Goals:

   1.To develop (and increase) awareness of what our faith and spiritual values have to offer in terms of our views on disarmament issues and peace-making, in general. 
   2.To identify individuals in our parish who might be interested in participating in ongoing efforts at the parish level to promote disarmament awareness and peace-making efforts. 
   3.To help parish members see how they can be a voice for a reasonable public policy as it relates to disarmament issues and peace making.

Course instructors:

Jim Varani (primary)
          - member of St. Francis Parish
          - member of Disarmament working group at IFCPJ

Dick Brown - member of Unitarian/Universalist Congregation in Ann Arbor
                    - member of Disarmament working group at IFCPJ
                    - nuclear physicist by training
 
 

Course format: Primarily discussion. Course instructors will be prepared to carry the discussion if necessary, but the hope is that people in attendance will contribute. Some provocative questions will be presented to help stir conversation. 

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COURSE OUTLINE

Session #1

Introduction

     Welcome people in attendance 
     Introduce course instructors 
     Begin with a short prayer 
     Introduce the concept of faith, spiritual values and disarmament; how our faith has something to say about disarmament and peace making. 
     Introduce how the two sessions will be conducted 
     Dispel some of the misgivings that people might have about what we are trying (not trying) to do. For example: 
     Disarmament issues can be approached from many standpoints (purely pragmatic, political, economic, legal, technical etc). This will not be done here. In this program we will consider the relationship between faith and views on disarmament. 
     Most people feel that maintaining a "strong defense" is justified and necessary. Some people intuitively feel that when we discuss disarmament, we are advocating pacifism or unilateral (military) disarmament on the part of our country. This is not the case. Virtually all religious traditions, including the Roman Catholic, acknowledge the rights and duties of people to defend their country, way of life and, most importantly, human dignity. How we integrate our spiritual values into this necessity – not abrogating it - is the issue at hand. 
     Some people have the innate feeling that discussing disarmament and peace making at a local "grass-roots" level is somehow anti-American. This is (in my view) incorrect. We try to counter this by arguing that it is every American’s right and duty to participate in public policy. 

Our faith, our spiritual values and what this has to do with disarmament/peace making

     The major part of session #1 will be discussing what our faith has to say about disarmament and peace making. We can explore our faith in relation to disarmament from a number of perspectives: 
     As children of the one God (in common with all human beings) 
     From the tradition of the Old Testament (in common with Jews and Muslims) 
     As followers of Christ (in common with all Christians) 
     As Catholics (have 2000 years of Church teaching) 
     As recipients of the teachings of the US Catholic bishops, our own bishop and clergy.

Each of these perspectives have something to teach us about disarmament and peace making. I have prepared a short hand-out that provides some ideas to stir discussion. Hopefully, people in attendance with provide additional ideas. If the group is small, we can have a single discussion group. If the group is large, we can have initial discussion in smaller groups and a full-group discussion later. 

Handouts for outside reading/reflection:

     Short reading from the 1984 pastoral of the US Catholic Conference 
     Statements from major religious groups related to disarmament

It is hoped that participants will be able to read the material (only a few pages total) during the week; reflect on them and pray.
As part of the second session, we would continue discussion of the major theme from session #1. The reading and reflecting might allow for insights that were not present during the first session. 
 

Conclusion: Finish with a prayer. 

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Session #2

Introduction

     Begin with a short prayer 
     Welcome people in attendance – if people are present who were not at session #1, summarize what was done in first session. 
     Introduce how the second session will be conducted

Our faith, our spiritual values and what this has to do with disarmament/peace making

We will spend time continuing our discussion on how our faith and spiritual values influence our views on disarmament/peace making. If people have spent any time during the past week thinking about this, the discussion should be productive. 

Disarmament issues (specifically, nuclear disarmament issues), public policy and how individuals and congregations can have a voice in public policy formation. 

We will briefly sketch a history of the nuclear arms race (from 1945-present) focusing on the policy decisions that have led us to where we are today. This whole presentation should be short and not technical. The goal is to make people aware that this whole topic is not something from the past. Some examples of what we might cover include:

     Older ideas about war and peace (war between soldiers not civilians) – contributions of organized religious groups. How the older "quaint" notions of war changed with World War I and World War II (and other modern conflicts) to war against civilians – i.e., the evolution of war. 
     The cold war – fear of a powerful adversary legitimized nuclear weapons as a means of self-defense 
     Specific events in the cold war where critical decisions were made that put us where we are today (decision to build atomic bomb, decision to use it, decision to maintain nuclear weapons as state secrets versus international control) 
     Absurdities of the nuclear arms race: Legitimate self-defense versus nuclear overkill 
     Where we are today: where we could be in the future – depending on decisions we make today. 
     History of disarmament efforts: to show people that this is not new "stuff". Its as old as the arms race itself. 
     Specific Issues that disarmament efforts need to deal with today. 

There are a number of good videos that have been made over the past few years dealing with one topic or another. There is a particularly good 27-minute video from a "60-minutes" program that could be shown. It underscores what we are talking about and it is entertaining as well. We would build this into the discussion.

Our faith as a basis for working in the public sector.

How can individuals and religious groups help to create an atmosphere in which our spiritual values are reflected in public policy. As part of this, we will discuss the validity of our faith as a guide to our actions in the public sector. The idea here is to counteract the notion that our faith should be private. Examples of things individuals and/or religious groups can do:

     Pray for guidance 
     Continue to educate yourselves on the critical issues. Study not only what is in the lay press, but what is advocated by our Catholic bishops 
     Educate the wider community: Write letters to newspapers; appear on local radio/television, meet with church and community groups etc. 
     Lobbying elected officials: local, state and national 
     Networking with other Catholic parishes in area or at the diocesan level; lobbying Catholic bishops; networking with other Christian groups and other people of faith

Assignment: At the end of the session, each person will be asked to reflect on where they stand on one or more of the issues discussed, and to take some action that is consistent with that stand. 

Conclusion: Finish with a prayer.