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Disturbing Message

We were near the end of our hour of prayer and fasting in the lobby of the Marquette University Library when Marquette security guards approached us. I thought that was strange since we have been doing this during Lent for four years and just last week, after an incident with a security guard, have been told that the Dean of Students say we could have our hour of prayer in the lobby as long as we were not loud or disruptive. I told this to the security guard that approached us. He said he knew that but had got a number of calls from students at Marquette that we were disruptive. We said we were just quietly reading the Stations of the Cross and just offering our flyer to those who came over to us and wanted it. The security team could see that was true and left.

After they left I suddenly realized why students had called security to say we were disruptive. It was our sign saying: “MU Teaches Killing” with the page number and location from the Marquette Bulletin of classes about ROTC. It was our message that was disturbing their conscience. If they would have read our flyer we clearly explained what we are talking about. We had quotes from the military manual and the professor of ethics at West Point Academy , a Catholic, describing how military training, like taught at Marquette, teaches reflexive killing, Killing without conscience.

So now I thought better about our sign and hour of prayer. Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, said, “When it is said that we disturb people too much by the words pacifism and anarchism, I can only think that people need to be disturbed, that their consciences need to be aroused, that they do indeed need to look into their work, and study new techniques of love and poverty and suffering for each other.” (“Are The Leaders Insane?” By Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, April 1954, 1, 6.}

We are so used of our message to Teach War No More being ignored it was refreshing that a few students’ conscience were disturbed enough by our message for them to call security. The message being disturbing is better than the message being ignored.

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