NOTE THE NEW TIME.

Every year for the past 50 years (except for 2020 -2021 due to the pandemic), the students, parents, faculty, and alumni of St. Paul High School, in suburban Santa Fe Springs, completes a 26-mile “Walk For Hunger,” which begins in East L.A. and ends in Santa Monica, with the proceeds donated to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker for operating our Skid Row soup kitchen. The photos below are from this year’s walk on Sunday, March 12. Thank you, St. Paul High School, for your dedication to helping feed the Skid Row poor. (Click on each photo to view in a higher resolution)

The LACW has been working with Unite Here Local 11 and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) to bring this year’s Good Friday Stations of the Cross to life in a particularly profound and relevant way: to juxtapose the suffering of Christ with the experience of hospitality workers here in Los Angeles.

One hundred hospitality contracts (hotels, restaurants, etc.) will expire on June 30, 2023, and with this, an incredible amount of power for workers occurs to be able to negotiate a strong contract that will have a considerable impact on their lives. Our Good Friday Stations of the Cross will be a part of this larger campaign and effort.

Logistically, we will move throughout a small stretch of Downtown L.A. near the big hotels and center the stories of workers. As we move from hotel to hotel, workers will come out to join us as we walk through each station and hear the testimonies of their co-workers. Walking time will be minimized to accommodate all who cannot walk long distances, plus the workers only have limited time for breaks. There will still be plenty of places for us to read, carry the cross, and sing as we have traditionally, but these will also be supplemented by other faith traditions, spiritual leaders, stories, and rituals.

The meeting location and time are still to be determined, but they will be posted here very soon. Please keep checking back. Hope to see you then.

Nuclear Explosion Fantasy by Maxwell Hamilton CC BY 2.0 license.

This LINK is to an op-ed piece on U.S. nuclear policy published in the Santa Maria Times, written by Scott Fina, VSO, our friend, and a volunteer and supporter of Beatitude House, our Catholic Worker Sister House in Guadalupe, California. Scott lives in Santa Maria.

Below is the same piece except it includes all reference links.

About time—and what little we may have

On January 24^th of this year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set the time on its symbolic Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, indicating that humanity is the closest it has ever been to a global catastrophe of nuclear war. The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board based its decision largely on Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in its escalating conflict with Ukraine. ( https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Ads&utm_campaign=SearchAds&utm_content=DoomsdayClock_2023Statement&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIiojC4fyX_QIVdjStBh0S2A1fEAAYASAAEgL4x_D_BwE ) There is another aggressor in this story, however: the United States.

I recall earlier times when the U.S. claimed it would only use nuclear weapons in retaliation against a nuclear strike from another country. Americans were more aware of the threat of nuclear annihilation in those days.

High school health classes in the 1970s taught students how to set up and run nuclear bomb shelters in school basements. While this raised consciousness about nuclear war, it was a facetious exercise. The U.S. justified its possession of nuclear weapons and their readiness as a deterrent against nuclear attacks based on “mutually assured destruction.” This policy somewhat made sense at the time. But what survivor would want to live in the aftermath of such an event?

U.S. nuclear policy is substantially different in our current time. It’s presented in our country’s Nuclear Posture Review, most recently promulgated by the Biden Administration in October of 2022. The policy includes the U.S. using its nuclear weapons to deter and/or retaliate against even certain non-nuclear threats, and maintains an option of making a first nuclear strike against another country. (https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.fas.org/2022/10/27113658/2022-Nuclear-Posture-Review.pdf , pages 8-9)

It is troubling that any nuclear weapons continue to exist nearly 80 years after the U.S. introduced them to the world. It is appalling that our nation could throw the first nuclear punch in a conflict. One wonders if the U.S. got this idea from Russia (noting Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine)—or whether Russia got the idea from the U.S. One also wonders how the U.S. fell so far off high moral ground—or if it ever stood on it.

These days, the Doomsday Clock chimes most loudly at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB). Amidst current heightened military tensions in Europe, and with the hoopla around North Korea’s growing nuclear prowess, the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command continues to test its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by firing them from VSFB at the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, most recently on February 9^th of this year. (https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/3294932/minuteman-iii-test-launch-showcases-readiness-of-us-nuclear-forces-safe-effecti/)

Could there be a more visible and provocative military act under such dangerous international circumstances?

This promises to get worse over time. The U.S. Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center is modernizing its ICBM weapons system, replacing the 400 current Minuteman missiles which have been in place for over 50 years, with new Sentinel missiles that will be operational up until 2075. That’s an additional 50 years of ICBMs! (https://www.afnwc.af.mil/Weapon-Systems/Sentinel-ICBM-LGM-35A/)

How ironic! Engagement of ICBM weaponry in an international conflict will set in motion irreversible global devastation in less than 50 minutes!

Moreover, by moving to implement its new 50-year ICBM program, the U.S. has unequivocally violated the United Nations Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons it signed onto over 50 years ago. (https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/) Our country is belying its commitment to authentic effort at nuclear disarmament. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. now also dismisses the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which became international law two years ago. (https://treaties.unoda.org/t/tpnw)

The U.S. no longer acts from nuclear deterrence, but from nuclear menacing and intimidation.

Indeed, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center’s slogan couldn’t be more blatant in this regard: “ensuring nuclear weapons are never doubted, always feared.” (https://www.afnwc.af.mil/News/Article/2557452/center-celebrates-15-years-ensuring-nuclear-weapons-are-never-doubted-always-fe/)

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Today, January 22, is the second anniversary of the implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is time for the U.S. to join the 92 nation signatories and 68 nations that have ratified this historic and necessary document to eliminate nuclear weapons on the planet. This is a real right-to-life issue.

This LINK is to an EXCELLENT op-ed piece in the Norfolk (VA) Pilot, written by Steve Baggarly, former LACW community member and co-founder with his wife Kim of the Norfolk Catholic Worker. The op-ed concerns the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It is published in today’s paper.

January 11, 2023, marks 21 years since the U.S. empire opened the Guantánamo torture center. It is BEYOND time to permanently close it and release all still held there. The LACW  joined others in a protest at the Downtown Federal Building on Wednesday, January 11.

This is an excellent reflection on the Feast of the Epiphany:

Divine Civil Disobedience

Graphic from g20interfaith.org

“I am struck by the lengths the magi went to in order to fulfill a divine mission. By cunningly avoiding Herod’s duplicitous request to know where the young child was located, the three magi likely saved the life of Jesus and, in doing so, risked their own lives. Instead of traveling back to their homelands along a path that would inevitably have led them directly to the eagerly awaiting Herod, who was expecting their return, they decided to take a different route home.

Herod, the Roman client king of Judea, was well known during this time for his ruthless appetite for domination and violence. In deciding to follow the stirrings from God that emerged in their dreams rather than the directive of this power-hungry ruler, the magi knowingly engaged in an act of divinely inspired disobedience. The courageous and bold decision to willingly disobey Herod’s request provided Mary and Joseph with time to hastily embark with their newborn child on the long and arduous journey to Egypt.

The story of the Epiphany and the courage of the magi convey a certain theological truth: we are each called by God to be co-creators in the building of the reign of God here on earth. In a world in which laws are most often created and interpreted by the wealthy and powerful, the path toward creating a radically transformed society most certainly requires dissent and nonviolent civil disobedience toward systems of domination, violence, and greed. It is a path that demands we resist all that is antithetical to God’s vision of love and liberation.”

Michael N. Okińczyc-Cruz

Michael N. Okińczyc-Cruz is the executive director and co-founder of the Coalition for Spiritual & Public Leadership (CSPL) and an adjunct assistant professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University of Chicago.

We are now accepting applications for our 2023 Summer Intern Program. Spending six weeks with the L.A. Catholic Worker this summer may forever change your life.

Click this LINK to learn more and use the attached application, or this LINK for the application PDF. After filling it out, please return it as an attachment to [email protected] Thank you.

The following is an op-ed piece originally published in the Santa Maria Times, written by Scott Fina, VSO, our friend, and a volunteer and supporter of Beatitude House, our Catholic Worker Sister House in Guadalupe, California.

Scott Fina

2022 has been a remarkable year for science. The U.S. proved it could push an asteroid off its course by firing a rocket at it, establishing our ability to evade a collision with a celestial body, should one head our way.

Also, this year, researchers achieved a net energy gain through controlled fusion for the first time, imitating the sun by merging hydrogen atoms into helium. Hydrogen is widely available.

Combining its atoms to form helium releases abundant energy.

In effect, these two promising scientific advancements may enable humanity to rearrange our solar system and harness its unlimited energy while preserving our environment. They are constructive and survivalist innovations. Their precursor inventions, however, have very contrary purposes.

Decades ago, U.S. scientists learned how to use uncontrolled but self-sustaining fusion to release a massive explosion, and deliver it with a missile traveling through space. These hydrogen bombs currently number in the thousands around the world, each hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic (fission) bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

One asks, why does humanity tolerate this existential threat on the one hand, while reaching out further into space with the other to ensure survival? Perhaps it seeks divinity?

Ancient peoples looked to the “heavens,” fashioning gods and myths to explain phenomena they could not understand: day and night, fire, rain, drought, wind, landforms, earthquakes, seasons, cultivation, reproduction, disease, and death.

They could not envision their descendants grasping the true workings behind such forces, predicting their comings and goings, controlling them, and harnessing their powers.

Today, much of humanity still believes there is a god that explains how our universe came to be, and further, that this god has intervened in human activity. For many, this includes divine participation in human nature itself. So it is written: “the word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

As an aging man, I find it difficult to hold this perspective, especially as the Christmas season celebrating “incarnation” pass by.

If humanity is so intertwined with divinity, how can it be so inclined toward self-annihilation?

Here I refer again to nuclear weapons, aimed at numerous nations, needing only minutes to set in motion forces obliterating the human species and other life forms.

I see no god in this. Further, I challenge my nation, whose citizens proclaim, is “under God.”

President Biden chose late October 2022 to release his administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). This was nine months into the Russian-Ukraine conflict, with Vladimir Putin threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Despite this dangerous escalation, Biden’s NPR states that the U.S. will not adopt a “no-first-use policy” for its nuclear weaponry, and has grounds to use it to retaliate against even non-nuclear attacks.

The NPR goes mostly unchallenged in American society. Moreover, our nation is unmoved, in heart and mind, by the United Nations Treaty of the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The treaty, which universally outlaws the possession of nuclear weapons, concludes its second year of implementation this coming January. The NPR dismisses the TPNW outright along with the judgment of the 91 nations that have signed onto it, and disregards their pleas for peace on Earth.

One asks, how can American society eye the stars, but not look within itself?

And what of the “god-man” so many Americans worship and claim they follow, historically known as Jesus of Nazareth, a prophetic Jew, executed by imperial Roman authorities as a nonviolent insurrectionist? Were Jesus here today, what empire would he stand up to? Would he condone nuclear arsenals?

Tragically, warfare is humanity’s most endurable endeavor. A world encumbered with victims and refugees is its unending consequence.

And is it not written: “What does it profit humanity to gain the whole world (or solar system, or galaxy, or universe), if it loses its soul and very being in the process?”

Scott Fina lives in Santa Maria, California.