Pace e Bene

Franciscan priest and Pace e Bene staff member Friar Louis Vitale, 78, began serving a six-month prison sentence on Monday, January 25 for nonviolent, prayerful protest calling for closure of the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia. On February 25 he was transferred from Crisp County Jail in Cordele, Georgia (where he spent his first  month after being processed briefly at Muscogee County Jail), to the US Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. He was then moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and now has arrived at FCI Lompoc.  To see other letters from Fr. Louie, click here.  Here is his mailing address:

Louis Vitale #25803-048

FCI Lompoc

Federal Correctional Institution

3600 Guard Road

Lompoc, Ca  93436

Fr. Louie Ruminates on Why He Goes to Jail

May 23, 2010

The beginning of my prison sentence on January 25, 2010 almost coincided exactly with the start of the Christian tradition’s penitential season of Lent.

It is ironic that I would be required during those forty days to take off religious garb – my Franciscan robe with a hood and a rope with three knots representing the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience – and be unable to venture to a religious house or keep a daily hours of prayer.

We are called to examine our consciences, consult our associates and mentors, and pray in whatever way we do to plumb our deeper selves and respond

At the same time, it also seemed somewhat appropriate that I would carry on this penitential season within the confines of a US Penitentiary.  I had spent a previous Lent and Easter Season at the Crisp County Jail in Cordele, GA.  Once again, I began my incarceration there.  I rather welcomed it.

However, I moved on about a month later.  I had hoped to land at a facility where there would be some religious space and the opportunity to celebrate at least some of theservices of Holy Week, culminating in the Mass of the Resurrection on Easter.  This worked out well, with the gaining of a Capuchin Franciscan here at Lompoc to celebrate these feasts in a very nice chapel originally built by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles when this facility was part of Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The celebration begun at Easter has carried on through The Feast of the Ascension and this weekend is being marked by the magnificent Feast of Pentecost.

Ken Butigan, my mentor at Pace e Bene, asked me to respond to the question of some of those reading my reports from prison. They understand my raising challenges to such institutions as the former School of the Americas. “But why go to jail?”

First of all this is not our intention. Our intention is to raise the question of a serious evil perpetuated by a government of which we are a part, including the participation in acts of torture, disappearances, executions and even massacres.

In the case of the School of the Americas this is well illustrated in El Salvador where there had been the assassinations of priests, and religious sisters and brothers, massacres of thousands of villages. This constitutes war crimes, most notably against the Geneva Conventions relating to torture and unjustified killings.  The number of deaths reached six figures.

We are also aware of the greater and greater awareness of the more appropriate response of nonviolence through the influence of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Rigoberto Menchu and many others emerging in Latin America. The Jesuits were giving more attention to such heroic and inspiring leaders when they themselves –and their female associate and her daughter – became victims of a horrible massacre in their own home on November 16, 1989.

The massacre recalled to many familiar with religious history the martyrs of the Catholic Church, but also many others, such as Buddhists in Vietnam in the recent war, and more recently Tibet. The challenge came to those objecting to the suffering and even deaths experienced in these countries, as they became aware of the complicity of the United States in these war crimes. Many of us participated in nonviolence protests at such places as the Naval Station at Concord, CA, Travis Air Force Base, where troops were sent by air to Vietnam and where some where even risking courts-martials and many years of their lives in the penitentiary that there is a place where we needed to say, “Not in our Name.”

Many church communities, for example the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and religious communities from the US sent delegations through Witness for Peace, Share, Fellowship of Reconciliation and others to these countries to see for themselves. Many of us came back saying, “Can we do more?”

There were relatively smaller amounts of people who did join military responses in some of the areas, but many more of us, drawing on these same mentors and movements of nonviolence that have swept our world in the recent decades (South Africa, the Philippines, Poland, most of the former entities of the Soviet Union and finally Russia itself).

Efforts such as the School of Americas Watch are an offshoot of such movements.  The School of the Americas was originally located in Panama and sponsored by the US military, and later institutions we knew and with whom we shared. Some of us spoke out in our church congregations or other public forums. We also attempt to raise our concerns in the media. Personally our families, friends and associates are interested to know what would motivate us to give up our freedom for our “cause.”  Also we have an opportunity to explain why we would freely “choose” to go to prison for our cause.

In my own case since I am very active in other causes, most notably against nuclear weapons. I can make the connections between such social justice and peace efforts as torture and massacre and nuclear holocaust. Here at Lompoc, my sentence is for protesting the School of the Americas, but being in the presence of Vandenberg Air Force Base where I have also protested missile and rocket launches and have done some jail time. Presently Sr. Megan Rice and I are preparing for a trial in September. Originally it was scheduled for this month and delayed when notice was given that I was already incarcerated  in Georgia. Ironically I was then moved right to the location of the “crime.” Our prison is located in the midst of the Vandenberg base.

Those of us in prison for protest receive a large number of letters, usually of support, some also raising questions as to our reasoning regarding our actions. It would be good to do a survey of those who support us to see what the message says to them. This might be more accurate then our own reading of the “signs of the times.”

Archbishop Romero started out supporting the government of El Salvador and even criticizing close friends such as the priest (Fr. Rotillo Grande who was massacred while on his religious rounds). This event brought Romero to a “rude awakening” of the tragedy unfolding before his eyes, not only of religious professionals, but of tens of thousands of the people of their flocks.

As I noted, the Feast of Pentecost is approaching. We are reminded that these actions should not be done casually. Jesus broke the laws of the temple when he drove out money changers.  The Apostles also violated the orders given by the Temple leaders to stop going to the temple steps to proclaim Jesus.

This calls us to examine our consciences, consult our associates and mentors and pray in whatever way we do to plumb our deeper selves and respond to the true calls of humanity and the creation in which we live so that our responses may be for the good of all people and all of creation.

I am very grateful that here at Lompoc FCI.  I have the opportunity to visit the chapel (where I am an orderly), and also find time at my bunk or walking the yard to pray and deepen my own reflections and commitment. Meanwhile we experience the launches of weapons of possible mass destruction next door, which expert Andrew Lichterman of Western States Legal Foundation has called the “leading edge” of space war and a call for a commitment of all people of our country to find ways to speak on behalf of the needy and desperate of the world and of the very future of this beautiful creation that we experience here on this Pacific shore.

Image: Sojourners Magazine