Read my latest story, "A Tale of Two Birthdays", at 52|250.

On Easter Sunday, a group of protesters were arrested for shouting their opposition to the war in Iraq and spattering themselves and bystanders with blood during mass in Chicago’s Holy Name parish. At first I thought that they could have chosen a better target– say, a large evangelical congregation of the Republican persuasion, as those tend to be much more behind the war than the Catholic Church is (for all of its flaws)– but it turns out that the reason they chose this particular parish was buried deep in the article:

The protest erupted as the cardinal began his Easter homily, a sermon that celebrates the Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion. Dressed in their Sunday best—shirts and ties on the men, and the women in skirts—the six demonstrators moved into the auditorium aisles from their center-row seats and shouted their opposition to the war.

They decried the deaths of 4,000 U.S. soldiers and [hundreds of] thousands of Iraqi citizens, drawing angry heckles and shouts of “Sit down!” from churchgoers. As ushers and security guards rushed down the aisle, the group denounced the cardinal for having lunch with President Bush and Mayor Richard Daley in January.

The group also noted  a wish to reach prominent Catholic citizens in Chicago and further afield.

Despite the charges this group faces, its members did not act violently. Rather, they created an even that stood for violence, that signified the violence faced by Iraq. It was a slap in the face, an effort to wake people up to see that as they celebrated, others were dying. As they found their joyous day marred by sticky fake blood, others found themselves covered in real blood.

Inevitably, some of the parishioners’ anger was directed at the protesters, the self-directed vehicles of this message. The real outrage, however, should be for what the fake blood stood for: the real violence half a world away. The violence each and every person in that church helped pay for. The violence that smug statements about how we should all work for peace do nothing to amend.

Related posts:

1. Hope, Change, and Disillusionment: Seven Years of War

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.