2002 FEAST OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS RETREAT, WITNESS & LINE CROSSING

Fr. Jim Murphy of Platteville, WI, and Dagmar Hoxsie of Yankton, SD, (holding the banner below) were this year’s line-crossers at the 24th annual gathering at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, NE. Their statement is reprinted below:

“We are here as people of faith on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. King Herod felt threatened by a child born whom he perceived as a rival king. The result was mass murder.

Today our President has set forth as policy a potential mass murder because of a perceived threat. A preemptive military action is the act of a rogue nation, not the action of a peace-loving member of the community of nations.

President Bush is willing to use nuclear weapons which threaten millions of lives. We are here as peacemakers to protest such threats to our world.

We are afraid for the human community, for you young airmen, for all innocent people who will pay with their lives when they get in the way of the war machine.

As General Eisenhower said, “Every warship launched, every weapon made, is in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

We stand here today to denounce as evil the mass military spending which leaves many cold, hungry, and without health care. In the words of Jesus, ‘Love one another.’”

After reading their statement, both were arrested, issued “ban and bar” letters and released.