My school has weekly guest speakers or performers come to campus, and these events are called convocations {convo for short}. Students are required to attend 7 convocations each semester, and today my Understandings of Christianity class was required to attend this convocation.
The speaker was a Jesuit priest, Father John Dear, and his topic was “A Persistent Peace.” His brief bio in the pamphlet said that he has devoted his life to following the peaceful Jesus, and that he lived his life from the Beatitudes.
His whole mantra was “non-violent peace.” He believed that any act of violence against anyone or anything was wrong.
I was trying not to throw up the whole time. He quoted Gandhi more than he quoted Jesus, and he continually referenced “the god of peace.” It was both infuriating and deeply saddening to me.
Several times, when he said we should stop every form of violence against people, I wanted to shout out, what about abortion? I wanted to ask him what he thought about all those millions of lives ended, because as sad as wars are, and as horrific as 60,000 lives lost in 3 months {in the 80s when Israel bombed Lebanon}, 60,000 is nothing compared to the millions of babies killed without a second thought.
My class will be discussing this convo on Tuesday, and I’ll definitely let you know how it goes. I’ll probably need to yell and scream into my pillow, and then I’ll come spill my guts to blog-world. Thanks for being here.
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