[Peace-discuss] News of Bloomington Anti-War Demo

[Peter Miller]

http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/110101/new_1101010024.shtml


Thursday, November 1, 2001

Activist priest calls for peace

By Scott Richardson  Pantagraph staff

NORMAL -- Churches have failed to take the lead to find peaceful ways to 
respond to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an activist Catholic priest 
formerly of Bloomington said Wednesday.

"'Either Christ is a liar or war is never necessary,'" said the Rev. Larry 
Morlan, quoting a man imprisoned for protesting against World War I.

Morlan is former associate pastor at St. Patrick's of Merna who served four 
months in jail in 1999 for an anti-military protest in Washington, D.C.

He told a largely student crowd of about 80 at Illinois State University 
that he advocates non-violent protest and prayer to stop the killing of 
innocent civilians of all nations. A Streator native who is pastor of a 
Rock Island parish, Morlan spoke at a ceremony to end a two-day fast led by 
the ISU Peace and Justice Coalition.

As part of the protest, several students spent two nights in a "village" of 
makeshift tents on the quad to draw attention to the plight of an estimated 
2 million Afghan refugees living in camps.

Morlan said American bombs have killed civilians, too, and compounding the 
damage, the war has halted relief efforts in Afghanistan as winter approaches.

"If there is anything I believe about Sept. 11, if there is anything I 
stand firm on, is that we as a people in the United States have a window of 
opportunity. If we recognize the wrongness of the killing of civilians that 
happened in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, then maybe we can see 
the killing of civilians is always wrong.

"Maybe we can find common ground with the rest of the world on that basis. 
We can begin to make international alliances and an international court 
system and justice that will be based at least on that basic respect for 
human life," Morlan said.

He quoted a biblical passage from Isaiah that foresees a time when swords 
will be hammered into plowshares "in the days to come."

"The 'days to come' have come, so I apologize to this generation that the 
Catholic Christian church has failed so miserably to live out what we 
believe," said Morlan. "There is no peace because there are no peace makers."

"A certain level of education is necessary, perhaps of the clergy 
unfortunately, about the principles and goals of non-violence," Morlan 
added after the speech.

He encouraged student activists to continue peaceful protests and prayer at 
selected targets, such as Reserve Officer Training Corps headquarters on 
campuses, and at companies that profit from the war.

"It is not so much the enemy 'out there.' It is the profit here at home," 
he said.