so many others — to be taught and heard. It shouldn’t feel prophetic to teach what the Church has already so clearly stated, but I hope new prophets will rise up from every pulpit and every parish to do just that. Catholicism has a rich and deep history of nonviolence and anti-war activism — from the nonviolence of Jesus to the catacombs of the early Christian community to the conscientious objectors and activists who have preached about the gospel of peace. I hope we can (re)learn, or learn it for the first time, together. The world needs our witness now more than ever.
Questions for Reflection
- The author describes learning to “live my faith with my feet.” What might that look like in your own life right now?
- The essay asks why more Catholics are not present at local peace vigils and public acts of solidarity. What opportunities exist in your own community to put faith into action, and what might encourage more people to participate?
- When have you experienced a small act of welcome that helped you feel less alone in a difficult moment?
