Franciscan, Jesuit priests face jail terms for anti-torture protest outside military base

[Ian David]

Free while awaiting trial
Franciscan, Jesuit priests face jail terms for anti-torture protest outside military base

Two California priests are awaiting a June 4 trial in federal court on charges of trespass and refusing to follow police orders during a protest outside an Arizona military base.

Federal prosecutors at an arraignment in Tucson on April 3 asked that the two priests be jailed. The two, said the prosecutors, had a history of arrests and might break the law again before their trial. But U.S. Magistrate Hector Estrada allowed the priests to remain free on their own recognizance after learning from prosecutors that the clerics’ past crimes were nonviolent.

One of the priests, Franciscan Father Louis Vitale, 74, is the former pastor of St. Boniface church in San Francisco, a co-founder of the Oakland-based non-violence group, Pace e Bene, as well as of the Nevada Desert Experience, which opposes nuclear weapons testing. The other was Jesuit Father Steve Kelly, 58, a member of the Redwood Catholic Worker. Both were arrested at Ft. Huachuca, near Sierra Vista, Arizona, on Nov. 19, 2006. They were protesting the alleged teaching of torture methods at the base.

Vitale and Kelly were among 120 protesters at Ft. Huachuca. They claim U.S. military intelligence teaches torture interrogation techniques at Ft. Huachuca -- the same techniques used at Abu Ghraib and, allegedly, at Guantanamo.

More:
http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=0554bc55-cae6-458a-bcf6-479823df55b6

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. A far cry from the time the 10th Cavalry

was stationed there. I hope they are not teaching torture methods-but knowing what goes on at that fort (military intelligence school) I wouldn't be surprised.

[havocmom]

2. THAT is what inhibiting Free Speech looks like.

Imus not being given a paycheck in the hood of Ten Million a year is NOT a violation of his free speech, it is just telling him somebody isn't paying him for his crap.

There is a lot of undercurrent in the Tucson area re clerics who dare protest US policies in many subjects.

And you guys should see the fancy radar shit at Ft. Huachuca.

[DesertRat]

3. Good for them for bringing attention to this issue

From the article:

"It was at Ft. Huachuca that Vietnam-era manuals advocating torture techniques were translated into Spanish for use at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia -- a center that, critics have long said, has trained police and military officers who tortured and killed political enemies of repressive Latin American governments.

Officers and soldiers responsible for human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have either worked or were trained at Ft. Huachuca, say groups like School of the Americas Watch and Pace e Bene."

[Peace Patriot]

4. Now THAT's the Catholic Church I know and love--the Catholic Worker Church!

Wonderful people! Really and truly live the Christian message of love, every day.

Torture tortures the victims, and tortures the torturer, and tortures the soul of the nation. It is the most hideous of crimes.

I was thinking--reviewing the US Attorney scandal emails over at FireDogLake--how the Bushite cruelty toward illegal immigrants glides through those pages with its bits of pieces of self-justification and political conniving, almost unnoticed. They claim they fired Carol Lam because she wasn't prosecuting enough illegal immigration cases--while the same regime was/is torturing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other locations, and colluding with rightwing paramilitaries on torture and death of leftists, union organizers and peasants in Colombia. These "many" prosecutions they wanted of illegal immigration was just a political "talking point" for them--a mean-spirited, bigoted tool for stirring up hatred and getting votes and donations from people who think that way. No thought for the pain and suffering they were causing, for lost lives, for the beleaguered poor. They casually--without a thought--destroy lives here, destroy psyches there, treat people like criminals and animals, who have done nothing, who are merely poor, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. People with no resources to fight back, who can't afford lawyers, or are forbidden to have lawyers--who have no rights. All for power and profit. All the little Pat Robertson Bushie lawyers who parade as 'christians.' Fr. Vitale and Fr. Kelly are the true Christians. These others are fakes. Well, their "house of cards" is falling down, and I hope, if they hit bottom, they some day find themselves in a Catholic Worker Soup Kitchen, and find out--at long last--what their religion is really about.

[H2O Man]

7. Yes!

Do you remember Father Mullaney, the Benedictine monk with the Ph.D. in psychology? He brought the judge who was sentencing him to tears. He woke a large part of this nation to their humanity.

The Catholic Workers were one of the most important parts of the 1960s. They continued to do wonderful work in the Reagan Dark Ages.

[porphyrian]

5. Must be a Dominican base...

It's good to know there are some Christians who believe Jesus was right, though.

[EFerrari]

6. K&R. 74 years young and still taking it to the facists.