These links take you to profiles of contemporary Christian people who have witnessed to peacemaking during the course of their life.
Index
Download profile of Franz here. Download profile of Franziska here
Download a Service for Franz Jagerstatter. Download the Franz Jagerstatter song
See here resources for telling the story ot Franz to young people
Born in St Radegund, Austria in 1907. Executed on 9th August 1943 at Brandenburg Prison for his conscientious objection to serving in Hitler's army. 26 October 2007, Franz was Beatified in his home Diocese of Linz in Austria. Writing to his family from prison he said:
" These few words are being set down here as they come from my mind and heart. And if I must write them with my hands in chains, I find that much better than if my will were in chains. Neither prison nor chains nor sentence of death can rob a man of the Faith and his free will. God gives so much strength that it is possible to bear any suffering, a strength far stronger than any might of the world. "
Download pfd document here.
Awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1976 for her work with the Peace People in Northern Ireland, Mairead has continued to work on behalf of peacemaking and nonviolence.
"Wherever we are, wherever we live, we need to ask ourselves as Christians, if Christ lived in Belfast would he carry a gun and kill for a cause? If Christ lived in America or Britain would he support nuclear weapons... that could annihilate millions of our sisters and brothers in the world?"
Download pdf document here.
Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Goldamez was born in 1917 in the town of Cindad Barrios, in the mountains of El Salvador near the border with Honduras. He was murdered on 24 March 1980.
" I am bound, as a pastor, by divine command to give my life for those whom I love, and that is all Salvadoreans, even those who are going to kill me. "
These words appeared in a newspaper just two weeks before Archbishop Romero was shot while celebrating the Eucharist.
Download pdf document here.
Thomas Merton was born in France in 1915 and converted to Catholicism in his early 20's. He became a Trapist monk in the United States in 1941. In his forties he became increasingly concerned over matters of war and peace - writing many articles, letters and essays from his Monastery in Kentucky. Merton died in 1968.
"Christians have got to speak by their actions. Their political action must not be confined to the ballot box. It must be clear and manifest to everybody. It must speak loudly and plainly the Christian truth and it must be prepared to defend that truth with sacrifice, injustice and even imprisonment or death…"
Download pdf document here.
Gertrud Luckner was born of a German family in Liverpool in 1900. Returning to Germany in 1931, she was shocked to see the influence of Nazi propoganda and decided to do something about it. Eventually she was arrested and taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp.
"I thought: 'You must always comfort them. The only thing I can do is walk the way together with them.' The whole thing had been so terrible - the deportations, one city after another - so that it really did not much matter any more what happened to me."
Download pdf document here.
Matt
Robson is a 30 something who found himself at a turning point in his
life. In 2003 he went to Israel and Palestine as an Ecumenical Accompanier.
"Slowly but surely over the days and weeks I was less and less active, sitting or standing in the background, I hope as a reassurance to both parties… helping to keep the situation calm, helping to allow people to treat each other as human beings despite abnormal circumstances, preventing the tension from boiling over into violence."
Download pdf document here.
Called the Joan of Arc of East Timor, Maria Lourdes
Martins Cruz has
worked to lead her people in a nonviolent struggle to regain a sense
of
their own dignity and thus prepare the ground
for a new Timor. She firmly believes that
“Women cannot wait for men
to change – we
have to get on with our own change
... our arms are peace, love, justice, truth, freedom,
forgiveness, unity and solidarity.”
Download pdf document here.
In 1960, Peter Benenson became outraged at the unjust treatment
of
two Portugese students. His outrage led to action when he established
a
campaign on their behalf, coining the phrase "Prisoners
of Conscience".
This campaign grew into the worldwide organisation we now know as Amnesty International.
"I have lit this candle, in the words of Shakespeare, 'against oblivion' - so that the forgotten prisoners should always be remembered. We work in Amnesty against oblivion."
Download pdf document here.
“Battle of the doves and hawks” - this was
the title a Guardian reporter used to describe how four women - Andrea
Needham, Joanna Wilson, Lotta
Kronlid and Angie Zelter - took matters
into their own hands and attempted to stop Britain selling lethal jets
to the Indonesian regime. They all believed that
“Above all else in life, we are called to love and to be human. I can therefore not stand aside and allow the Hawks to be delivered without doing all that is in my power to peacefully resist. I believe that to be silent in this situation is to be complicit with injustice. I pray that what we do today in disarming these planes will be a small ray of hope for our sisters and brothers struggling for peace and justice in East Timor.”
Download pdf document here.
Sr Wamuyu Wachira belongs to the Loreto Sisters, a Catholic
congregation also known as the Institute of the
Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM). In
a terrible assault on a girls’ secondary school in 1991,
boys from a neighbouring
school attacked the girls in
their dormitory. Nineteen
girls died, 71 were raped,
and the rest were traumatised. Questioned by
the media, the female deputy principal
explained: “The boys never meant any harm
against the girls. They just wanted to rape”. This and several
other horrifying episodes of
violence brought home to
Wamuyu the urgent need to
develop a strong culture of
peace recognising that at times
women themselves colluded
with violence or abuse.
“I believe that peacemaking is at the core of a woman’s heart.”