The University of Notre Dame recently officially established on campus, across from its Lourdes Grotto and next to its Peace Plaza, a simple, lucid memorial commemorating those in its Alumni and beyond, past or present, who were or are conscientious objectors to participation in war. This came about in AD 2023 because of ten years of prayers, work and negotiation with the Notre Dame administration.Those Alumni who were active or supportive in this effort were largely, but not exclusively graduates of Notre Dame who were COs. There were, however, many Alumni involved who were not COs, but who thought it proper and right that such a memorial exists on a Catholic or Christian campus, since the nonviolent moral tradition in the Church is not only a valid Catholic option but is the oldest tradition in the Church dealing with violence, enmity and war.
This is the first public memorial to conscientious objectors at any Catholic college or university in the U.S.—maybe any Christian college. My purpose in bringing it to your attention is to suggest that if a Catholic college has a public war memorial or veterans memorial on its campus, it is most appropriate and reasonable to propose to its administration and/or faculty and/or student body that it have a public conscientious objector memorial on campus.
If you are an alumnus/a of a Catholic college or supporter of a Catholic college or if there is Catholic college nearby with which you interact, bringing the above thought to its awareness for the purpose of having a comparable memorial on its campus would be a sound step taken to evangelize the nonviolent moral tradition of the Catholic Church and the fact of its contemporary availability and applicability.
Sixty years ago John F. Kennedy said, “War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.” A Catholic college campus seems like an appropriate setting to help make the distance to “that distant day” shorter by a simple public recognition of the valuable and honorable service that the conscientious objector gives to God, humanity and country.
In a world of seven billion people there are presently 221 Catholic colleges or universities in the U.S. If each one had a conscientious objector memorial as simple as the one at Notre Dame, only God knows what the communications and converting power of that would be. Jesus assures us in the Gospels that God works His designs and brings about His Kingdom (Reign) via a mustard seed approach. Be a sower of mustard seeds.
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