The peace movement is definitely alive and well in New York State. Here’s the latest.
Guantanamo Vigils
Vigils to close the detention center at Guantanamo, Cuba continue the first Wednesday of every month outside the main branch of the New York Public Library in New York City. We appeal to passersby to remember and put pressure on our government officials to fulfill past promises to make that closure a reality. We speak; sing; and pass out fliers with information, statistics, and suggested actions. Join us in calling the White House to demand the closure of Guantanamo Detention Center now.
Ceasefire Vigils
Every Thursday, there is a vigil for a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel, and now the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and throughout the region, at the U.S. Mission to the UN across from the UN. People stand in silence facing the Mission with banners, signs, and baby dolls representing the Palestinian babies bloodied and killed. Pax Christi members faithfully lead this Vigil sometimes small and sometimes large.
Peacemaker Award Reception
On June 6th, Pax Christi Metro New York (PCMNY) held its annual Peacemaker Award Reception, honoring Sr. Kathleen Deignan, CND, Founder of the Institute for Earth and Spirit; Hassan El-Tayyab, Friends Committee on National Legislation’s Legislative Director for Middle East Policy; Maria Stephan,Co-lead & Chief Organizer at the Horizons Project; and Celeste Perez,Maloof Family Young Peacebuilder, Notre Dame Academy, Staten Island, NY. It was a delightful celebration with light refreshments, music by the Filthy Rotten System band from Catholic Worker, inspiring talks, and overall good company. Thanks to Xavier High School for their gracious hospitality.
Season of Faithful Witness
Members of PCMNY joined the Season of Faithful Witness Corpus Christi Mass with Fr. James Martin, SJ at St. Ignatius Loyola Church; a procession to St. Francis de Sales Church, carrying signs focused on the sacredness of our immigrant brothers and sisters; and a delicious luncheon provided by parishioners at St. Francis de Sales. Pierre Fidelia, president of PCMNY’s Board, spoke briefly on behalf of Pax Christi at a stop along the way. It was a spirited gathering of the faithful from diverse organizations and parishes, ethnicities and races.
Gun Violence Prevention Week
Gun Violence Prevention Week ran from June 1st through June 7th. Pax Christi Hudson Valley member Terence Lover submitted a Letter-to-the-Editor on the subject. It was printed in the June 10 edition of the Hudson Valley One newspaper. Scroll down to “Be Aware; Beware” to read the letter.
Okinawa Memorial Day
A few of us also helped read the names of some of the over 200,000 casualties of the 80+ day battle of Okinawa during WWII and attended the Okinawa Memorial Day vigil on June 23rd. It’s a somber annual ritual that reminds us of the horrendous price of war and calls for its end.
40-Day Fast for Gospel Nonviolence
Pax Christi New York State (PCNYS) once again (this is an annual fast) invited people across the country to join the 40-Day Fast for Gospel Nonviolence from July 1 to August 9. Many individuals and groups responded, and people took turns fasting in various ways all of the 40 days. The Fast began with a prayer service for nonviolence and ended with a prayer service for nuclear weapons abolition, both of which were distributed by e-mail to all fasters and supporters and which are attached here.
Letter to Archbishop Wester
Jack Gilroy, a member of the PCNYS Council, drafted a letter to Archbishop Wester to ask Pope Leo XIV to call a Peace Conference with Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping regarding nuclear weapons disarmament. The letter was refined with input from PCNYS Council, Marie Dennis, Ray McGovern, and Jim Douglass. It has now been endorsed by over 100 individuals and organizations, many from Pax Christi chapters. Jack has been interviewed by the International Peace Coalition several times about this letter and other related issues.
Hiroshima/Nagasaki Memorials
During the month of August, PCNYS participated in two Hiroshima/Nagasaki Memorials. The first was led by the Manhattan Project for a Nuclear-Free World. This is an annual memorial, usually held outside the Japanese Consulate on August 5th, August 6th in Japan. This year we moved the memorial to the main branch of the NY Public Library on August 2nd to accommodate our Veterans for Peace colleagues who were headed to Kansas City for their annual conference over the August 6th to 9th weekend, and, since August 2nd was a Sunday and the Japanese Consulate would be closed, we also changed the location. At the memorial, we carried banners, distributed a flier to passersby, heard some speeches from sponsoring organizations including PCNYS (attached), and read our Open Letter to the People of Japan and Korea, which had also been delivered to the Japanese Consulate the previous week. This year the Open Letter included the People of Korea to acknowledge their forced labor in Japan that led them to becoming hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) along with the Japanese.
On August 9th, Pax Christi Metro New York held its annual Hiroshima/Nagasaki Memorial in conjunction with War Resisters League at Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We prayed, heard a letter from the Mayor of Hiroshima, carried Lanterns for Peace made by students in Hiroshima as we processed around the park, distributed fliers about the anniversary with suggested actions, and rang a gong 81 times for the 81 years since the bombings.
Pax Christi New York State Gathering
On August 14th, PCNYS held its annual Gathering at the St. Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine in upstate Fonda, NY. Marie Dennis and Tom Cordaro spoke on the theme of “Living Nonviolence in a Violent World.” Marie focused on nonviolence from an international perspective and Tom spoke about it more domestically. Both offered action suggestions that included: Read. Take (time, classes, etc.). Listen. Sign up. Show up. Stand up. We also invited people to add the names of children killed in Gaza to the Shroud of Gaza. We were able to add over 70 names to our portion of the shroud which was to be sewn together with other shrouds from groups across the country and presented at the UN in September and in Washington, DC in November.
Peace Pairs Podcast
For the past year PCNYS Coordinator Rosemarie Pace and Kirin Taylor, a young adult Doctoral candidate at Syracuse University, have been participants in Pax Christi USA’s (PCUSA) Peace Pairs program. At the end of the year, they created a podcast as their concluding project. This podcast – an intergenerational conversation on the concept of “Home” – explores what home means and how holding a justice-seeking identity amid the current political climate shapes their sense of belonging in the world. Through the conversation, they name the cognitive, social, and political challenges of that work. Along the way, they discuss pressing peace and justice issues such as displacement and militarism, and offer listeners concrete information on conscientious objection as an immediate point of action. You can listen to the podcast here.
Remembering September 11th, 2001
Members of PCNYS joined September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and others on September 10th for a Vigil and Procession to “Ground Zero” where the World Trade Towers were brought down. It was a beautiful, reverent remembrance with multiple speakers from among September 11th Families and others sharing their grief but also reiterating their calls for compassion for one another and the Iraqi and Afghan people who were so harmed by the violent response of the U.S. government. The message remains: “Our grief is not a call for war.” “Not in our name.”
PCNYS Coordinator Rosemarie Pace also provided a reflection posted among many others on the PCUSA website. And she composed a fuller reflection on the 25th anniversary that you can read here.
The Shroud of Gaza at the UN
We also attended a moving interfaith prayer service at the UN Church Center where the Shroud of Gaza was presented–actually just part of it, bearing the names of 6,000 of the 20,000 Gazan children killed since October 7th, 2023. People were invited to add more names. Media interviewed many in attendance. The exhibit included rows and rows of small children’s shoes, the stories of some of the children, along with their photos, and videos.
Journey to Inner Peace
PCNYS held its first-ever retreat at the Maryknoll Sisters Center from September 18th to 19th on the theme of “Journey to Inner Peace.” Maryknoll Sr. Maureen Hanahoe led us through a mandala prayer process, as well as an exercise in inner listening. It was a very contemplative experience and one we hope to repeat in the coming years.
World Peace Gathering
Reverend T. K. Nakagaki, a Buddhist priest and dear friend and colleague of PCNYS and PCMNY, organized this Word Peace Gathering in observance of the UN International Peace Day, as well as the 25th anniversary of 9/11/01, and the 81st anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. It included an opportunity for people to decorate lanterns, make origami peace cranes, enjoy beautiful music—both song and dance, hear poignant speeches from a hibakusha and others, watch a video, and listen to prayers from three faith traditions. Rosemarie Pace of PCNYS, representing the Christian faith, read paragraphs 212 and 228 of Magnifica Humanitas and offered Pope Leo XIV’s prayer for peace.
Mass in Support of Immigrants
Pax Christi Long Island has been working with others on Long island to create a new group called Catholics Welcome Immigrants to marshal Catholic support for immigrants. They developed a Tool Kit to assist local parishes to create dialogue and study on the immigration issue. The Tool Kit is based on the USCCB Tool Kit on Immigration, but includes LI specific information.
On September 20th, they celebrated a Mass in Support of Immigrants which approximately 225 people attended with eight priests and deacons concelebrating, beautiful music supplied by a multicultural ad hoc choir, and a focus on Catholic Social Teaching to expose the cruelty of current government immigration policies. They also provided a handout with supportive information. The Mass received coverage in Newsday, the Long Island newspaper.
See, Love, Vote
Members of Pax Christi Queens met on the last day of summer to write 60 “See, Love, Vote” postcards to folks in Michigan, sharing what they see happening in the country that concerns them, what they love that motivates them to act, and why they vote, encouraging the recipients to vote as well. The messages are personal and totally nonpartisan. One of the PC Queens members actually wrote an additional 100 postcards of her own!
Just War Theory
Sr. Mary Beth Moore, SC, a member of the PCNYS Council, wrote a letter to the editor of National Catholic Reporter in response to an article by Michael Sean Winters. Unfortunately, the letter wasn’t published, but we think it is worth reading. You can do so here.
Finally, over the past few months, PCNYS has co-sponsored, endorsed, or signed onto the following:
- 1,000 White Coats on the Hill—health care workers demanding the U.S. stop funding and enabling genocide in Gaza
- Freedom for the Alianza El Salvador en Paz political prisoners
- Rep. Velázquez’s Cuba War Powers Resolution
- People’s Tribunal on U.S. Government Complicity in Gaza
- Call for an end to the Korean War, passage of the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, diplomacy between North and South Korea, renewed U.S.-North Korea diplomacy and de-escalation
- Release of Sama Safi, U.S. citizen wrongfully detained by Israel
- Joint Appeal for the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
- Investigation and prevention of the flow of arms from China to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan by way of the UAE.
- Designation of the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan as an entity of religious concern
- Sanction all entities enabling Colombian mercenaries to join the war in Sudan
- A Christian Letter of Support for Mohsen Mahdawi, a stateless Palestinian, to stop his deportation
- An Open Letter from U.S. Faith Leaders and Allies stating “Anti-Muslim bigotry from elected officials is dangerous and should not be tolerated.”
- The Rome Declaration—Humanity at the Threshold: A Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons
- Atomic Bill and the Payment Due, a play on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima hosted by the South Country Peace Group, Long Island
- Immediate, massive humanitarian assistance to Venezuela after the earthquakes there, release of Venezuelan oil revenues, and the lifting of all sanctions
- Urging the U.S. Senate to vote on a three-year extension for Haitian TPS holders
- Asking the U.S. House to co-sponsor the Lebanon War Powers Resolution