By her contagious confidence, Pat McSweeney made you aware of a greatness you could realize or "what loving yourself you could accomplish," said friend and fellow advocate for peace and justice, Frances Jeffries. Jill Stein, M.D. former presidential candidate of the Green Party USA said of Pat "She was my teacher and leader and good friend--from the days of relocalization and Peak Oil back decades ago--Pat inspired me on and taught me about Catholic Liberation in the Americas. She knew everybody and connected us. She was a Tree of Life. She coached me on what to wear saying 'You need to embody your hope in your attire.' To this day I think if Pat would approve."  "Pat was remarkable for her joy, her peace; she was never gloom and doom," said her second cousin Mary Ellen. The families emigrated from Kiloren, County Kerry, Ireland. Mary Ellen's parents, her father a Foley, settled in Roslyndale and then West Roxbury, while Pat's settled in T...

 Carrie Schuchardt of House of Peace, Ipswich, holding a symbolic baby, in solidarity with Gaza mothers mourning the lost lives of their infants. Banner "We Repent the Sin of Violence" held by John Schuchardt and Emily Hankle with daughters at the Good Friday Stations of the Cross gathering organized by Agape in front of the Massachusetts State House. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley attending the Interfaith Ceasefire event at Faneuil Hall, Boston. Professors Neto Valiente and Catherine Mooney (center) of Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. CR Spicer (MTS '15) with Professors Mary Jo Iozzio and Neto Valiente of Boston College School of Theology and Ministry in front of the Federal Building. Committing to endurance, the assembly charged Senators Warren and Markey with complicity in war crimes (or should have).

Published in Worcester Catholic Radical December 2022. 160 NGOs observed the 10th Review Conference of the Nonproliferation Treaty, August 1-26 and mourned the blocked outcomes. “We are witnessing the death of an international process” said Zia Mian of Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. “That’s about right” said Charlie Johnson, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. “The nuclear weapons possessing countries are giving the appearance of taking this seriously. They don’t want to see the NPT die and all there be left is the TPNW.” Unlike the TPNW, the NPT does not prohibit the threat of use of nuclear weapons. Ten US strategic bombers approached towards Russia from both the west and the east, coming within 20 kilometers of the Russian border during “Global Thunder’, an annual nuclear command and control exercise in November 2021. “Steadfast Noon’, in October 2021, US-led NATO forces likewise conducted rehearsals for use of nuclear weapo...

 Good Friday--I made a solitary walk for War Tax Resistance, Somerville-Walden Pond, seventeen miles.  First Entry-- Here I am this morning 15 of April 2022 Taking a walk with my self. My faith has been drawing me, over the years, to reconcile bodily, enactment of God’s cross, but today this is a morning walk, we’re walking the path along the minute man trail, I’ve love to add history I’m downloading this app as I pass the community gardens talking now  on my way to Davis Square Turning now to the gospel the readings of the day for the triduum, just want to remark that I’m beginning this with the desire to create looking at the hyacinth and the daffodil as I diary with the spirit of Thoreau with his impulse toward creativity and simplicity walking this l-shaped route this morning out to Concord and turning toward Walden pond where I’ll meet Emily where she’ll be with friends this afternoon, it’s a gorgeous moon, sitting low in the sky, a giant globe.  2nd Entry-...

“This is a lesson in style, not in participative emotion” Vladimir Nabokov said, giving a lecture on Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Even the most pathetic passages of the prison conditions were not emancipatory ethical tracts or polemical dirges eliciting an "participative emotion," pity. But shown as real texture, evocative features.    In case of arrest in DC as part of the Poor People's Campaign, I summon a temperature of support for childcare from friends during an after school playdate. Immediately I'm asked, admiringly, justifying "the lack of effect?" Prison is relaxing, presuming the subjectivity of becoming, the unfolding-self that becomes a self in relation with prisoners of conscience who have walked before you, a relation in Kierkegaard's  Sickness Unto Death  that ultimately refers to God. Yes, the Dakota Access Pipeline now chug-lops through sacred lands while Water Protector Jessica Reznicek  writes of "battling depression" an...

    Fight the plight   Come to the catechism of the poor.   The age of conviction may as well be now. We were former persons. Veterans, we work, were former union members. We got degrees in college. You call us homeless, forget we are persons, a misnomer that goes about solving nothing. Who we are matters because you are dealing with a person. A broken down reality, who all the time must wipe your tears, who must wait on you. Patience, come quick, one paycheck away, one health care crisis away and another joins us on the front lines. “Every major ill in this country is embedded in the person that is homeless,” as Willie Baptist says. The antibodies are right here—we are survivors who just couldn’t afford a place to stay.   Should you be in doubt, rest not. Should you want to shed a tear, go not to your sister or your brother. For we are a family denying the cry of the poor. Like wolves “shedding blood and destroying lives to get unjust gain” says the prophet Ez...

Rev. Savina Martin has a spark. I'm reminded of a certain friend when the Poor People's Campaign asked attendees in its orientation to describe themselves as either an impacter / an activist / or a change agent. Then Rev. Savina adds to the prompts, asking whether a new comer had gone to jail for justice. Many responded they admired and conceived of such an ambition. For these I offer the fruit of my own prayer. Prayerful discernment raises questions such as, "What do you aspire to accomplish in the name of God? What consequences do you foresee hazarded by our society? How would you mitigate against repercussions?"   This past election week 5.2 million incarcerated people were denied the vote due to Federal Disenfranchisement laws . While elections say something about power, many disregard the importance of the vote, or worse, discount their own voice, saying to themselves, "I have nothing to contribute, no opinion to give. How can my vote make a difference?...

 Consanguine--with blood... Why the blood, I asked.  By now we knew each other for five months, monthly meetings. The first by happenstance really, divinely obedient to an invitation for a peacemakers retreat. Sunny Birmingham outskirts, a conversation in the shade. She wore a t-shirt about the SOA Watch protest or equally possible the Nevada test site, both of which Sr. Megan had served as a resister, madly in love with the world, mystical and cosmic, she radiated a joy in her quiet and smiling nodding. I too had gone to jail for justice and was agreeing, joining, enlisting myself if I might borrow and repurpose that term. She and Greg only asked me one question that first interview, if it were that, how did I experience jail? I loved it, wrote, connected with the men in prayer groups, my Spanish employed as a translator for common requests, or as interpreter for a medical visit, finding myself almost useful strangely, and certainly I sang to anyone who wrote me, replies of m...