A peace and justice crossroads - Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, PA celebrates 25 years

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 22, 1999 by BETTE McDEVITT

Merton Center marks 25 years of raising hell

When the Thomas Merton Center opened on Pittsburgh's South Side in 1973, Molly Rush thought, "The [Vietnam] War will be over in a year or two. Surely I can do this job for a while." Twenty-five years later, Rush is still on board, and the center has become the heart of peace and justice ministries in Western Pennsylvania.

In a real sense, the Merton Center is a microcosm of the creativity and passion that can be unleashed when people bond together to do good. It is a living example of what "social justice ministry" -- deeply Catholic but just as deeply ecumenical -- is at its best.

The idea for a peace center came in the 1970s in the context of local activism against the war in Vietnam. Suzanne Polen, one of the founders, recalls, "I had been reading Merton since 1955. When someone said there should be a peace center here and that we should name it after Merton, I lit up like a light bulb."

Expense money and a small stipend for the staff came from groups such as the Pittsburgh Conference of Laity and the Catholic Interracial Council. Fr. Jack O'Malley persuaded 30 priests from the Association of Pittsburgh Priests to pledge $10 a month. Members of religious orders staffed the center along with Rush.

"When we opened our doors, we were an ecumenical center with strong Catholic underpinnings," Rush said, "striving for inclusivity." The religious community has remained integral to the center, in alliance with people from other churches or from no church. The common bond is a love of peace and justice.

The center became a gathering place for those who felt that the Catholic church was dragging its feet on justice work.

"We had to prod the church along. Dr. King was challenging us on the national level," O'Malley said. "You never asked anyone about their faith, but you looked around and saw people so proud to stand up because they were finally acting on their faith."

The names of some who have received the center's Merton Award, given annually to a national or internationally known activist, speak to the center's diversity: James Carroll, Dorothy Day, Dick Gregory, Joan Baez, Dom Helder Camara, Dick Hughes, Helen Caldicott, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, Fr. Henry Nouwen, Allan Boesak, Miguel D'Escoto, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, Marian Wright Edelman, Howard Zinn and Fr. Richard Rohr. The 1998 award went to Studs Terkel.

Central America focus

One focus for the center over the years has been the struggle for justice in Central America. In 1981, for example, Art and Melanie McDonald set out from New York City to find a place to begin their life together and ended up at the center. "Merton Center folks were having a picnic, and it just seemed right," Art said.

Art, who had studied liberation theology in Peru, took a staff position focusing on Central American issues. He helped form a Religious Task Force on Central America to take part in the Sanctuary Movement.

"There was great clarity with this issue," Melanie McDonald said. Art agreed. "Seventy thousand people had been killed in the Civil War in El Salvador. We realized our government was not listening to us and we had to do people-to-people democracy."

When Art escorted a couple to Pittsburgh to give them sanctuary, he was deeply touched. "It was a profound moment, to realize what these people had gone through, and they were placing themselves in our hands."

Polen remembers the center's religious services surrounding the Sanctuary Movement. "Our activities were always `catholic,' meaning inclusive, and drew together Christians, Jews, atheists and agnostics in a spirituality of compassion for the poor of Central America."

By the end of 1984, the group had adopted San Isidro, Nicaragua, as a sister city, another people-to-people effort. With the aid of Global Links, tons of medical aid reached the people of San Isidro. Through Pastors for Peace, truckloads of clothing, pencils, paper and computers moved in a steady stream across the border. People from San Isidro came here, including the mayor, and many Pittsburghers used their vacation time to go to San Isidro.

Other ripples of hope sent out by the center have created some pretty big waves. In the fall of 1986, Michael Drohan -- an Irish priest of the Holy Ghost Order -- hooked up with the Merton Center to protest an appearance by Robert Duemling, a Reagan official responsible for aid to the Nicaraguan contras, at Duquesne University. Drohan was at the time research director of Duquesne's Institute of World Concerns, dealing with worldwide hunger and poverty.

"The institute was inviting a representative of our government that had declared war on a poor country because they wanted to establish a socialist government. This contradicted the purpose of the institute. I objected and informed the president of the university, Rev. Donald Nesti, that I could not be a part of such a thing and would resign if the ambassador came."

People from the Merton Center demonstrated, fasted and petitioned the university, but Duemling came, and Drohan resigned.