Father John Dear spoke with St. Anthony Messenger about the Christian call to nurture nonviolence in the world today.

Father John Dear is a priest of the Monterey (California) Diocese and outreach coordinator for Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, an independent, nondenominational 501(c)(3) organization founded by the Franciscan Friars of California in 1989. Calling himself a “pilgrim of peacemaking,” the 58-year-old activist, lecturer, and author/editor of some 30 books on peace and nonviolence has been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Father Dear served as director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest US interfaith peace organization. After 9/11, he was a Red Cross chaplain, counseling thousands of victims’ relatives and rescue workers. He has traveled in war zones throughout Latin America and the Middle East; been arrested more than 75 times in acts of civil disobedience against war; spent eight months in prison for a Plowshares nuclear-disarmament action; and, in the 1990s, arranged for Mother Teresa to speak to various US governors to stop the death penalty.

He spoke with St. Anthony Messenger about the Christian call to nurture nonviolence in the world today.

You helped draft Pope Francis’ message for the 50th anniversary of the World Day of Peace on January 1, 2017. How did that opportunity come about?

In early 2016, 80 peace leaders from around the world came to the Vatican—most of them from war zones, involved in stopping wars and facing death threats and imprisonment—people from all over Africa, the Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, and several of us from the [United] States.

We issued a joint statement, “An Appeal to the Catholic Church to Return to Gospel Nonviolence,” calling upon the Catholic Church to reject the just war theory [the Church’s conditions under which war is justifiable] and return to the nonviolence of Jesus and asking Pope Francis to write his next encyclical on the nonviolence of Jesus and what that means for us. While we were there, Cardinal [Peter] Turkson, then president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, asked me to draft the pope’s next World Day of Peace message.

What’s so important about this [message] is that it is the first statement in the history of the Catholic Church on nonviolence. And with this World Day of Peace message—the 50th one—Pope Francis has entered into the same league as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King in terms of understanding Christianity from the perspective of nonviolence. This is active peacemaking, universal love, working for justice and disarmament, but without using the means of violence.

The holy father’s theme for the day was “nonviolence: a style of politics for peace.” Was it significant that he centered on the need, in his words, “to cultivate nonviolence”?

I think he understands the complete failure of violence with now a realization that the just war theory is completely obsolete. There is no just war, nor can it be applied in today’s world. And, in this time of permanent war, we have to find another way forward or we will destroy ourselves.

The pope understands that the Church has been deeply involved in war and violence for centuries and has even made it a part of the Catechism and canon law with the just war theory. But things are so precarious in the world, and people are suffering and dying. Like many people, he is waking up to the understanding that violence doesn’t work, war doesn’t work, violence and war only breed further violence and war, that we need to . . . resolve conflicts nonviolently. And that this is doable, that this is not pie-in-the-sky talk, that this methodology of nonviolent conflict resolution, when funded and when built through movements and nations that really pursue it, works. All the evidence is in. There are hundreds of cases of how nonviolence can work to end war and conflicts.

Are you saying that the Vatican and Pope Francis himself are seriously considering reassessing and rejecting the concept of the just war theory?

Yes. Cardinal Turkson has said that in several media interviews as well. I don’t know if they will [reject it]. But the joint statement from the Vatican conference in 2016 says that warfare does not work as a means to end war, that too many people are getting killed, and too many people are getting rich off these wars and killings. It is not the way of Jesus, most importantly. That’s what the pope says in the World Day of Peace message.

Jesus was clearly nonviolent, and it’s time that we grow up and become mature disciples and start practicing the nonviolence of Jesus. That includes not only us as individuals, but the global Church, the community of followers of the nonviolent Jesus.

The just war theory has its roots in the fourth century, when roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and ruled that Christians could engage in armed conflict. What has changed to make the church question an understanding that goes to the core of Christian belief?

The pope has been saying that we are in World War III by piecemeal, and no one is naming it. There is no future with violence or warfare. War is just a dead end. Even outside of Jesus, it just doesn’t work anymore. That’s why Pope Francis is questioning. This is very serious. You’re right. It is at the heart of the Church.

Didn’t we all learn as children about how Jesus physically threw out those buying and selling in the temple?

We were not taught that Jesus was nonviolent. We were never taught the nonviolence of the Gospels. The Church has really failed in that. And that is why this is such a historic turning point.

Jesus was meticulously nonviolent; he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. All of his teachings are of this visionary nonviolence: “Blessed are the peacemakers” [Mt 5:9]; “Love your enemies” [Mt 5:44]; and, that one sentence, “Offer no violent resistance to one who is evil” [Mt 5:39], which was put in the World Day of Peace message.

And then Jesus goes on a campaign of nonviolence in Jerusalem. It is aggressive, militant nonviolence. He confronts the Temple and the empire in active civil disobedience. He doesn’t hit anybody, hurt anybody, kill anybody, or drop any bombs, but he is not passive. And Matthew, Mark, and Luke are clear that he marches to Jerusalem, he does the civil disobedience, and he is arrested, tortured, and killed.

But even in his suffering and his death, not only is Jesus nonviolent, he is not even angry. He forgives people, and, when he comes back at the resurrection, he continues to be nonviolent.

Why is the concept of nonviolence so important to an understanding of Christianity?

We are undergoing an epic of violence. I think we are getting closer to global destruction. Right now, there are some 30 wars happening, 3 to 4 billion people in some form of extreme poverty, 16,000 nuclear weapons good to go, catastrophic climate change, and all of these forms of violence from racism, sexism, corporate greed, and torture.

Words to live by: ‘Love your enemies’ (Mt 5:44); ‘Offer no violent resistance to one who is evil’ (Mt 5:39)

After centuries and millennia of violence, we just presume that’s what it means to be a human being. We’re wounded people, and we’re violent to one another, and then we go off and kill or support killing.

Unless we become nonviolent, we become doomed to our own self-destruction. So it is a very practical issue. This is not idealistic. This is not utopia. This is just basic survival of the human race and creatures and creation.

What is Jesus calling us to as Christians?

Jesus models perfect nonviolence. In the Sermon on the Mount, he teaches a practical way of life through nonviolence. “Love your enemies and then you are really the sons and daughters of the God who lets the sun rise on the good and the bad and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust ” [Mt 5:44–45]. There, in the most political sentence in the entire Bible—”love your enemies,” you don’t kill your enemies, you love them nonviolently—he describes also the nature of God as a God of nonviolence.

I don’t think we want that.

Why don’t we want to see God as nonviolent?

We want a God who is like us. We are afraid of God. We like God being violent and throwing those “other people” into hell. Somebody needs to go to hell, but not us.

But what Jesus is saying is that God is completely nonviolent, that the reign of God is the reign of total nonviolence. There is no violence, no killing, no death. If we want to live in the life of God as followers of the nonviolent Jesus, we can recognize every human being as a sister and brother and actually work for a new culture of peace and nonviolence.

This is what the Church should have always been doing, but we have failed to teach the nonviolence of Jesus. Pope Francis is trying to change that, and that’s why this is an exciting time of hope.

Do you see any parallels between the nonviolence Jesus is calling us to and the life of St. Francis?

Of course. We had hundreds of years of terrible violence through the Middle Ages. And then St. Francis bursts on the scene, and he says, “You can’t carry weapons. We are people of prayer, penance, poverty, service to the poor, oneness with the earth, and non-violence.”;

And he proves it by walking through the war zone [during the Crusades] to meet this hated enemy, the sultan [Malik al-Kamil of Egypt], and practicing the nonviolence of Jesus, loving your enemies.

We hear from some us political leaders that nonviolence is idealistic and will never work.

The world says that in the face of violence you can do two things: You fight back using the means of violence or you run away and do nothing. That’s not what we are talking about. Nonviolence is a third option of active nonviolent resistance to violence where you engage the opponent. You try to stop the violence, only you do not use the means of your opponent because then you only become just like them.

[Violence] is not the way of Jesus, but also it is just not working. Our nuclear weapons did not protect us on September 11, and our war on terrorism is just turning the whole world against us.

We are going to have many more September 11s until we wake up and stop bombing the world and start getting at the roots of terrorism and violence, which is ending hunger, ending oppression, ending unjust occupations and disease.

Is nonviolence tied to other issues such as climate change, immigration, and gun control?

I don’t see nonviolence as an issue. I see nonviolence as life. It is the way of God. All of my teachers have told me that—Daniel Berrigan, Thich Nhat Hanh, Mother Teresa, Coretta Scott King, and Archbishop [Desmond] Tutu. The fullness of life is the fullness of nonviolence. Be nonviolent to ourselves, be nonviolent to others and creation, and be a part of the movement to transform the world nonviolently.

We are talking about a language of love and peace and compassion. If you apply that to every form of violence—and we are connecting all of the dots here—that means we love our neighbors, we’re nonviolent to people around us, we don’t have guns, we don’t threaten to kill people.

That means we try to be nonviolent in rehabilitating people. We don’t execute people. That means we are nonviolent to people in other countries, nonviolent to immigrants, and we welcome people because they are our sisters and brothers.

I think this is Christianity. This is how to be a disciple for today. In other words, to be Christian right now is to become a person of nonviolence.

When I discovered Mary, I found my path to healing.

Do you want to be made well?

That is what Jesus asked the sick man at the Sheep Gate (called Bethesda in Hebrew). The man had been ill for 38 years. The blind, lame, crippled, and sick would go to the healing pool and immerse themselves—or have someone immerse them—in the waters (Jn 5:1,18).

For a very long time, my answer to that question was no. Because I was afraid of what it would take to be made well, I preferred to stay just as I was, ignoring my pain and hiding my past. I wanted to be vindicated, excused, hidden, and even, at times, patronized for the wounds I had suffered from my mother’s mental illness. I wanted to be whole and free of the pain, and I wanted to feel normal in the way I assumed everyone else except me felt. Admitting that I needed to be healed meant admitting that I was different.

No, I did not want to be well, not in the way that Jesus meant, and not in the way I needed to be well. Pretending as though none of it had ever happened seemed to be the safer route.

A Strained Relationship

From early on, I was aware that my mom was somehow broken, and I had mixed feelings about it. At times, I would become angry at her behavior because I thought she should know better. Other times, I felt sorry for her because it seemed she was incapable of acting better. There were times when she seemed genuinely contrite for her actions, giving me hope that she would change her ways. Then things would turn around again, dashing my hopes. As a child, I did not understand that mental illness is an insidious thing that can disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye.

Looking back, I realize that in the Marian shrine, I had met the person who would move me closer to the pool of Bethesda. Her name is Mary.

Even if I had tried to share my secret, I doubted that anyone would have believed me. My mother was always convinced that I was up to no good and tried to convince others of the same. I think she was projecting her own sinfulness on me, and there were many times she tattled on me to a priest or my youth leader about some fictitious or imagined sin I had committed.

Oddly, she bought clothes for me that were on the outer fringe of being modest and insisted I wear them. When I wouldn’t, she would become furious. While she frequently accused me of being sexually illicit, she herself struggled with infidelity for most of her married life. It was humiliating and confusing at the same time.

In Need of Healing

Unlike the man beside the pool of Bethesda, I did not want to be well. Yet the two of us did have something in common: We could not get to the healing waters on our own. When Jesus asked the sick man whether he wanted to be made well, he was measuring the man’s faith. It is much like asking, “Do you trust me?” He wanted the sick man to realize and truly feel his trust in him. I had faith in Jesus, but not the kind I needed to surrender my wounds to him.

So I hid them away and pretended that they were not there. At times, I even hid myself, and one of the places I went to hide was a small white shrine dedicated to Mary. It was a Schoenstatt-style Marian shrine, and it had been built on the playground of my elementary school.

When I was in first grade, one of my teachers introduced me to the shrine. Despite the chaos I faced at home, I frequently got very homesick at school. One day, probably to coax me out of my tears, the gentle sister of Mary took me out of the classroom, down the hall, out onto the playground, and into the shrine. From the moment she opened the door, I felt at home.

A picture of Mary holding Jesus in her arms was enshrined above the altar. It was the exact same picture of Mary that hung above my couch at home. At that instant, I believed that the sisters had hung it there just for me (oh, the mind of a 6-year-old!) so I would no longer get homesick.

That picture would play a vital role in my life.

Finding Refuge

After that day, I visited the shrine as often as I could. For the most part, I just sat there. Sometimes I would do my best to say the rosary, even though I did not fully know how. But usually, I just stared up at that picture and relished the peace and quiet of the shrine.

There was a lot of conflict in my childhood home—between my parents and us siblings as well—and the shrine was void of the bickering, cursing, uneasiness, and noise. I felt safe there. I was soothed by looking into the Blessed Mother’s eyes. I loved examining every feature of her face, her hands, her veil. And I loved gazing at the baby Jesus nestled snugly in her arms. I felt protected and loved.

I was too young to understand Marian theology, but I was not too young to sense that the answer to my healing was in that shrine. More specifically, the answer to my healing was in Mary. There was no vision or sudden revelation. Instead, it was a slow, subtle, and simple knowing that she had something I needed. And I kept wanting more and more of it.

Looking back, I realize that in the Marian shrine, I had met the person who would move me closer to the pool of Bethesda. Her name is Mary.

‘Yes, Lord’

Do you want to be well? Are you ready to go through the work of effecting that healing? Put yourself in the place of the sick man. See the pool, listen to the splash of its waters, and hear the rejoicing voices of the others being cured there. Look into Our Lord’s eyes and hear him speak to you.

On most of the occasions in which Jesus healed someone, the cure was a question of faith. Jesus wanted the person to recognize his faith and trust in him. That was true of the sick man at Bethesda.

Now consider the two blind men whom Jesus healed on the road near Capernaum (Mt 9:27–31). He had just left the home of the Jewish official Jairus, where he had brought the official’s 12-year-old daughter back to life. Two blind men approached him along the road, begging to be healed.

“Son of David, have pity on us!” they cried out to him.

Jesus responded, “Do you believe that I can do this?”

As with the man at Bethesda, Jesus wanted to measure the blind men’s faith. He wanted an admission of their trust in him.

The men answered, “Yes, Lord.”

Then Jesus touched their eyes and told them, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.”

Jesus is saying the same thing to you: “Let it be done according to your faith.” You will be healed if you believe that you will be healed. It takes great courage to have faith like that.

Fearless and Faith-Filled

Mary had the courage, and she had that kind of faith. When the angel Gabriel appeared to her at the Annunciation, she was afraid and confused. God wanted something of her that she considered to be beyond her capacity. He wanted her to become the mother of his son. Not only was that a daunting task in and of itself, but Mary was a virgin. Motherhood was physically impossible. How did she respond?

“But Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?’ And the angel said to her in reply, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.’ Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her” (Lk 1:34‚ 38).

Mary was not to be healed, but she was about to be changed in a drastic way. She had only one question, “How can this be?” Once Gabriel assured her that it would be done by God’s power, Mary’s only concern became following God’s will. “May it be done to me according to your word.” In courageous faith and trust, Mary allowed God to transform her.

Healing from woundedness will change you in a drastic way as well. Perhaps you are afraid, as Mary was when the angel appeared to her. Certainly, there are times when you have been, and will be, confused—just as Mary was. But if you allow him to, the Lord will make you the whole and healed person you were meant to be.

But first, he wants you to admit that you want to be well.

This article was adapted from the book Forgiving Mother: A Marian Novena of Healing and Peace.

Thanks for welcoming us into your home, school, parish, or place of business for 125 years of growing as Catholics, families, and citizens.

Few magazines are blessed to complete 125 years of publication. Thanks to you, our loyal readers, we will begin our 126th year next month. A short look back at our changing Church, government, society, and culture seems in order.

In order to serve its subscribers well, St. Anthony Messenger has grown as the Church, US government, and US culture have changed since 1893.

1893-1918: Getting Started

When St. Anthony’s Messenger began in June 1893, immigration to the United States had already largely shifted from northern Europe to Italy and the countries of central and eastern Europe. Many of these and earlier immigrants were Catholics who tended to settle in urban areas and earned their living through blue-collar jobs in factories; many others worked in sales and government service. Our magazine concentrated on promoting the message of St. Francis of Assisi (especially through the Third Order of St. Francis, now known as the Secular Franciscan Order), strong family life, and good citizenship.

In the first issue, founding editor Father Ambrose Sanning wrote that our 40-page magazine “is a herald of peace,” brandishing neither sword nor pistol like a Communist or Anarchist bomb thrower. The magazine aimed to help its readers become heralds of peace wherever they lived or worked.

The magazine, he explained, does not advocate revolution, slaughter, or pillage but is conservative, announcing “heaven’s best boon—peace.” Father Ambrose set the publication’s tone by quoting the proverb, “In all things, charity.”

In 1893, he also edited St. Franziskus Bote (a devotional magazine begun in 1892 and similar to St. Anthony Messenger) and served as rector of the Cincinnati friars’ high school seminary.

In our first 25 years, the Church lowered the age of first Communion to 7; many Catholics then received holy Communion only four times a year. Around the same time, the Catholic Church in the United States began exporting missionaries instead of importing them, even as it built many new churches, schools, orphanages, and other works of charity to address the needs of newly arrived and longer-established Catholics in this country.

The United States changed considerably within the same 25 years. As a result of the Spanish-American War, it acquired the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam—all territories with significant Catholic populations. Partly because the Holy See did not officially recognize the Republic of Italy, the loyalties of foreign-born and US-born Catholics were suspect in the eyes of many US citizens whose ancestors had immigrated to this country decades earlier. During World War I, Catholics joined the military at rates slightly higher than their percentage in the general population. US Catholics were proud to be US citizens.

By 1918, St. Anthony Messenger was using photos with its essays and international news stories. “The Wise Man’s Corner” column for answering questions began in 1915. The ‘s in our title ceased in June 1917. Subscriptions to the magazine were sold door-to-door and through Catholic parishes. Its sister magazine, St. Franziskus Bote, ceased publication after the United States entered World War I. Anti-German sentiment caused the street in front of our headquarters to be changed from Bremen Strasse to Republic Street.

1918-43: Immigrant Church

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Catholic bishops formed the National Catholic War Council to show that Catholics fully supported this war. The Knights of Columbus set up recreation centers open to military men and women of all faiths. Catholic chaplains were recruited. After the war ended, the US bishops felt that the benefits of working together should be extended in a time of peace, deciding to hold annual meetings and to set up a national office in Washington, DC.

More Catholic churches and schools were built; men’s and women’s Catholic colleges and universities increased. Catholics gradually began moving into the country’s middle class. For many people, the Catholicism of Al Smith, the Democratic nominee for president in 1928, raised old fears that Catholics were not completely loyal to this country’s form of government. The worldwide Church did not encourage the separation of Church and state.

The first US quotas on immigrants from Europe began in 1924, using statistics from the 1890 census, when the percentages from Ireland, France, Germany, and Austria were much higher. The Ku Klux Klan reached the height of its political power nationwide, targeting not only African Americans but also Catholics and Jews. Anticlerical governments in Mexico drew protests from US Catholics, who also tended to support General Franco and the Nationalists in Spain’s civil war (1936-39). Franco was aided by the Nazis and Italy’s Fascists but opposed Communists. The US entry into World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, again prompted Catholics to organize and to show their patriotism. Catholic priests readily volunteered to serve as chaplains.

The number of people directly involved in US agriculture fell considerably in these years, and increasing numbers of people sought jobs in cities. Large numbers of African Americans moved from the South to the North, revealing racial prejudice across the country. In a sense, radio shrank the country and allowed for a direct communication previously impossible.

Labor unions grew in membership and influence, raising concerns about Communist influence within them. St. Anthony Messenger worked to explain Catholic social justice teaching as much more beneficial than Communism or Socialism for working men and women of all faiths and no faith.

By St. Anthony Messenger‘s 50th anniversary issue, the magazine had increased to its present size and had started using cover color photos (on religious and family themes). In April 1943, we published “Grow Your Own Victory Garden.” Special columns for Third Order Franciscans, cooks, young people, and inquiring Catholics had begun. Ads for dress patterns had begun to appear in its pages. In the June 1942 issue, 16 writers (10 of them women) were identified as regular contributors.

1943-68: Developing a New Normal

US Catholics supported their country during World War II and did their part in helping to rebuild war-ravaged Europe. The American Bishops’ Overseas Appeal was generously supported. Most US Catholics approved the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of projections about lives saved among the US military personnel if an invasion of Japan had been necessary to end the war.

President Harry S. Truman, who served as a captain in World War I, was determined that World War II veterans would be treated better by the federal government than he and his fellow soldiers had been after World War I. Various GI bills created tremendous new opportunities for education and home ownership.

That influence was felt among all parts of US society, including Catholics. This legislation and the education many Catholics received in parish grade schools were major factors in Catholic movement into the country’s middle class and into white-collar jobs. Many Catholics and others saw the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy as proving that Catholics had finally arrived in the mainstream of US society.

Immigration from Asia, Mexico, and Central and South America increased considerably during these years, changing the demographics of the United States and of the Catholic Church here. Ecumenical and interfaith initiatives took on a new urgency. Pope Paul VI visited New York City and spoke at the United Nations on October 4, 1965, almost two months before Vatican II concluded its fourth and final session. Television made our world smaller, giving us access to people and events we would otherwise never have encountered.

The US Catholics best prepared for the changes initiated by Vatican II were the very few who had a strong interest in the growing liturgical, social justice, and biblical movements. A Church that had prided itself for 400 years on accepting very little change now faced an entirely “new normal.” The Catholic Church’s suspicion that democracy undermined religious fervor gave way to a feeling that an amicable Church and state separation on an international scale was needed to protect religious liberty.

Vatican II’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” reminded Catholics of their duties to their earthly city as well as to their heavenly one (#43).

Religious sisters expanded their ministries beyond schools and hospitals, becoming more frequent participants in marches and initiatives for social justice.

Many Catholics who initially supported US involvement in the Vietnam War as a way to resist the spread of Communism eventually began to have their doubts about that support. The number of Catholic conscientious objectors grew significantly. By 1968, many Catholic colleges and universities had already gone coed or would soon do so. Women became more prominent in national politics. Increasing numbers of women were elected or appointed to office on local, state, and national levels.

St. Anthony Messenger introduced a major redesign with its November 1964 issue, offering more photos selected by a full-time art director. Each issue now included editorials, letters to the editor, movie and TV reviews, a roundup of national and international news, cartoons, book reviews, and a “Words to Remember” page (a striking photo or graphic and a related quote). “Abigail, Senator McCarthy’s Better Half” appeared in our May 1968 issue. “Pete and Repeat” had been a regular feature since the July 1959 issue. By the end of 1968, the editorial team included a layman; women editors soon followed.

1968-93: Is It the Same Church?

The year 1968 saw massive social and political changes in the United States, especially on college campuses. The country became more diverse demographically and slowly began to admit that racism represents a serious moral challenge for all US citizens.

Initiatives begun by Vatican II continued to be implemented. Soon this country would have the largest number of permanent deacons worldwide. More laywomen began working on parish staffs and in the management of Catholic hospitals and other institutions—and serving as lay missionaries inside and outside the United States.

The June 1968 publication of “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on birth control, caused many Catholics to say publicly for the first time that they did not support one of the Church’s official teachings. Numbers of priests, sisters, and seminarians declined dramatically. More foreign-born priests began ministering in this country. Collective pastoral letters from the US bishops were more openly challenged by some Catholics.

The 1973 Roe v. Wade US Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in most situations led to the rise of pro-life marches in Washington, DC, and elsewhere, with Catholics heavily involved. Papal visits to the United States became more common. World Youth Day was celebrated in 1993 outside Denver (August 10-15).

Many Catholic parishes became multicultural, celebrating liturgies in multiple languages that parish founders could never have anticipated. The first national Encuentro for Latino Catholics was held in 1972. Catholic migration to the South because of jobs led to new challenges of establishing parishes and finding the lay and clerical ministers they would need.

In 1970, an earlier St. Anthony Messenger special issue on conscience was released as the first book from St. Anthony Messenger Press; the other book was about the Sacrament of Penance. For our 100th anniversary issue, Dan Hurley wrote “St. Anthony Messenger: 100 Years of Good News” and produced a video history with interviews.

The magazine was increasingly sold over the phone by then. “AIDS: A Worsening Crisis Challenges Church and Society” appeared in January 1993. Starting in January 1981, the monthly “Followers of St. Francis” column featured US and international individual friars, Franciscan sisters, Poor Clares, and Secular Franciscans, and associates of Franciscan congregations.

1993-2018: World Church

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, the principal drafters of the Declaration of Independence, almost certainly could never have imagined that the bishop of Rome would address the US Congress in its Capitol. Pope Francis did that for 50 minutes and 40 seconds on September 24, 2015. They probably would have been very surprised to learn that this Argentinian, the son of Italian immigrants, was invited to speak by Speaker of the House John Boehner, himself a Catholic.

Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin would also have marveled that this pope held up Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day (two Protestants and two converts to Catholicism) as examples of all that is best in the United States: a concern for the common good; respecting the rights of all its people; openness to prayer; and caring for the hungry, the homeless, and all those people whose dignity is frequently denied.

Although in 2017, an estimated 38 percent of all US Catholics were Hispanic, they accounted for approximately 60 percent of US Catholics under the age of 18. The Internet has made us much more connected and has heightened the need for accuracy and charity in all our postings about individuals and groups.

In March 1996, some of St. Anthony Messenger became available online. Digital subscriptions for the entire magazine were introduced later. People in other countries use products from Franciscan Media such as books, audiobooks, and various online resources.

In preparation for our 125th anniversary, St. Anthony Messenger unveiled a major redesign in its January 2018 issue, introducing a new column for music reviews, bringing back recipes, and starting a “Franciscan World” column.

Thanks!

In 1893, Catholics often spoke of faith as an object, something that could be lost or found. In 2018, they are more likely to speak of it as a relationship, a journey with the Lord. Faith always requires knowledge (in a certain sense, an object), but that grows as the relationship grows deeper.

We take our mission statement (“To spread the Gospel in the spirit of St. Francis”) very seriously. And, despite all the changes in the world, St. Anthony Messenger magazine has remained committed to delivering the Gospel message and Catholic perspective to you, our readers of various faiths.

Thank you for 125 years of inviting us to accompany you on your faith journey!

Independent Lens on PBS

As we learn in the closing minutes of Jamie Meltzer’s powerhouse documentary True Conviction, in 2016, 166 innocent people were released from US prisons. On average, the exonerees spent 15 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit. And some haven’t fared that well. Max Soffar, for example, died from cancer on Texas’ death row for a triple homicide in 1980, despite no physical evidence tying him to the crime: no DNA; no witnesses. Until his last breath, Soffar maintained his innocence and looked to a life of freedom that never came.

But his case did not go entirely unnoticed. On hand to help Soffar while he was alive wasn’t a lofty civil-rights organization or a high-powered law firm to right this wrong. Rather, it was three ex-inmates (Christopher Scott, Johnnie Lindsey, and Steven Phillips, pictured above), themselves imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit, who offered Soffara lifeline. Since their release, these three wise and wounded freedom fighters have been devoted to giving a voice to the voiceless.

In the best documentary so far this year, director Jamie Meltzer is fearless with his camera—holding tight close-ups of his subjects’ pained faces while allowing the narrative to unfold slowly. Though Scott, Lindsey, and Phillips are far from perfect (Phillips is rearrested during filming on a drug charge), viewers navigate these often-dangerous waters with three flawed and funny guides.

And they have an uphill climb to face. Prison statistics are sobering: The United States locks up more people, per capita, than any other nation. Roughly 2.3 million are incarcerated, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Establishing the truly innocent among those millions is impossible to determine. But even if Scott, Lindsey, and Phillips fail in their mission to free the wrongfully imprisoned, they succeed in providing hope to those who need it. They breathe new life into Matthew 25: “[For I was] in prison and you visited me.”

Pope: The Most Powerful Man in History

CNN and CNN.com

Looking into the warm and humble face of Pope Francis, you’d think the papacy is immune to corruption. Far from it. During his reign in the 14th century, Pope Urban VI had several cardinals tortured. In 897, Pope Stephen VI had his predecessor exhumed, tried, and thrown into the Tiber for papal missteps. And Pope John XV brazenly distributed Church wealth to relatives in the 10th century.

In CNN’s absorbing, sometimes shocking, docuseries Pope: The Most Powerful Man in History, channel surfers are given a historical glimpse behind Vatican doors. There, drama unfolds. From Pope Alexander VI’s pursuit of power during the Renaissance all the way to PopeBenedict XVI’s resignation in 2013, this impeccably researched series—narrated by Liam Neeson—is worth your time.

For Catholics with a love of Church history, Pope is a trove of absorbing information, but producers are careful not to exploit its subjects for cheap thrills. The position of pope might be one that is sanctioned by God, but it is occupied by human beings. That means sin and grace are juggled in equal measure.

Every few months since the death of Robert Kennedy in 1968, younger brother and Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) hosts a reunion of Bobby’s campaign staff that includes his cousin and reluctant cleanup-man, Joe Gargan (Ed Helms), and Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan). This time, in 1969, 29-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara), the only child of a devout Catholic couple, is present too. She admired Bobby, but doesn’t know Ted very well.

When Mary Jo notices how sad Ted seems, she chats with him. Though he has been drinking, he invites her out for a drive. When she suggests they go back to the guesthouse, he heads to a beach instead and mistakenly drives off the bridge with no guardrails. The car flips over and sinks. He escapes, but Mary Jo does not.

Ted knows right away he is in trouble. He is concerned about what his elderly father, Joe (Bruce Dern), will think of him, his chances for the presidency, and being reelected as senator.

Back at the guesthouse, Joe and Paul urge him to contact the authorities, but he goes to bed instead. He calls his sick father who can barely speak, but manages one word: “alibi.” The next morning, Ted begins to think of how they can spin the story by telling their version of the truth. While there is no way Ted can escape responsibility for Mary Jo’s death, he manages to survive the tragedy by admitting some facts, lying directly, and misdirecting the public and reporters.

Clarke is effective as Ted, and the supporting cast shines. Dern performs with his eyes and eerily communicates the elder Kennedy’s disdain and political ambitions for his son. Ted’s cousin expresses deep concerns, but the absence of morality and ethics—and the manipulation of the truth in private and political life—is all too real.

Not yet rated, PG-13, Peril, cowardice, dishonesty.

The Heart of Nuba

Dr. Tom Catena grew up in a Catholic family in Amsterdam, New York, played football for Brown University, earned a degree in engineering, and then decided he wanted to help people. After becoming a physician and serving in the military, he left for Africa to become a medical missionary.

This new feature-length documentary by director Kenneth A. Carlson, who played football with Tom at Brown and remains his close friend, is a deeply inspiring account of the only doctor at the only hospital for a million people in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan.

Each morning, Tom rises around 5:00. His earthly belongings are at a minimum. He heads to the chapel of Mother of Mercy Hospital—rosary and breviary in hand. After prayer and Mass if there is a priest, Tom heads out to the hospital where he will see about 300 patients: Catholics, Muslims, or followers of the traditional religion. Together with a local staff, Dr. Tom makes his daily rounds among and with the people he serves.

But as soon as the ominous sounds of Russian Antonov planes are heard in the distance, everyone who is able-bodied runs to one of the foxholes that mar the already blighted landscape. From these planes, Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir’s soldiers dump crude bombs that maim and kill people, and destroy villages. Dr. Tom keeps a book with the names of all those who have been killed or injured as evidence against al-Bashir, who has already been indicted for war crimes against his own people.

As I watched this film, I realized I was watching a Catholic layman at work in a way that transforms society and gives hope in a bleak land. This is what it looks like to lay down one’s life for one’s neighbor.

Not yet rated, Peril, war, violence, and immense love and kindness.

Summer in the Forest

he decade of the 1960s was a time when people revolted against authority and formed small communities, recalls Jean Vanier. He founded L’Arche (“The Ark”), a federation of organizations, networks, and homes that provide housing for people with intellectual disabilities.

Vanier was a young Catholic philosopher when, in 1964, he became aware that thousands of people with disabilities were in asylums. He invited two men to leave an asylum and live with him in a small house with no running water near a forest outside of Paris. It was the beginning of a global movement.

The film follows the stories of four men in their 60s and 70s who live at L’Arche near that forest today. Michel, who suffered greatly in an asylum as an adolescent, cares for himself and loves history. A story of two residents who fall in love and become engaged is showcased. We also get to meet some Muslim residents from L’Arche in Bethlehem.

There is an ineffable and contemplative quality to this gentle, beautiful film. It asks us to slow down and notice the disabled, to live life at their pace, and to find the peace and love that humanity needs today. While not a comprehensive biography, it is a fitting tribute to Jean Vanier.

Not yet rated, References of cruelty to the disabled.

They’re shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories. A history scholar unpacks their real story.

Just mention the Knights Templar and the conspiracy theories start flying. But just who were the medieval Knights of the Temple? What was their job and what happened to them? Why do they still capture our imaginations? The Knights of the Temple—the Templars, for short—were established in the early 1100s under a Rule written by Bernard of Clairvaux,a famous Cistercian abbot. He modified existing Rules for religious monastic communities to fill the need for an armed order in light of the Crusades. This Rule and the Templars’ lifestyle became the model for about a dozen other religious military orders in the Middle Ages.

There are versions of these orders today, some of which can trace their lineage directly back to medieval ancestors. Others have chosen to emulate the original orders but adapt them to our times. These contemporary communities, now often composed of men and women, have turned to massive charitable and philanthropic projects and to protecting endangered Christians. One example of an adapted version of the medieval Templars is the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem. Other modern expressions of medieval orders are the Knights of Columbus, the Knights and Dames of Malta (who trace their lineage back to the Hospitallers of St. John), and the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.

Let’s take a look at the history behind the legend of these highly influential knights. It is a tale of medieval palace intrigue worthy of a Hollywood movie, which doesn’t have to make things up to be true.

Monk-Warriors

The story starts at the time of the Crusades. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for European Christian knights to stop fighting each other and to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims. The pope’s speech sent thousands of knights, infantrymen, and a large supporting workforce streaming across Europe, resulting in the taking of Jerusalem in 1099. But these were not unified armies under a tight leadership team. Many knights behaved shamefully and certainly did not live up to the standards of chivalry and charity—even toward fellow Christians. Clearly there was a need for order, control, and standards.

The Templars had their origins at just this point in time. At first, there were about 10 French knights with their retinues escorting pilgrims from the Mediterranean coast to the holy city of Jerusalem and other sites in the area, such as Bethlehem, Bethany, Nazareth, and the Jordan River. The Muslims quickly regrouped, however, and began to take land back in this same period. Their victories led to the Second Crusade (1147‚ 1149), which was promoted by that same Bernard of Clairvaux.

By this time, it was clear that in order for the European Christians to maintain their hold on Jerusalem and keep the passages to Jerusalem safe, a more organized and permanent military presence needed to be set up. Most of the knights from the First Crusade simply left Jerusalem after taking the city in 1099. That group of French escorting knights, then, became the seed for the Templars.

In his Rule for the order, In Praise of the New Knighthood, written in 1128, Bernard of Clairvaux called these fighting men “knights of Christ.” He envisioned them as monk-warriors. The Templars and other orders at first saw their task as fighting to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, even if that meant taking up arms while still holding to the three traditional monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Later, it meant protecting the faith from internal threats caused by heretics, once again by violence, if necessary.

Bernard captured the paradox when he said that the knights must be “gentler than lambs, yet fiercer than lions. I do not know if it would be more appropriate to refer to them as monks or as soldiers, unless perhaps it would be better to recognize them as being both.” He described the model Templar as “truly a fearless knight and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armor of faith just as his body is protected by armor of steel.”

Bernard also drew on the just-war tradition to say that, in certain circumstances, Templar violence was permitted and not sinful. “If he fights for a good reason, ” Bernard wrote, “the issue of his fight can never be evil.” Elsewhere in his Rule for the Templars, Bernard stated, “To inflict death or to die for Christ is no sin, but rather, an abundant claim to glory.” So for the Templars, fighting the infidel (literally, “the unfaithful ones”) meant the Muslims in the Holy Land.

The World of the Templars

The Templars took their name from their headquarters, situated on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This is where Solomon’s Temple had stood from about 970 BC until it was destroyed in 587 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar, who took the Israelites back to Babylon and left Jerusalem a backwater. Centuries later, about 20 BC, the client-king of the Romans, Herod, began to rebuild the Temple, which has come to be known as Herod’s Temple, Jesus’ Temple, or the Second Temple. It was barely completed before it was destroyed by Roman imperial forces in AD 70. Over a thousand years later, the elite knights envisioned by Bernard established their command center in what some still called Solomon’s Temple or Palace.

At its height during the crusading centuries, the Knights of the Temple included about 300 knights who had taken the three standard vows. Many of these vowed knights were in their 20s when they joined. They were supposed to be unmarried, free of debt, and of legitimate birth. They wore a distinctive tunic and wielded shields painted white with a prominent red cross.

The knights were joined by as many as 900 soldiers who were not noble and fought on foot—an infantry to complement the knights’ cavalry.

There would have been hundreds of others, which we would call support staff, employed by the order: blacksmiths, squires, women to cook and take care of clothing, and armorers. Some of the men among this support staff were like lay brothers in other religious orders, such as the Benedictines or Cistercians.

The Templars, like medieval monasteries and convents, were run very collaboratively. They held property and goods in common, making decisions about them and all other matters by vote. They were led by a grand master chosen by the vowed knights in an election.

At the same time, however, elements of Templar life drew attention and led to rumors about them. They reported directly to the pope. They were also exempt from paying taxes, which increasingly became a big deal as they amassed huge areas of land. The Templars also attracted patrons quickly and in large numbers across western Europe.

They eventually enjoyed a network of nearly 2,000 castles, houses, and estates. (A modern-day analogy might be America’s super-wealthy robber baron families who built huge mansions they called cottages in the days before income tax.) We can see the mysteries that persist today started early.

Behind Closed Doors

Above all, the Templars held all of their deliberations and votes in secrecy. When they were fighting the infidel and protecting pilgrims, this was not an issue. But when the Crusades ran their course and Muslims systematically took back Holy Land territory and negotiated treaties for safe passage for Christian pilgrims, the Templars began to lose their reason for being there. When Muslims took Acre in 1291, Holy Land crusading effectively ended—leading to the next and final chapter for the Templars.

With no need to fight in the Holy Land, the Templars largely turned from military affairs to the worlds of finance, estate management, trade, banking, and overseeing investments along their network of tax-exempt properties in Europe. They were likely the richest operation in the Middle Ages, essentially making them Europe’s ATM.

They were not without enemies, and their worst one was Philip IV, king of France. He is also known to history as Philip the Fair (le Bel), who reigned from 1285 to 1314. He had been trying to control the papacy and Church in France for some time by taxing the clergy without papal permission.

Effectively, he was trying to separate Catholic France from papal authority (later known as Gallicanism). Philiphad particularly tangled with a stubborn pope named Boniface VIII (1294‚ 1303). The king had even sent armed men to intimidate Boniface because the pope planned to excommunicate him. Boniface died shortly after this verbal assault and physical threat, perhaps as a result of the shock of the ugly episode.

Philip continued to pressure the papacy, this time in the person of the weak Pope Clement V (1305–1314), the first of the line of 14th-century popes who resided in Avignon and not Rome. This royalty-versus-papacy fightimp acted the Templars because Philip was in a towering pile of debt to the military order. Trying to get out of repaying, the French king accused the Templars of losing the Holy Land and not living up to their own high standards. Now he had the pope as a powerful tool to attack the Templars.

To take them down, Philip exploited the mystery behind the Templar practice of secrecy. He accused them of black magic, sodomy, and desecration of the cross and Eucharist. The French king engineered an overnight mass arrest of Templars in October 1307. Over the next four years, nearly all Templars were exonerated at trials held across Europe with the notable exception of France. There, after being tortured, some Templars confessed to doing things like spitting on the cross or denying Jesus during secret initiation rites. Many later took those confessions back, saying they had admitted such things only under pain and fear of death.

The End of an Era

The final act took place at the general Church council held at Vienne from 1311 to 1312. Philip was in charge and made sure only bishops supporting him and not Pope Clement were present, to the point of knocking the names of anti-royal bishops off the list of those invited. Even under pressure from the French king, the bishops still voted in a large majority against abolishing the Templars and said the charges against them were not proven.

Philip played his hand by threatening violence against a pope once again. He pressured Clement to condemn his papal predecessor Boniface as a heretic. What the French king really wanted was to get out of debt to the Templars and seize their assets. Pope Clement allowed the Templars to be railroaded by trading off that threat against Boniface, which would endanger his own position as a papal successor. Clement went against his bishops and suppressed the Knights of the Temple on his own papal authority. Quite simply, the pope had been bullied by the king and he gave in. Clement praised “our dear son in Christ, Philip, the illustrious king of France,” adding remarkably, “He was not moved by greed. He had no intention of claiming or appropriating for himself anything from the Templars’ property.”

But instead of handing their money and property over to Philip, as the king wanted, the pope showed some courage and assigned the Templar assets over to the Knights of the Hospital (the Hospitallers). Philip got his cut, of course, and was out of debt to an order that no longer existed, but he didn’t win entirely. Pope Clement never said whether or not the Templars were guilty of heresy or other crimes.

In fact, in 2001, Vatican researcher Barbara Frale discovered in the archives there a misfiled document that has come to be called the Chinon Parchment. This collection details trial and investigation records in Latin from 1307 to 1312. A measure of the continuing interest in the Templars may be found in the fact that a limited reproduction edition of the Chinon Parchment was produced in 2007. Titled Processus Contra Templarios (“Trial against the Templars”), each of the 799 copies cost over $8,000. The 800th copy was given for free to Pope Benedict XVI.

The Chinon Parchment proves that Pope Clement definitely believed in 1308 that the charge of heresy against the Templars was not true, although they were guilty of other, smaller crimes. But Clement just wasn’t strong enough to protect the Templars from annihilation. Finally, in 1314, the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay was burned at the stake as a lapsed heretic after he retracted his tortured confession and asserted his innocence. The history of the Templars had come to an end, but its reputation for secrecy and all of this palace intrigue seemed destined to make the myths about them continue to live on.

Sidebar: Conspiracies and the Templars

Because of their secrecy and power, the Templars have refused to die—in myth if not in fact. In part because people want to believe nearly anything about the Church (witness the legend of Pope Joan), the Templars are ripe for exploitation. Spend 10 minutes searching the Internet with the words Templars and conspiracy.

The Templars show up as mysterious and shadowy figures in Hollywood movies like The Da Vinci Code, where they are linked with the Priory of Sion as guardians of Jesus’ alleged descendants with Mary Magdalene. Take nearly any mysterious group or object and the Templars are linked by innuendo and rumor: the Temple Mount, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the True Cross, the Shroud of Turin, and the Freemasons. One legend says they magically appeared to turn the tide of a battle in Scotland. Another claims they crossed the Atlantic Ocean before Columbus. Some of the wilder stories tie the Templars to President John F. Kennedy‘s assassination in 1963 and even Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation in 2013—and that’s before we get to the video games and The Templar Code for Dummies.

Perhaps all of this spookiness can be brought back to their end. It happened that the Templars were rounded up on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, which some people claim is the root of that feared calendar date. Moreover, as he went to his death at the stake, Grand Master Jacques de Molay supposedly issued a curse that he would meet PopeClement and King Philip with God within a year—and indeed both pope and king died shortly after.