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

Reaching a Tipping Point

By Louie Vitale, OFM

June, 2010

On June 1st I reached my 78^th birthday.  I know I have spent various holidays such as Easter, Christmas, the Feast of St. Francis and others in jails and prisons, but I do not recall ever spending my birthday there.

Here we are in a new era, entering higher ages with lots of energy!

It also coincided with the Memorial Day weekend, which marked the first of my visitors.  My sister, Marie, came with her husband Ted, and their daughter Theresa (Terry).  Marie and Ted will be celebrating their 60^th wedding anniversary this coming August, and I am very pleased that I will be out in time for that celebration.

It was a special visit.  The visitor center here is a nice facility, with a pleasant outdoor yard, with tables and vending machines.  I ate some snack food, and a very fresh salad (after picking off and sharing a few small pieces of sliced turkey; I am a vegetarian).  It was made by a local produce farm. 

I repeated the “visit” on Memorial Day, the vigil of my actual birthday, with friends, the Apel family from the Santa Maria Catholic Worker.  Dennis could not get approval to visit, but Tensie was able to come and brought their 9 year old son Thomas; he really reminded me of myself at 9 years old.  He was very inquisitive, somewhat restless, very friendly and affectionate, and really delightful (as is his sister, Roselda).  This visit made me feel like a grandfather, and grateful to encourage another generation of hope for our world and life.  It was wonderful.

I have been associating with a number of peers here.  I do not think there is anyone my age (even in their seventies). I also associate with a numerous younger men, especially through the chapel.  They have reached out to me from the beginning.  They help to make up for my increasing memory loss (better than Ginseng). 

This is very similar to my living situation at St. Elizabeth’s (Oakland) with the friar students. I do miss them as well as the rest of my brothers and friends.  These younger men in Lompoc really help me a lot; I must admit to having trouble keeping up with times and schedules and other items that slip through my immediate memory bank very quickly. 

I have been talking about this with a new friend who is a clinical psychologist.  He suggests that the key is a thorough testing.  I have discussed this briefly with my designated physician at the V.A. in San Francisco.  It really raises more questions about losses, or we should say “limitations.”   At the same time I do have lots of memories of the past (like parts of the Latin Mass), to which he said, “No danger of dementia here.” 

My telling of these encounters was not to relate a diagnosis of a serious physical or mental disorder.  It is only to relate my “tipping towards eighty” stage.  I have read various spiritual approaches to this.  “Work with what you have, rather than moaning about what you have lost,” or more likely lessened.  We still have so many facilities and abilities to access them, that we can exhibit many talents, as did Grandma Moses and so many legendary ancestors. 

I recall so joyfully Aunt Jean Trapani, although we did not have the same genes or DNA.  She was my great aunt, by virtue of her marriage to my Great Uncle Vincent Trapani.  She shared the life style and much of the same culture and even living conditions of my blood relatives.  She also was a great influence for me as probably the only one of her generation that genuinely supported me when I chose to enter the Franciscans and attend the seminary.  She was a support for the entire fifty years. 

Now, after 106 lively years here, she continues to advocate for me, and all of us, in the “new heavens and new earth” which she surely entered.  I was so delighted to make it home for the Mass and festivities at North Beach.  Aunt Jean was the last living survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.  When she passed I was in Cairo, Egypt with the Gaza Freedom March, and since it was the New Year’s holidays there was “absolutely no space on any flight for two more weeks;”  however, no one has ever been able to say “no” to Aunt Jean! I am sure she was opening up the path for me to get there on time!

So, here we are in a new era, entering higher ages with lots of energy! I just recalled my joy walking, running and even dancing on the bow of a boat on the Nile, after a camel ride around the Pyramids this past January.  We were trying to enter Gaza and shared lots of interest, explorations, concerns and causes while we waited.  I have many companions along the way, both those who have preceded us into the fullness of life, and youth, with their vigor, vision and enthusiasm for life!

There are new discoveries in space every day.  I saw on the news last night a man walking along a road picked up an interesting looking rock.  It has been identified as a piece of a meteorite that is 4.5 Billion years old! Does it have a secret to share with us?

I sure am not ready to throw in the towel at this point, neither on my own life nor on the future wonders of this ever emerging “New Creation.”  May we share the journey together as long as we live.

Here in the midst of Vandenberg Air Force Base where missiles and rockets of war are launched, we dream thoughts of ever greater efforts at Peace and nonviolence.  We are ever ready to share those dreams and join in the efforts to bring about the “Peaceable Kingdom” predicted by the Prophet Isaiah, and aborning in the midst of our daily lives. 

We give thanks to all of those who have come before us, and to those who are already moving on through new frontiers to new creations.

Sing Glory on High!  HALLELUJAH!