We took the kids to a jury trial for two Cleveland Catholic Workers who committed a non-violent act of civil disobedience about a month ago. During a prayer/protest rally outside an Armed Services Recruitment Center in Lakewood, Ohio, these two men chose to enter the premises and hold, in effect, a “sit in.” Police arrived and asked them to leave, but they chose to remain — and got arrested. The story made the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper and all the regional network news shows… On the stand before an almost full courtroom, Catholic Worker Chris Knestrick said he believed the “gospel of Jesus” calls us to pacifism with phrases like: turn the other cheek; do good to those who have harmed you… Knestrick, who is the Social Justice Coordinator at nearby St. Edward’s High School in Lakewood, said he’s seen, first-hand, the devastation war can wreak. He said his father was a Special Forces Green Beret in Vietnam who developed a bad case of post traumatic stress disorder. It dramatically affected, not only Chris’s dad, but the whole family… Joe Mueller was the other accused Catholic Worker. He had gone to Iraq the year before with a Christian Peacekeeper’s Team. (The next CPT team over to Iraq were kidnapped, made international news, and ultimately one of the members were murdered by insurgents.)… Mueller explained that during the protest in front of the Recruiting Center, the names of the dead soldiers were being read… Both men wanted to talk to recruiters and potential recruits that day, with the hopes of disuading some from becoming part of that list of names… Note: During one of the recesses, I was interviewed by Cleveland’s CBS anchor Harry Boomer. I said these men, like so many people in America these days, are opposed to the Iraq War. I then correlated their non-violent disobedience to similar acts during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America’s South. I said in retrospect, America sees how important those acts were in helping bring about an end to a societal wrong. And while the circumstances around Iraq are complex, these Catholic Workers should be commended for standing up for their beliefs. And, I added, it’s not like these men are criminals. They spend their days trying to help the poor in Cleveland in as many ways as possible, including taking them into their home, running a nightly drop-in center for the disadvantaged, and so on… Mr. Boomer also asked me my take on the Iraq War. I said we went in there predicated on finding Weapons of Mass Destruction. “Yet if we let the weapons inspectors into Montana, what would they find?” I posed. “They would find 2,000 Weapons of Mass Destruction aimed all over the world. Wouldn’t that make us [read: U.S.] look like a terrorist nation to a lot of other countries?” Well, of course it would. Note 2: Mueller and Knestrick lost the court case. Yet we told our kids that they actually won in respect to what they were trying to do — which was to get a point across.