April 19, 2003 Good Friday ritual turns solemn with photos of injured Iraqis By RHONDA PARKS MANVILLE Amid the din of car and bus traffic on State Street on Friday morning, 40 people took part in a somber Good Friday ritual in which people customarily pray at scenes depicting the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. But this was no ordinary "Stations of the Cross" observance. In place of pictures of Christ's final days were graphic photos of Iraqis maimed and killed in the recent war. And the ritual was performed not within the walls of a church, but on the busy sidewalk in front of the federal Bankruptcy Court at 1515 State St. The people were gathered to support antiwar protester Dennis Apel of Guadalupe, a devout Catholic who went on trial at the court Friday and was sentenced to two months in prison for throwing blood at the entrance sign at Vandenberg Air Force Base on March 14. That Mr. Apel's court date fell on Good Friday seemed providential to him and his supporters, who staged the Stations of the Cross ritual to highlight the Christian message that Mr. Apel was following when he protested the war. "Today, Good Friday, I reclaim Jesus, the prince of peace -- the one who admonishes us to love our enemy and do good to those who harm us -- as the Lord of those dedicated to peaceful, nonviolent resistance," said Mr. Apel, a pacifist who belongs to the Catholic Worker social justice movement. "I refuse to allow his name to be co-opted by those who follow the path of death and who count the poor, voiceless and defenseless of the world as disposable in their quest for power, wealth and security." Catholic Workers take a voluntary vow of poverty, and it is common practice for them to observe the stations of the cross on Good Friday by walking through urban neighborhoods and stopping to pray for the poor and those in jails, homeless shelters and hospitals. A hallmark of the movement is helping those "in places of darkness," Mr. Apel said. "From the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said that we are to care for 'the least of these among us.'Ê" The pictures of the bloodied Iraqis used during the observance depict suffering and injustice that Jesus surely would have opposed, Mr. Apel and his supporters said. During the ritual, a narrative comparing current events in the Middle East to events in the life of Jesus, and weighted with political and theological arguments against war, was read aloud as each of the pictures was raised into the air. "Even when our compassion is real, we remain comforted in the illusion that what we see on the flickering television screen -- shattered buildings, staring corpses, smoking bones -- may happen elsewhere, in distant places where the people are dark and strange, but not here," one person read aloud, as the people bowed their heads. "We will never see our lifetime of possessions blasted to ash, we will never squat on our green front lawns, holding the bodies of our children across our knees as we scream. We are exempt." At station No. 5, "Jesus is stripped" was a picture of a crying child whose skin was stripped away, possibly in a bomb blast. To illustrate Jesus laid in the tomb, there was a photo of a dead baby lying in the rubble of a bombed building, covered in dust. The gathering included local nuns, Catholic Workers and peace activists, and some supporters who traveled from the Bay Area and Los Angeles. There were people of various denominations and faiths, and some with none at all. "We are here to witness this -- we think that America is too hard on its ordinary citizens," said Sylvia Shih, an antiwar activist from Monterey, who said she is not a religious person. "This man didn't hurt a fly and he is being sentenced to prison, and yet we have corporations like Enron who hurt thousands of people, and nothing is done. This is not justice. It is not justified." Some passers-by were disturbed by the gathering. One woman, on her way to the courthouse, walked through the gathering with a scowl on her face, unhappily muttering "Jesus Christ." Another man drove his car past the gathering several times, revving his engine, blaring his radio and making his tires squeal. None of Mr. Apel's supporters paid any attention; they were focused on their prayers. |
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