I went to jail for the first time in Omaha, along with the second, third, fourth and fifth times.
I went to seminary from Omaha, too.
Took the bus, Greyhound, from Norfolk, to meet the bishop. Then up to Saint Paul where I met Fr. Daniel Berrigan, a priest who said there were better things than becoming a priest, such as working for peace and for justice and the poor, and I believed him. I still do.
During the summer I got my teeth cleaned back home in Norfolk, and I guess I liked clean teeth, so I ended up marrying the dental hygienist. We moved to Omaha and moved into Greenfields.
I wrote a letter to Archbishop Daniel Sheehan asking him what he thought of Offutt Air Force Base, home of the Strategic Air Command, which was responsible for the targeting of all of America's nuclear weapons. Sheehan said the targeting was cool with him and the Catholic Church. Threatening all those people with murder was cool, spending all those billions of dollars on weapons and not on the poor people of north Omaha was cool with the bishop and the Catholic Church.
So I made up my own little sign.
It said "The Omaha Catholic Church Supports SAC - Why?"
I picketed outside the bishop's offices on Dodge Street, inside his offices, outside the Masses of the jillion Catholic churches in Omaha. I went on a hunger strike once inside Douglas County Correctional Center to try to get the bishop to say "thou shall not kill." I once stood in front of the congregation at St. Cecilia's Cathedral while the bishop gave his Easter homily, holding my sign.
I once took sanctuary inside the Cathedral, went there instead of going to federal court for an Offutt protest, again asking, demanding that the bishop say "thou shall not kill." He raised a strong chin, firmly placed his red bishop's cap on his head and smoothed his gold-laced, ankle-length robes and said, of course, he would not.
I decided not to let the FBI take me - they were all around the church - one was posing as a stations-of-the-cross sayer inside the church.
While a friend held a diversionary press conference on the front steps I pulled a sweatshirt hood over my head and threw a black garbage sack over my back and walked out a side door, took out the Cathedral garbage, and hopped into the car my wife had left for me in the parking lot.
Ruth and I and our young son were on the run from the FBI for about two nerve-wracking weeks, staying in the cabin of a sympathetic priest, at the mother house of a local religious order, in a friend's apartment, out at her family's farm in South Dakota.
Then I ended up giving myself up at a press conference, again at the Chancery, the bishop's office, after which my wife and son went home alone. I went to Douglas County Correctional Center, where I went crazy, insane, clinically depressed, from missing my young son ... and the bishop ... he went golfing.
Dog-ass Catholic Church.
_______________________________________
Recent news of the tour
I went to seminary from Omaha, too.
Took the bus, Greyhound, from Norfolk, to meet the bishop. Then up to Saint Paul where I met Fr. Daniel Berrigan, a priest who said there were better things than becoming a priest, such as working for peace and for justice and the poor, and I believed him. I still do.
During the summer I got my teeth cleaned back home in Norfolk, and I guess I liked clean teeth, so I ended up marrying the dental hygienist. We moved to Omaha and moved into Greenfields.
So I made up my own little sign.
It said "The Omaha Catholic Church Supports SAC - Why?"
I picketed outside the bishop's offices on Dodge Street, inside his offices, outside the Masses of the jillion Catholic churches in Omaha. I went on a hunger strike once inside Douglas County Correctional Center to try to get the bishop to say "thou shall not kill." I once stood in front of the congregation at St. Cecilia's Cathedral while the bishop gave his Easter homily, holding my sign.
I once took sanctuary inside the Cathedral, went there instead of going to federal court for an Offutt protest, again asking, demanding that the bishop say "thou shall not kill." He raised a strong chin, firmly placed his red bishop's cap on his head and smoothed his gold-laced, ankle-length robes and said, of course, he would not.
I decided not to let the FBI take me - they were all around the church - one was posing as a stations-of-the-cross sayer inside the church.
While a friend held a diversionary press conference on the front steps I pulled a sweatshirt hood over my head and threw a black garbage sack over my back and walked out a side door, took out the Cathedral garbage, and hopped into the car my wife had left for me in the parking lot.
Ruth and I and our young son were on the run from the FBI for about two nerve-wracking weeks, staying in the cabin of a sympathetic priest, at the mother house of a local religious order, in a friend's apartment, out at her family's farm in South Dakota.
Then I ended up giving myself up at a press conference, again at the Chancery, the bishop's office, after which my wife and son went home alone. I went to Douglas County Correctional Center, where I went crazy, insane, clinically depressed, from missing my young son ... and the bishop ... he went golfing.
Dog-ass Catholic Church.
_______________________________________
Recent news of the tour
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