• Today as Director of Pax Christi Los Angeles, I join David Robinson and others who were arrested in Washington, D.C. last Friday in prayer, fasting and civil disobedience. I renew my vow of nonviolence today which is central to Pax Christi ministry.

• Today, I walk in honor of my father who served in World War II, my brother who served in Vietnam and my nephew who recently returned from Iraq, along with those who serve in jails as conscientious objectors of policy of wars and violence.

• Today as a Catholic theologian, I stand to demand religious and political persons Mr. Bush from using St Augustine's Just War Principles to support preemptive war and as we Americans remain in shame as the only users of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. I act in obedience to the US Bishops Challenge of Peace and Pope John Paul II GOSPEL OF LIFE encyclical and Pope Benedict's opposition to war. I join the Pope who today is meeting with Muslim leaders said: "Christians and Muslims must learn to work together ... in order to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence."

• Today as a citizen of the United States I demand Congress to return us to a country that honors international and constitutional law for our citizens’ privacy and support the Iraqi freedom by bringing the troops home now.

• Today as a chaplain I move forward in honor of the veterans who are homeless and addicted who come to our hospitals with spiritual and emotional wounds that this administration does not seem willing to honor with appropriate funding.

• Today, as a child of the God who created all people and saw that all was good. I say NO to war violence, murder, abortion, executions, health care cuts from prenatal to HIV medicine for immigrants, and YES to all life from womb to natural death.

• We move forward today at this Hollywood recruitment center which recruits disproportionally the poor and people of color. During these high Holy Days with the Jewish community---let us begin anew and recruit young people for creative things not war things. During these days of Ramadanlet us fast from words and actions of hatred and war and be about dialog and peace. And as we Christians approach the feast of St. Francis of Assisi I pray:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy; O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

For more information on the declaration go to www.declarationofpeace.org or our interfaith group www.icujp.

Or my home website: http://stcamilluscenter.org/  

Fr. Chris Ponnet, 

Pastor St. Camillus Center for Pastoral Care

323 225 4461 x221  [email protected] 

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To download the statement, click here.