Trial by Jury--Jesus never got one, still, how did Jesus resist during his trial? How is the Gospel of Nonviolence attesting against Crucifixions of our time? As a follow up to my article Feb. 22 " Disarmament Learning with Fr. Louis Vitale OFM " who was arrested 350 times standing up against war, nuclear weapons and drones, 2009-2011 spent 17 months in prison for opposing torture training at Ft. Huachuca, AZ and Ft. Benning, GA.  In recognition of Jesus' defense "If my kingdom were of this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over" (Jn 18: 36), the followers would be fighting (Greek agoni-zomai, struggling with all their physical and mental energy like athletes) or with soul-force? I present legal work that demonstrates the right to a trial by jury. As food for thought this Good Friday, while we mourn the crucified--I hope in a small way to honor the tradition of trial resistance. -*-*-*- A new DePaul Peace Award to the Kings Bay...

"Is the white church going to hell?" Cheri Mills asks on Day 38 of her Lent of Liberation. Steadily, day after day, she has pierced the assumptions of the white church. As a whole, salvation history has been passed down through white supremacist structural norms. On any given Sunday, still the most divisive day of the week, the underpinnings of church-going segregation remain intact. John the Divine's imagination of the trial of Jesus is a potent mystery: Pilate questions Jesus "Do you not know that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?" (19:10) Jesus has acknowledged that in the face of structural forces, his disciples disband and take cover. "If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over" (Jn 18:36) His followers would be fighting (Greek agoni-zomai, struggling with all their physical and mental energy like athletes) to keep him from being handed over to the religio...

People's Collective for Justice and Liberation brought together an extraordinary group last Saturday, a virtual platform addressing, healing, summoning us in the struggle and practice of solidarity with Asian-American Lives.  Lydia XZ Brown I think responding to all of the harms of white supremacy of heteropatriarchal gender based violence. I will be speaking of sexual violence in the next minute. Ableism enables the invisibilization of white supremacist violence, those who commit acts of violence against marginalized communities, saying "These people weren't misogynistic..they were crazy, only someone crazy could carry out this act" That ableism harms Black, Brown, Asian, Native people the most. The rhetoric coming out from the police--an institution that never makes us safe--that "someone was having a bad day, has a sex addiction" renders invisible the violence against sex workers, many of whom are disable exploited and fetishized by white people upholds a...

  En el Norte, four of my grandchildren wait for me to answer the phone. I do not yet know it is them. They are in custody at a facility. Ordered to read from a paper saying these things, something written for the lawyer.      I hear some of it. The rest means they wait for me to hear all of it. I must steady my legs and stand as the kind of grandfather they need me to be, a hard man in a suit and a hairy chest that sweats but does not smell; a casual cold and reasonable man, the kind willing to fluff a few feathers if need be, someone who can do many things all very well, but certain and quick and find out the person in charge and deal with him, someone who can show them sense. My grandchildren want me to answer to that paper like that man.      Maybe they hope I understand when my oldest says my real name again, not my stage name. I do not know many people who know my real name, but they like me. I tell them they always like me when they remember, a...

(Speaking of the Mass Peace Action Nuclear Weapons Working Group where we met Sunday, I write to Robert Redwine)  The generosity of this group is truly amazing. I admire deeply this well-spring of connection, and have in the years since attending Boston College in Theology, only a few times attended, despite reading every email, and I almost mean that literally, not every email from MAPA. It's a daily deluge! The question, or rather, your project was new to me. I was surface critiquing the project as if to say how complimentary to my background which has been dispositionally into the humanities and specifically faith-activism akin to the Kings Bay Seven group. To be clear I am strongly biased by "the older, legalist model of moral theology that leaves an impression that Papal condemnation of the possession and threat to use nuclear weapons means 'Stop what you are doing now!'" But as I understand it "his method of accompaniment and discernment is in fact the ...