This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with Art Laffin, long-time peace activist, author, and Catholic Worker.
When I was young, I asked the question: “What would Jesus have me do?” he says. I realized Jesus is commanding us to embrace his command of unconditional love, including our enemies, and to renounce all forms of violence and killing.
Art was a member of the Covenant Peace community in Connecticut in the 1970s, then joined the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C. in the late 1970s, where he still lives with his wife and son. He has been active in the faith-based nonviolent movements for peace, social justice, disarmament, and human rights. He has been imprisoned for his involvement in two plowshares-disarmament actions, as well as other nonviolent actions. He is author of a new edition of The Risk of the Cross: Living Gospel Nonviolence in the Nuclear Age, co-editor of Swords into Plowshares, and co-editor of Arise and Witness: Poems by Anne Montgomery, About Faith, Prison, War Zones, and Nonviolent Resistance.
He talks about his mentors and friends, Fr. Richard McSorley, Dan and Phil Berrigan and Henri Nouwen. “They were all doers of the Word that led by example; they kept their eyes on the prize. I learn from them that life is a long haul made up of a lot of short hauls, and everything makes a difference.”

He speaks about the Plowshares movement, his actions and time in prison, as well as keeping a peace vigil every Monday morning at the Pentagon—since 1990! We advocate for all victims of war and injustice. People ask, “What difference does it make?” We ask, “What happens if we’re not there? No one thinks about a nonviolent alternative. I view the weekly vigil at the Pentagon as a prayer of intercession. I believe miracles have occurred during our protest actions.

Speaking about the upcoming 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6th and Nagasaki on August 9th, he says, We need to heed the cry of the Hibakusha: “Humanity and weapons cannot co-exist. We need to heed Jesus’ gospel call to nonviolence. We need to hear Dr. King’s message just before he was killed: “The choice is no longer violence or nonviolence; it’s nonviolence or non-existence.”

“Genocide has become normalized,” he says, “so we have to stand for life wherever it is threatened. I keep coming back to the command that we have to love one another, including our enemies.” He quotes Dorothy Day: “The only solution is love.”

“On the cross Jesus is showing us how to live and die,” he concludes, “and opens up a new nonviolent history, so we don’t lost heart. Christ is risen!
All things are possible if we act with the belief that God can enact miracles through us.”
Listen in to Art Laffin, take heart, and be encouraged to be a doer of the Word, and to carry on the long haul of Gospel nonviolence and universal love!