We ask our fellow Christians to consider in their hearts a question that has tortured us, night and day, since the war began: How many must die before our voices are heard, how many must be tortured, dislocated, starved, maddened? How long must the world’s resources be raped in the service of legalized murder? When, at what point, will you say no to this war? We wish also to place in question by this act all suppositions about normal times, longings for an untroubled life in a somnolent church, that neat timetable of ecclesiastical renewal, which in respect to the needs of people, amounts to another form of time serving. Redeem the times! The times are inexpressibly evil. Christians pay conscious–indeed religious–tribute to Caesar and Mars; by approval of overkill tactics, by brinksmanship, by nuclear liturgies, by racism, by support of genocide. They embrace their society with all their heart, and abandon the cross. They pay lip service to Christ and military service to the powers of death.
Daniel Berrigan
“Our Apologies, Good Friends” in Essential Writings
