Pax Christi marks 50 years of sowing peace

National Catholic Reporter, June 16, 1995 by Patricia Lefevere

ASSISI, Italy -- From the ashes of World War II's disasters, a rose of reconciliation has sprouted in the Catholic church. Planted in bloody soil in Europe in March 1945 by French laywoman Marthe Dortel-Claudot and Bishop Pierre-Marie Theas of Montauban, France, the international Catholic peace movement -- Pax Christi -- began as a prayer crusade to reconcile France with its Nazi neighbor.

Fifty years later the movement has taken deep root in some 30 nations on six continents. Its symbol is a red, thornstemmed rose; its motto, "Violence ends where love begins."

Some 650 movement members, including 50 from the United States, celebrated Pax Christi's half-century mark in the town where St. Francis renounced a life of fighting and frivolity.

Invoking Francis' words, Cardinal Godfried Danneels told Pax Christi International's council meeting: "We have been called to heal the wound, to unite what has fallen apart and to bring home those who have lost their way." Danneels, the archbishop of Brussels-Mechlen, was reelected to a four-year term as PCI's president. Since 1978, PCI has made its home in Belgium.

Danneels thanked the 10 bishops present for their peace work and lauded those like Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Va., who lead Pax Christi national sections. "It's good to have some bishops working for peace," Danneels said. About one-third of the 375 U.S. bishops are Pax Christi members.

Danneels led the weeklong meeting May 21-26, cut a table full of birthday cakes and celebrated a Eucharist in the basilica where Francis is buried. The chalice he used during the liturgy had been made from the jewels of a German woman who, in 1952, gave it to the parish of Oradour-sur-Glane, France, where 642 people had been massacred by the Nazis in a single day in 1944.

During the week, council members drafted a three-page vision statement, passed resolutions on Banja Luka and agreed to hold their 55th anniversary in Jerusalem.

The group also awarded its annual peace prize to Janina Ochojska, a 30-year-old astrophysicist who organized and supervised 12 convoys of humanitarian aid from her native Poland to former Yugoslavia, Khazakhstan and Chechnya.

Danneels urged members to send letters of solidarity to Bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, who has been under house arrest for weeks. The cardinal plans to visit Banja Luka in August.

But Danneels described the situation in Sudan as "even worse," calling it "genocide." En route to the airport for a second visit in March, he learned that his visa had been canceled. Still he hopes to return to Sudan in September.

In an interview with NCR, Bishop Paride Taban of Torit, Sudan, described the perils Catholics face because they "speak truth and challenge the government's human rights violations." While Catholics comprise only 1 million of the estimated 28 million Sudanese, countless thousands of them have become refugees and many have been killed or taken hostage for refusing to become Muslim or to learn Arabic.

Sudanese who don't learn Arabic are considered illiterate, the bishop said; they cannot hold jobs. So their children starve. Sudanese hostages can't cultivate land, leave town or receive relief unless they are Muslim, he said.

Taban called the Pax Christi delegation to Sudan "witnesses to our suffering ... Danneels can tell it better than I. He has seen people with one limb dancing and praying for God to protect him. He has seen amputees bombarded in war. He has shed tears over what he's seen."

Like many attending from Pax Christi's newest areas -- Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Mideast -- Taban indicated the importance of a suffering church and world being in touch with and touched by peacemakers abroad.

"We should have had Pax Christi in Rwanda 10 years ago," JefVleugels of the White Fathers told NCR. The Flemish missionary spent 32 years in Rwanda and left with most of his confreres shortly after the slaughter of more than 500,000 began in April 1994. Two White Fathers died in the killings, which took the lives of 107 of the nearly 400 native priests.

Pax Christi became active in Rwanda in 1993 as a suggestion made by Vleugels in the journal Dialogue. Some 50 persons responded to the article. Not long after, Danneels arrived in Kigali to preach a retreat to Rwandan priests, and Vleugels asked him to speak about Pax Christi. "We held a few meetings and then the genocide," said Vleugels.

Vleugels praised Pax Christi's attempts to get at "the roots of violence" whether it be tribal, domestic or the violence of xenophobia, racism and aggressive nationalism. Vleugels felt that the organization's international ties -- its links to Rome, to the United Nations and the Council of Europe -- are important when local groups hold marches and vigils and use its banner. "Pax Christi offers us protection," he said.

And something more, according to Irish missionary Fr. Niall O'Brian, who has spent all his priestly life in the Philippines. "Pax Christi is a prophetic group with its feet on the ground. It's a reasonable group that's listened to. We can send our message to government and church leaders and make our feelings known on the death penalty (recently reintroduced in the Philippines) through it," O'Brian said.