Friends are in town and it is late from all the talk. But earlier today I wrote this letter to people in Catholic Worker movement via a Catholic Worker list kept by a friend. The letter speaks for itself.
Dear Catholic Workers and Friends,
The Catholic Worker Movement has a long history of opposing military training on Catholic Universities and College campuses. Here is a quote from Dorothy Day in 1948 with a few word changes (in parenthesis) sounds like it was written today:
“Some of us at THE CATHOLIC WORKER have been going to the colleges and distributing a leaflet against UMT (DMS) [Universal Military Training] (Departments of Military Sciences). And most everyone to whom we gave the leaflet has expressed acceptance of UMT (DPS), has thought it a good thing. There are no antiwar organizations in the colleges these days, at least not in the Catholic colleges. There is a sense of the inevitable, that war is to come, that morality has nothing to do with it, that it is a question of licking Russia (Terrorist) before she gets too strong, before she gets the atomic bomb.” “We Are Un-American: We Are Catholics” By Dorothy Day. The Catholic Worker, April 1948, 2.
Dorothy would not accept any honors from a Catholic University that had military training, ROTC.* What would she think these days about Marquette, the home of Catholic Worker archives, being the only university in five county area to host Departments of Army, Navy/Marines and Air Force on campus and the teaching of reflexive killing, killing without conscience?
There is a picture attached of what some of you did, take over ROTC building during the Catholic Worker Conference at Marquette in 1997. I was at the conference but did not know anything was happening until years later when Frank sent me the pictures. I am not asking you to do anything so “radical” but simply to support our rally and trial on July 15 to End ROTC at Marquette. If you cannot be present could you please, call, email or write the President of Marquette University to stop teaching war and killing at Marquette by closing ROTC. Use your own words but there are links below his name and address that can help with the moral, ethical and academic arguments. Don Timmerman and I met with Father Pilarz, the president, last year and he seems like an open person.
Catholic Worker Archives and three Departments of Defense are not compatible, MU, Keep the archives and end ROTC at Marquette.
Bob Graf
Rev. Scott R. Pilarz, S.J.
(414) 288–7223
President; Associate Professor of English
Zilber Hall, 441
Marquette University
P.O. 1881
Milwaukee, WI 53201–1881
president@marquette.edu
Catholic Workers and Military Training on Catholic Campuses
Marquette University, Be Faithful to the Gospel, and No Longer Host Departments of Military Science.
44 Year History of Nonviolent Resistance to Military at Marquette.
What is the story behind Dorothy Day Accepting the Laetare Medal From Notre Dame?
Comments
(:commentboxchrono:)