Catholic Schoolgirls Confront Chicago Cardinal Who Met with Bush
by Chicago World Can’t Wait member
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Three days into the sixth year of the US occupation of Iraq,
Christians around the world
celebrated Easter. In Chicago,
services at the Holy Name Cathedral in the Gold Coast, the most
prominent
Catholic church in the 
area, were interrupted by a righteous challenge
to the
complacency and complicity of business as usual. As Cardinal George
started his
homily, six well-dressed young people in the congregation stood up. One
loudly
said, “The sixth commandment says, ‘thou shall not kill.'” George
stopped
speaking as all eyes turned to the protesters. “Yet more than a million
Iraqis have been killed since the invasion of Iraq,” said a second
protester.
After calling out Cardinal George for meeting
with the war
criminal, George Bush, this past January, several of the protesters
screamed,
squirted stage blood on themselves and lay in the aisle to represent
the
ongoing bloodbath in Iraq.
The whole incident took less than 30 seconds; ushers, aided by police,
immediately escorted the six (members of the street theater group
Catholic
Schoolgirls Against the War) out of the church and placed them under
arrest.
While in handcuffs, waiting for a police wagon
to arrive,
media gathered to record the services photographed and interviewed the
protesters.
“What was the point of the blood?” asked one reporter.
“It’s important to have a visual,” answered one
woman.
“People aren’t visualizing what’s going on. They”re going about their
daily
lives like nothing’s going on.”
Since then, a storm of controversy has erupted.
The six protesters
were taken to the notorious county jail at 26th and California,
held for
days, and each was charged with a felony (supposedly for the cost to
clean the
stage blood off the carpet). Mainstream media posted each of the six’s
mug
shots on websites and aired reports painting the anti-war activists as
violent
extremists. The Chicago Sun-Times (one of the two major local
newspapers) even
posted attack pieces from reactionary bloggers on their own website.
One
included this: “You left wing violent radicals keep doing what you are
doing,
and I’ll keep exposing you as the America hating terrorists
you
really are.” Another blog posted on the Sun-Times site (“Stop the ACLU:
Beating
them with their own Sickle and Hammer”) compared these protesters to
the pro-war
thugs in Move America Forward. Although the flag-draped bikers in MAF
physically assailed the anti-recruitment protesters in Berkeley,
including by punching a high school student in the face, none were
arrested (Berkeley
police did arrest
several of the high school students, though). The backlash from press
working
closely with “protest warrior” types and the labeling of this symbolic
act of
protest as “violent” ratchets up the criminalization of protest overall.
The vilification of the Holy Name Six started
immediately,
even though the Cardinal picked up his homily by thanking them for
“calling for
peace,” and was applauded when he said “we should all call for peace.”
Two days
later, the Chicago Archdiocese issued a statement condemning the action
as “sacrilegious”
and an attempt by a small group use their partisan views to violate
“the
fundamental right of Catholics to practice their faith freely.”
Support came in from unexpected corners as well,
including
from Catholics and religious peace groups – as thousands of dollars
were raised
in a few days to bail out the six. Controversy over whether this sort
of action
“alienates the mainstream majority” was kicked up. Some would like the
anti-war
movement to confine all protests within an ever-shrinking box of
acceptability;
while we can learn from history and by looking at present day reality
that
“people who steal elections and believe they”re on a “mission from God”
will
not go without a fight.”
5 years have gone by and 1.3 million people are
now dead.
Something like 6 million people are displaced. Violence and chaos has
been
unleashed on a country the size of California
on a scale that we really can’t comprehend in our comfort and security
living
here in the US
– with no end in sight!!
It will take actions like what happened at Holy
Name
Cathedral (and beyond) that disturb the normal operation of society to
create a
situation where the war ends. Yes, the pope has raised objections to
the war,
and yes, the Cardinal here has not dissented from that doctrine. He did
meet
with the war criminal leading the country in our names, though. And the
people
in the congregation who were so offended by six young people squirting
blood on
themselves and lying in the aisles of the church were not offended by
that? If
so, then they need to be shaken up, and confronted with the reality
that while
we celebrate holidays with our families, calmly and peacefully, there
are
little children in Iraq
who live in fear every day of being shot or blown up by “our troops.”
The Holy Name Six dared to step outside the
narrowing
“free-speech zone” and challenged the complicity of those who hold
their
tongues while crimes against humanity are carried out in our names.
1930s Germany
could
have used a few more young people like this – and everyone who opposes
the war
must come to their defense. We cannot allow them to be locked up in
prison for
years. Just two days before the Holy Name incident, Bishop Arthur
Tafoya, of San Luis,
Col.,
forgave three Mormon missionaries for defacing a Catholic shrine,
dropping
criminal charges. The missionaries had been photographed preaching from
the
Book of Mormon and pretending to sacrifice each other while holding the
broken
head of a statue at the shrine. People are encouraged to contact the
Archdiocese of Chicago to show support for the Six and to ask for the
charges
to be dropped. Surely their acts on Easter in the name of ending the
horrible
deaths of so many in Iraq is as worthy of Cardinal George’s forgiveness
as the
acts of the Mormon missionaries!!
CONTACT the Holy Name 6 with support messages at: holyname6 (at) riseup.net
Contact: Archdiocese of Chicago 155 E. Superior Street Chicago, IL
60611
General: 312-751- 8200
Cardinal George: 312-751-8230
Newspaper for the Archdiocese of Chicago:editorial@catholicnewworld.com