Fort Smith activists say peace and justice are possible

FORT SMITH, Ark. (Arkansas Catholic) - Each Sunday, Benedictine sisters from St. Scholastica Monastery join other River Valley area residents in the northeastern corner of Creekmore Park, now dubbed the Peace Corner. In their Weekly Witness, they hold up a banner showing how many American soldiers and Iraqi citizens have died since the invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003.

"We meet between noon and 12:30, holding our banner near Rogers Avenue so that people coming home from church can see it, " Sister Rosalie Ruesewald, OSB, said. Justpeace, the ecumenical organization sponsoring the Weekly Witness, is an outgrowth of the religious order's commitment to peace and social justice that began in 1970, when St. Scholastica Monastery established a Social Awareness Committee. Because of its consistent work in these areas, the committee - Sisters Madeline Clifton, Catherine Markey, Ann Michele Raley, Magdalen Stanton, Consuela Bauer and Rosalie Ruesewald - received the 2006 Peace Heroes Award from the Omni Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology in Fayetteville. "We chose the name Justpeace for our motley group because we realized that there could be no peace without justice," said Sister Rosalie, coordinator of the Social Awareness Committee. The weekly witness at the Peace Corner and the candlelight peace vigil, which took place on Jan. 1 to commemorate the 3,000th military death in Iraq, are quiet and low-key. "Our events aren't political. We have a quiet spiritual setting, and do our homework ahead of time," Justpeace member Chuck Pennington, a member of First Community Church in Fort Smith, said. That homework has three components - prayer, legislative activism and education. Regular Justpeace bulletins advise members of pertinent bills before Congress and the state legislature, and members are encouraged to write or call their legislators to support not only peace in Iraq, but other social justice issues, such as raising the minimum wage, adequately caring for returning veterans and establishing fair immigration policies. Justpeace meets for a monthly discussion group at St. Scholastica Monastery on the second Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m. The meeting is both social and educational and often features speakers who have firsthand knowledge of their subject. December's meeting featured a Syrian woman who spoke about the occupation of Palestine from an eyewitness point-of-view. "One of the best assets the sisters bring here is education. Educating the people is the only way to bring about social change, counteract emotional reasoning and political bias and encourage dialogue," Pennington said. In April 2005 the sisters brought in a traveling exhibit, Wheels of Justice, a brightly decorated school bus staffed by teachers who have visited the Middle East and talked with the people there. First-person stories help bridge the gap between different sides of the conflict, helping people realize the suffering both sides endure in wartime, she said. Last September, Justpeace hosted and co-sponsored "Building a Culture of Peace: A Conference for Groups and Individuals Who Work for Peace," for peace and social action groups throughout western and northwest Arkansas. And in November, Sisters Rosalie, Anne Michele and Catherine and Justpeace member Kathy Jarvis traveled to Columbus, Ga., to participate in a peaceful demonstration to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Ga. Graduates of the institute, formerly called the School of the Americas, have been linked to human rights abuses in Latin America. A bill to halt the school's funding failed by only 16 votes last year, and Sister Rosalie hopes that it will be reintroduced and passed in the 2007 congressional session. "This group is made of people who believe that peace is possible and that we are called upon to be peacemakers," Sister Rosalie said.

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Republished with permission by Catholic Online from the Arkansas Catholic (www.arkansas-catholic.org), official publication of the Diocese of Little Rock (Ark.).