Lenten Witness for Peace and Justice Vigil

Lenten Witness for Peace and Justice Vigil
Location: White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC
Members of TASSC will offer testimony during this vigil

We live in a warmaking empire, where war is being waged indiscriminately in order to control and acquire resources. The U.S. continues to wage an unrelenting war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has increased it's military intervention in Pakistan and Yemen. According to the Pakistani newspaper The News, U.S. drone attacks killed 123 civilians during January 2010. The U.S. also continues to provide military and economic support to Israel for its illegal occupation of Palestine. Corporate, military and political powers are also waging a war against the poor. War, economic exploitation and global warming claim countless lives daily. The victims cry out for justice. The earth groans in travail.

Lent is a time for personal and societal repentance, a time for radical conversion, renewal and transformation. Living under the brutal occupation of the Roman empire, Jesus declared: "The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel." (Mk.1:15) Living in the U.S. empire, which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world," we need to heed Jesus' proclamation now more than ever.

We invite you to participate in a Lenten Witness for Peace and Justice. The purpose of this witness is to call for repentance and conversion of ourselves, our society and yes, our churches, to the Gospel way of justice, nonviolence and a reverence for all life and creation. We call for an immediate end to the sinful wars being carried out in our name. We call, too, for reparations for Iraq and Afghanistan; for total disarmament, the abolition of all nuclear and conventional weapons, and an end to the militarization of space; an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank; an end to torture and the closing of Guantanamo and Bagram U.S. military prisons and other military torture training centers like the SOA/WHINSEC; the eradication of poverty; universal health care; unlimited aid and assistance to help rebuild Haiti; a just economic order; and climate justice. We call for the proposed FY 2011 $708 billion military budget, which includes $7 billion to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal, to be converted to meet urgent human needs.

As in previous years, we will hold an Ash Wednesday witness. And we encourage as many people as possible to participate in the Friday vigils at the White House. Weekly Friday vigils have been held at the White House by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker since 1998. Here is a proposed schedule for the Lenten Witness.

Please join us for some or all of this important Lenten Witness. Also please join with Jonah House and the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker for the annual Holy Week Faith and Resistance retreat, March 31-April 2.

For more info contact Art Laffin: artlaffin@hotmail.com