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Catholic Workers Protest Omaha
Archdiocese’s Support of StratCom

John Krejci, NFP State Board

The Des Moines Catholic Worker community joined with friends from Omaha and Lincoln to call the Archdiocese of Omaha to task for returning to the SAC (Strategic Air Command) Museum — a shrine dedicated to war — for their annual fundraising dinner for the poor.

On March 14th, after being escorted from the museum grounds, the protesters set up their banners at the entrance and attempted to hand out fliers to the cars of those coming for the banquet, few of whom stopped.  However, their Gospel message of nonviolence echoed loud and clear. In the words of the Vatican Council: “The arms race is one of the greatest curses on the human race, and the harm it inflicts on the poor is more than can be endured.” (Gaudium et Spes, 81 and 3). Their flier stated:

It is a moral outrage to raise money for the poor while feasting at the temple of the death machine that keeps them poor.

The billions spent on the weapons of mass destruction enshrined at the SAC Museum would easily shelter and feed not only the poor of this nation but around the world. By hosting their annual Catholic Charities fundraiser at the SAC Museum, the Omaha Catholic Archdiocese mocks and exploits the poor we are called to serve and instead blesses the very arms race (as well as the hideous weapons worshipped her) the Catholic Church has repeatedly condemned…

Their message concluded with the oft-quoted, 1953 statement of President Eisenhower:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

The protesters urged the Archdiocese to repent. “It is our fervent hope and prayer that the Archdiocese of Omaha see the moral error of their ways and not return to the SAC Museum for their annual Catholic Charities fundraising event. We encourage as many people who can to contact Kathy Grandsaert of Omaha Catholic Charities and the Omaha Archbishop and let them know how inappropriate this event really is and beg them not to return next year.”  (Kathy@ccharities.org or contact@ archomaha.org.)

As supporters of Nebraskans for Peace might expect, no media covered the protest. StratCom (and SAC) are the cash cows of Omaha, its media, its churches and unfortunately the hearts of many of its people. How long will it take the Catholic Church and the people of Omaha to listen to the words of Vatican II?: “The arms race is one of the greatest curses on the human race.”

NFP lauds the Des Moines Catholic workers for their prophetic voice. They support our own campaign to raise the consciousness of the country and the world to the danger StratCom poses.