Catholic Pacifist Douglass to Speak at St. Bonaventure About JFK and Obama

James W. Douglass, noted Catholic pacifist and activist, will be speaking Friday, Oct. 22, on “JFK, Obama, and the Unspeakable” during a 7 p.m. presentation in Walsh Auditorium at St. Bonaventure University.

The talk will examine what it means to be transformed as president of the United States, at the edge of total nuclear war, into a peacemaker. John F. Kennedy’s turn toward peace, which Douglass claims resulted in his assassination, provides a parable of the unspeakable for President Barack Obama and ourselves in the midst of our escalating war on terror. Can we discover hope for our enlightenment and resurrection as one human family through the dark truths of Dallas?

Douglass’ most recent book, “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters” (2008), Orbis Books: Maryknoll, N.Y., has been touted as one of the more thorough examinations of the many conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of JFK, but unlike many other works, it focuses on reasons why he was assassinated.

Douglass began his adult life as a professor of religion at the University of Hawaii, but his pacifism led him on another journey shortly thereafter. His record of activism involves protests against Trident submarines, including protests against the notorious White Train; several trips to the Middle East, including one during the recent U.S.-led wars to witness alongside threatened civilians; and the establishment of a Catholic Worker house of hospitality for indigent homeless people in need of long-term health care, where Douglass and his wife, Shelley, have lived and worked for years.

He has also written on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., covering a trial that few Americans know about, in which a Memphis bar owner in 1999 was found liable for conspiring with federal agents to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr. The lawsuit was brought by the King family and James Earl Ray, who was never actually tried for King’s murder.

Douglass wrote of this trial: “I can hardly believe the fact that, apart from the courtroom participants, only Memphis TV reporter Wendell Stacy and I attended from beginning to end this historic three-and-one-half week trial. Because of journalistic neglect, scarcely anyone else in this land of ours even knows what went on in it. After critical testimony was given in the trial’s second week before an almost empty gallery, Barbara Reis, U.S. correspondent for the Lisbon daily Publico who was there several days, turned to me and said, ‘Everything in the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J. Simpson’s trial was the trial of the century. Clinton’s trial was the trial of the century. But this is the trial of the century, and who’s here?”

Among Douglass other books are “The Nonviolent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace;” “Resistance and Contemplation: The Way of Liberation;” and “Dear Gandhi, Now What? Letters from Ground Zero” (written long before 9/11).