His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, OMI,
Archbishop of Chicago
P.O. Box 1979
Chicago, IL 60690-1979

Dear Cardinal George,

The public outcry that denounced the actions of the six peace activists who symbolically reminded a largely silent and complicit Catholic population that we are a nation at war worries me. When there is more outrage and opposition to one group’s small but courageous attempt to speak truth to a church called to pray for our enemies and love those who persecute us, I wonder if Jesus has truly risen in our hearts, in our minds, in our communities, or in Iraq this past Easter Sunday.

Surely, there are many different attitudes and opinions concerning the message, the action, and the location these six activists chose. Of all the opinions I would most like to hear, would be that of Iraqi Catholic Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho. But his body was found in a ditch after he was abducted during a shootout outside his church, after celebrating the Via Crucis, earlier this month. It is realities like this that we Americans are so insulated from in our calm, sanitized Easter Sunday services.

I recall the words of Fr. Dan Berrigan, SJ. He is one of those rare Catholic believers who took seriously (perhaps too seriously!) the words Jesus spoke at the Sermon on the Mount: "We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total--but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial...There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war--at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.”

There is a unique opportunity here for Cardinal George, the Archdiocese of Chicago, and the Roman Catholic Church to embark on a journey of peacemaking and forgiveness. One does not have to agree with or condone one's actions as a mandate for forgiveness. Perhaps Cardinal George could lend some valuable wisdom to the six individuals as to why he views their actions . I cannot help but think of Jesus's instructions to his disciples on the nature of forgiveness and the striking parallels it has to the events of Easter Sunday:

"If your brother or sister sins against you, go and tell them their fault, between you and them alone. If they listen to you, you have gained a brother or sister. But if they do not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If they refuse to listen to them, tell it to the Church; and if he refuses to listen even to the Church, let them be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two or three of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother or sister sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." (Matthew 18:15-22)

Are these "Holy Name 6," as these six individuals have come to be known, the ones who have sinned and in need of a brother or sister coming to them in reconciliation? Or do these six see themselves as coming to the Church, to tell the Church of its failure to be the peacemakers Jesus calls us to? Drawing from the exegesis of Stanley Hauerwas and his assertion that the Church is to be a community of both peacemakers and forgiveness, we see "[t]hat the Church is such a community of truthful peace depends on its being a community of the forgiven", there are pieces of truth from both perspectives.

Lead by example, Cardinal George, in being a community of peacemakers, unequivocally calling for an end to the war in Iraq and engage in a process of reconciliation that seeks not to continue tearing apart a Church wounded and divided by Easter Sunday's events, but to seeks to restore the community of God's forgiven that practices forgiveness. Begin a dialogue with the people of you Church and advocate for a restorative justice, not a justice that throws lives carelessly into prisons.

-in a spirit of peace and nonviolence-

Jake Olzen
Loyola University Chicago