A review of A Persistent Peace: One Man's Struggle for a Nonviolent World ~ John Dear

Colman McCarthy, Washington Post

As Catholicism's largest male religious order, the Society of Jesus -- known as the Jesuits -- has had its share of rebels and loners since its origins in 16th-century Spain. In the United States in recent decades, these troublemakers have included Daniel Berrigan, Richard McSorley, Horace McKenna, Robert Drinan, Steve Kelly, Si Smith and Angelo D'Agostino. And now John Dear.

The son of a Washington area newspaperman and a nurse, and a graduate of a Jesuit high school (Georgetown Prep) and Duke University, Dear joined the Jesuits in 1982 and was ordained in 1993. He hasn't been enjoying the settled comforts found at any of his order's 70-plus high schools, colleges and universities. Nor has he pastored at wealthy Jesuit parishes on Park Avenue or in Georgetown. Instead, following what he calls "the nonviolent Jesus," Dear embraced pacifism and headed to the margins, delivering sacramental solace to the victims of war, poverty and injustice. He also voiced his unwelcome opinions about Christ's teachings on nonviolence to his Jesuit superiors and the wider Catholic hierarchy.

A Persistent Peace, Dear's 20th book in a list that includes Put Down the Sword, The Sacrament of Civil Disobedience and Peace Behind Bars, is the flowing autobiography of a high-energy idealist who believes that "meaning in life is found on the long road to peace. Though I'm nobody, I've tried to undertake a lifelong journey into Gospel nonviolence, and I have discovered a taste of life's meaning: love, compassion, service, resistance, and peace." Some of the liveliest passages are Dear's descriptions of his confrontations with his Jesuit superiors, most of whom not only haven't seen eye to eye with him but have refused to speak heart to heart.

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Related:

A Persistent Peace: One Man's Struggle for a Nonviolent World ~ John Dear, LoyolaPress.org
All of us say we want peace, but only a few are willing to prove it.

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