* Doug Hostetter, moderator
* Rev. Dick Fernandez, UCC, CALC director, breadth and depth of interfaith
movement
* Rev. Carol Jensen, ELCA, religious opposition at the local level
* Rabbi David Saperstein, Reformed Judaism, Religious Action Center, Jewish
and interfaith opposition
* Marie Dennis, Pax Christi, Catholic institutional experience, Berrigan
brothers and radical resistance
* Rev. Canon Petero A. N. Sabune, Africa Partnership Officer for the Episcopal Church.
The peace movement to stop the US war in Vietnam was composed of numerous sectors of civil society. It included students, women, labor, soldiers, journalists, professors, elected officials, Black, Brown, Chicano and Indigenous, youth, and religious, pacifist and interfaith organizations. The Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee welcomes you to an online webinar to discuss how religious groups were organized, what they did and lessons from that multi-year experience. We will also look at how faith-based organizations are confronting today’s challenges, and explore what can be learned from the dialogue across the decades. You will hear panelists from Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish groups from both national and local perspectives.
Moderator: Doug Hostetter is a Peace Pastor in the Mennonite
Church. Doug was a conscientious
objector during the Vietnam War who chose to do his alternative service working
for the Mennonite Central Committee in Tam Ky, Vietnam, from 1966 - 1969. During his time in Vietnam, Doug established a
literacy program which used Vietnamese high school students to teach thousands
of Vietnamese children, whose schools had been destroyed by the US military, how
to read and write. Doug returned to Vietnam in 1970 with the US National
Student Association delegation that negotiated the People’s Peace Treaty, and
was broadly
active in the US antiwar movement. Doug worked for the United Methodist Office for the United
Nations, was the Director of the New England Office of the American Friends
Service Committee, the Director of the US Fellowship of Reconciliation and
directed the Mennonite Central Committee United Nations Office for over a
decade. Doug is currently the NGO
Representative for Pax Christi International at the United Nations. Doug has
published widely on the issues of war, peace and nonviolence, and is a
contributing author to The People Make the Peace: Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar movement.
Dick Fernandez
Reverend Dick Fernandez became the first Executive Director of Clergy and Laity Concerned (CALCAV) in January of 1966 following a short two year stint as a campus minister at the University of Pennsylvania. CALCAV was started by a group of prominent clergy in the fall of 1965 including, Reverend William Sloane Coffin, Father Phillip Berrrigan, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Reverend Richard Neuhaus and Rabbi Balfour Brickner.
As an interfaith and non-pacifist organization it had wide appeal across the nation. Dick set about to create an organization that by 1969 had 65 chapters and more than 20,000 members. In addition to its grass roots organizing efforts across the country and its annual clergy and laity lobbying/protest effort in Washington, CALCAV was responsible for authoring several books including, In the Name of America, a study of war crimes committed by U.S. troops and Military Chaplains, a critical look at the role of chaplains during war. In addition the organization placed a chaplain in Stockholm to support the more than 2,000 deserters in Sweden and mounted a national advertising campaign against the war engaging ad firms in New York and San Francisco.
CALCAV organized Dr. King’s famous 1967 Vietnam speech in opposition to the war at Riverside Church in New York City. King became a Co-Chair of CALCAV immediately following that speech. Few organizations did more to organize in the cities and towns across the nation. Dick served, with Lee Webb, as the Co-Director of Vietnam Summer and was very involved with the Mobilization to End the War which was responsible for many of the nation’s largest anti-war protests.
Carol Jensen
Rev. Carol A. Jensen Becoming active against the American War in Vietnam while a student at the University of Washington (1966-70) and active in Lutheran Campus Ministry, Carol joined with Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam in the late 1960s, She later served on the staff of its Northern California chapter (1973-77) and the national staff (1977-80). She was a founder of the Nuclear Freeze Campaign and served with her late husband Ron Young as Middle East Representatives for the American Friends Service Committee in the 1980s. Ordained a Lutheran pastor at the age of 42, she served parishes in Philadelphia and Seattle for 25 years. Currently, she chairs the Board of the Faith Acton Network of Washington State, an interfaith advocacy organization, and the City of Everett's Council of Neighborhoods.
David Saperstein
For 40 years, Rabbi Saperstein directed the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, representing the largest segment of American Jewry to the U.S. Congress and Administration and currently serves as its Director Emeritus.
In 2015-17, he served as the U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom. Also an attorney, he taught seminars on Church, State Law and Jewish Law for 35 years at Georgetown University Law Center. In 2019-2020, Rabbi Saperstein served as the President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, the international arm of the Reform Jewish Movement.
Long a leader in interfaith coalitions, including those dealing with peace efforts, as a college and graduate student he was involved in anti-Vietnam War activities, in the late '70s served as chair of the Religious Committee on SALT II Treaty, in the '80s edited "Preventing a Nuclear Holocaust: A Jewish Response", and has remained involved in such efforts ever since.
Marie Dennis
Marie Dennis was co-president of Pax Christi International from 2007 to 2019. She is now a senior advisor to the secretary general and serves on the executive committee of Pax Christi’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative. She worked for Maryknoll for 22 years, primarily as director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, and was a founder of the Center for New Creation, the Washington Area Community Investment Fund and Assisi Community in Washington DC. Marie has been active in popular and faith-based movements for social justice and peace for over 40 years. She is author or co-author of seven books, editor of the award-winning Orbis Book, Choosing Peace: The Catholic Church Returns to Gospel Nonviolence and co-editor of Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World, published by Pax Christi International in 2020.
Rev. Canon Petero Sabune
The Rev. Canon Petero A. N. Sabune is the Africa Partnership Officer for the Episcopal Church. Most recently, Sabune, an Episcopal priest, was the pastor and Protestant chaplain at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Ossining, New York.
In 1972, Sabune fled his native-born Uganda and the ruthless dictator Idi Amin. Sabune’s brother was killed by Idi Amin in 1976 and his sister was killed by one of Amin's men in 1977. Another brother died in Nairobi, Kenya after a narrow escape from Amin's men.
As a parish priest, Sabune served in churches throughout the greater New York/New Jersey area, including as Dean of a cathedral.
Internationally, he is a trustee of the Episcopal Seminary in Haiti, was a founding board member of the Business and Technology Institute of Haiti, and was chair of the Forgiveness and Reconciliation Project. Among his awards and honors, he received the Minorities in Criminal Justice Leadership Award, the NAACP Community Service Award, and the Caribbean American Families Inc Community Service Award.
Questions during the webinar
As an AFSC organizer against the war against Vietnam, I always believed that if I could get a member of the clergy to speak out against the war to his (her) congregation, it was one of the very best ways to amplify our views - because clergy had moral weight, and because people went to places of worship to be taught by their clergy. Any thoughts? Claire Gorfinkel
"Question for Carol Jensen: Thank you for your excellent presentation. I’m glad you mentioned the role of CALC empowering women’s leadership. I’d like to hear more of your perspective about the role of women organizing in the anti-war movement in general. Natalie Shiras
As a Christian minister I became deeply disturbed that the role of non-theistic activists was ignored by too many anti-war activists. Do others feel this? Barry Lynn
These days the most politically engaged church congregations seem to be on the socially conservative end of the political spectrum. Why are liberal congregations less visible/vocal in American politics these days than during the 1960s? Thanks for a terrific discussion of this exciting era!! Carolyn Adams
For David Saperstein: I worked full time on the Jewish "Trees for Vietnam project" with Jewish Peace Fellowship. we did get support from youth groups like NFTY. We found that national Jewish groups were in fact reluctant to take a strong stand against the war in Viet Nam. What is your insight. Michael Tabor
Rabbi Saperstein, Did you find a change among Jewish leaders after the 1967 Israel-Arab war, in which the U.S. supported Israel and Israeli leaders tied themselves more closely to LBJ? And I ask this as a Jew who grew up in heavily Jewish Great Neck, N.Y. Robert Shaffer
Why were “we” so overtaken by the evangelical religious right not so long after Vietnam? David Hawk
Do you see the possibility of something like Clergy and Laity Concerned could be formed today which could be a powerful voice from the Faith Community for ending the forever wars and our national addiction to militarism and empire? David Hartsough
The density of the insights-- I am so grateful. Not to ask for more. Only to appreciate the overlapping interwoven memory. Christopher Spicer Hankle
Perhaps a very narrow question: "The Trial of the Chicago 7" is up for an Academy Award. The only member of that group clearly inspired by religion is Dave Dellinger, a Union Seminary graduate. Any comments on the treatment of Dellinger in that film, in which he strikes a court officer (which absolutely did not happen), and about whether that film captures the spirit of the antiwar movement in the Chicago 1968 demonstrations? Robert Shaffer
My father was a juror in the trial of the Harrisburg 7 in 1972 (Philip Berrigan, Elizabeth McAlister and five others who were charged with conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up heating tunnels under the US Capitol.) The verdict was a hung jury and never retried, but did you experience harassment like the Berrignas did from government entities like the FBI that was related to your anti-war activism and your religious involvement? Louise Foresman
Did the membership of CALC declined after the peace accords in 1973? Cyprien Gandillon
What about the place of Thomas Merton the Trappist Monk and prolific writer who galvanized so many people around the world regarding America’s unjust war in Vietnam. Even after his mysterious and violent death in Thailand on his expected important presentation to a gathering of many religious people.? Bill Hartman
Chat during the webinar
I joined C&LCV at 16 and went with Dick Taylor to the DC gathering in '68 where the photo of King was taken during the prayer service at the tomb of the unknown solider. After that time I wanted to grow up and be a fellow prophet.
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