Fr. Louie Vitale and Fr. Steve Kelly began serving five months in prison on October 17, 2007 for nonviolent action taken at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona. US military personnel are taught torture techniques at the bases’s intelligence school. Here is Fr. Louie’s third letter to the community, written on Christmas Day:

December 25, 2007

Emmanuel Comes to Imperial County Jail

I receive many letters and Christmas cards, many
bemoaning that I will not be home or at Church at
Christmas. Yes I will miss that again. I love the
midnight mass and the children bringing in the Christ
child.

We will have no Mass here. Probably there will be
nothing to note this great festivity. Yet without
doubt Emmanuel will come! The all-embracing Love of
God will reach us.

In fact Emmanuel Zagas has been with me these past 2
weeks plus. He is a 20 year old from Mexicali whose
wife Esperanza is expecting a baby boy not long after
Christmas.

Manuel had enlisted in the U.S. Army (with 47 others
from Mexicali), but that is out now. Thank God. He is
charged with including marijuana among the cargo he
carries to the U.S. He is awaiting U.S. Federal
sentence. He is very restless in the cell. He does
read the Bible. I am encouraging him to read the
infancy stories about Emmanuel, and his message of
nonviolence. He asked to do his marriage por la
iglesia when we get out. I think he will make a good
husband & Dad. He is very solicitous of my well-being.
He is fun! We do have good talks despite language
limitations.

I not only hold in my heart and prayer my brothers and
sisters (on the other side of the wall) but those in
such places as Guantanamo Bay. They bear many
similarities to this cell block, lots of locked metal
doors, interrupted sleep, and contentions. Also, a lot
of solitude, yet noise. I don’t know if they have T.V.
but I’ll give them the one in our day room. They have
a much better clinic (cf Michael Moore’s “Sicko”). But
I have been to court, have a release date, can phone
out, lots of letters and books and some brief visits –
oh yeah no electric shock, hooks or waterboarding!

But it is good to hold these members of the Body of
Christ in my daily life. When we can relate to those
who suffer oppression and even join them in that
oppression (limits to our freedom and life choices)
then we are able to join their struggle for
liberation. As James Douglass relates in Resistance
and Contemplation we must join the oppressed in their
struggle for freedom (Resistance) if we wish to
achieve the “new heaven and new earth” – the peaceable
“kin”-dom of God.

But as Douglas, Gandhi and Merton insist we must first
liberate ourselves from our own demons (the false
self, ego, power driven, violence, prejudices). To do
that we must move into Contemplation: (the wilderness
& solitude). Gandhi said this happens best in the
solitary cells of the empire – “the cell door is the
door to freedom.” It is here in the “Imperial” jail
that I find the stabilities to awaken to Emmanuel, the
presence and source of Love of all creation. I
experience the freedom to dedicate myself totally to
that “Love,” that “Reality” that is the reign of God
in our midst and to know that we are on the way to the
New Creation – this is the way to Liberation.

I can only say that this presence embraces me here. It
frees me from false pretensions personally and
communally, and gives me a true peace “of perfect
joy.” From this point we can discover the nonviolent
Way of Liberation and join in its realization.

Blessed Franz Jaggerstatter, S.F.O.– patron of this
little hermitage – truly inspires me with his freedom,
as is clear in his mystic writings and testimonies. My
fears and anxieties abate and even Sister Death seems
a welcoming presence not to be feared. In all of this
I find deep joy.

Steve and I will join Catholic Workers Jeff Dietrich
and Mike Wisnowski (Los Angeles Catholic Worker) and
Denis Apel (St. Anthony Seminary grad who credits our
affinity to my showing up at S.A.S. with Cesar Chavez
– my mentor in nonviolence) in court in Santa Barbara
after our release. We joined them at Vandenberg Air
Force Base in Lompoc, CA, on Armed Forces Day last
May. We were inviting our brothers and sisters of the
30th Space Wing “Guardians of the High Frontier” to
abandon their pursuits to “dominate space” with
nuclear weapons. We called them to join us, to learn
Jesus’ Gospel Way of the Sermon on the Mount, which
Gandhi calls the great way of nonviolence. This is the
way to the “Peaceable Kin-dom” where the lion lies
down with the lamb.

May we abandon our plans for war (especially the ones
with Iran) and dedicate ourselves to the non-violent
way of compassionate Love (the spiritual energy even
greater than nuclear energy). Hope is possible. Jesus
shows us the Way.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel!

Peace,
Louie

Fr. Louie’s First Letter

Fr. Louie’s Second Letter

Peacemaker David Hartsougfh visits Fr. Louie in prison

Prison Addesses for Fr. Louie, Fr. Steve Kelly, Betsy Lamb and Fr. Jerry Zawada

Support Fr. Louie and Fr. Steve: Sign the Circle of Peace