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From the Author: ""What I've aimed for... in this book is neither academic analysis nor a history of the Worker movement per se. Rather, my interest has been a theological exploration of the Catholic Worker vision in all its rich and resonating breadth. The goal has been to present and ... to promote that vision as what I am convinced the movement's founders, Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, understood it to be: not, finally, a matter of political theory or philosophy ... but rather of profound religious conviction and insight.""____________ ""Indeed, what is most striking about the now more than sixty years of Catholic Worker reflection, writing and living is the movement's audacity of conviction and action: the unflinching consistency of its call to discipleship; the comprehensiveness of its attempt to bring together all aspects of life into a divinely-ordered, balanced whole; the diversity of philosophical and theological sources it seeks to meld into a unified model for truly human living; the unembarrassed simplicity of its hope.""

On September 9, 1980, the Plowshares Eight entered a General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and enacted the biblical command to ""beat swords into plowshares"" by hammering on the nose cones of two nuclear warheads and pouring blood on documents. Since that time, other small groups and individuals have entered manufacturing plants and military bases throughout the U.S., as well as in Australia, Germany, England, Ireland, Sweden, and Holland, to disarm components of nuclear and conventional weapons systems. As of Spring 2003 there have been over 150 people who, using hammers and other symbols, have carried out over 75 plowshares and related disarmament actions.This book recounts each of the actions that have occurred over the last twenty-three years and includes information about the trials and sentences plowshares activists have received. Photos of some of the actions and participants are also included in this chronology as well as other resources for peace and justice.""This book is an important contribution to the history of the peace movement in the U.S. It recounts the dramatic plowshares actions which, over the last twenty-three years, have kept alive the spirit of resistance to the arms race, and inspires us with the courage of all those who have gone to prison for their stand against the war makers . . . I hope it will be read by people all over the country to instruct and inspire them.""-- Howard ZinnAuthor, A Peoples History of the United States

This collection of articles and talks are some ""personal favorites"" of the late Gordon C. Zahn, a founder of the U.S. Catholic peace movement, and fondly known as the ""dean of American Catholic pacifists."" The theme of these essays is imbedded in the title of the book: All Christians have a vocation of peace, a call to serve the cause of peace and to obey the obligation to oppose war and any support or participation in war. The first set of essays will challenge the reader to consider the role of conscience and the moral responsibility it holds for the Christian. The second set of essays presciently addresses issues that have become known as the ""consistent ethic of life."" The third set offers the examples of individuals or groups whom Zahn knew who lived out their vocation of peace. In this book, you will discover Gordon Zahn's continuing legacy: to help you discover your own vocation to peace!""In a world that, sadly, has come to accept as normal every form of violence against human beings - from abortion to war - Gordon Zahn's steadfast faith and wisdom remind us not to ""succumb to the delusion that it is somehow possible to overcome evil by adding to it."" -- Michael W. Hovey, Co-director with Gordon Zahn at the Pax Christi Center on Conscience and War, Cambridge, Mass.Gordon C. Zahn is the definitive biographer of Franz Jaegerstaetter and author of numberous books and articles on issues of peace and justice.

The difficulty in realizing that a truth beyond culture exists is perhaps the greatest single barrier to the life of love. Our culture is permeated by violence, militarism, materialism, patriotism to nation right or wrong, the supremancy of force, racism, sexism. Most people, seeking approval of their peers, never see how destructive these false values are. Here you are challenged to be dissatisfied with this cultural reality; to resist custom, habit, tradition, mores, social environment, even heredity; to act on your own conscience, to reform reality, to return good for evil, to love your enemy, to serve the oppressed.William Durland is an author, lawyer, and theologian, and former member of the Virginia State Legislature. William has practiced in the areas of International, Constitutional, and Military law with an emphasis on human rights and civil liberties for more than 40 years. Durland also has had a long history in education, teaching in the areas of Philosophy, History, and Government, at Purdue University, Villanova University, the University of Notre Dame, and in the Colorado Community College system. He also taught peace and justice courses at Pendle Hill Quaker Study and Contemplation Center from 1985-1988

In The Time's Discipline. Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister offer us a chronicle of their community in Baltimore. They show us that for their nonviolent community, resistance to the nuclear arms race is not merely a political endeavor, but most profoundly a spiritual endeavor, rooted in fidelity to the Gospel. Thus the reporting of Jonah House's first fifteen years is formed around the Beatitudes, eight points of blessing at the outset of Matthew's presentation of the Sermon on the Mount.Invariably for Phil & Liz and those who have been part of their work at Jonah house and related endeavors, that spirituality is not abstract, but rooted in community and resistance and thus very much of this world and in service to its highest good. Understanding that we live in a nuclear empire, they present us in these pages, their ""experiment in truth"" in its midst. ""The integrity of the witness of the Jonah House community is their ability to embrace the joys and challenges of both expressions of resistance: community and direct action. They are bound together as parts of a mutual whole. The Time's Discipline illustrates that our hardest work is not necessarily doing time or crossing the line, but creating a common life together."" Barb Kass, Anathoth Community Farm

The Reverend Richard McSorley, S.J. (1914 - 2002), was professor of peace studies at Georgetown University and writer of eight books on pacifism and social justice. As a Jesuit priest ordained in 1946, he completed his studies for his Ph.D. at Ottawa University. In 1970, he co-founded St. Francis Catholic Worker in Washington, D.C. He served as a board member of the National Interreligious Board for Conscientious Objectors for 15 years and was a National Council member of Pax Christi, U.S.A. from 1983 to 1989. He has written five other books and is a nationally recognized newspaper columnist.

In Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century, Marc H. Ellis traces Maurin's life from his early years--as peasant, brother, and Catholic activist--through his meeting with Dorothy Day. Ellis' Chronicle focuses on the consequences of that meeting: the founding of the Catholic Worker movement and newspaper, the founding of hospitality, the farming communes. Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century is the first biography to really examine Maurin's thought. A commitment to non-violent reform and to a life of poverty were chief tenets of Maurin's philosophy; it was Maurin's notion that farmers and scholars would labor and learn together in the ideal world. Ellis discusses these and other ideas of Maurin, their development and their particular importance today.

""This is a deeply moving tale of the American we often read about but seldom run into: the independent spirit who speaks truth to power, no matter the consequences. Dave Dellinger, the oldest of the Conspiracy Eight, turns out to be the most obstinate. This book tells us why.""-- Studs Terkel""Before reading this book, I knew and greatly admired Dave Dellinger. Or so I thought. After reading his remarkable story, my admiration changed to something more like awe. There can be few people in the world who have crafted their lives into something truly inspiring.-- Noam Chomsky""Dave Dellinger's life is as American as apple pie wildly seasoned--the life of an active, endlessly inventive peacemaker--resisting, determined, positive. It's an exciting personal story lived in the heart of historical events. An American tradition infrequently mined, deep and continuous.""-- Grace Paley""A powerful, sensitive, and deeply compassionate reflection from one of the most important and bravest nonviolent revolutionaries of the twentieth century.""--Martin Sheen

I first met Peter in December, 1932, when George Shuster, then editor of The Commonweal, later president of Hunter College, urged him to get into contact with me because our ideas were so similar, both our criticism of the social order and our sense of personal responsibility in doing something about it. It was not that ""the world was too much with us"" as we felt that God did not intend things to be as bad as they were. We believed that ""in the Cross was joy of Spirit."" We knew that due to original sin, ""all nature travailleth and groaneth even until now,"" but also believed, as Juliana of Norwich said, that ""the worst had already happened,"" i.e., the Fall, and that Christ had repaired that ""happy fault.""In other words, we both accepted the paradox which is Christianity . . . Peter's teaching was simple, so simple, as one can see from these phrased paragraphs, these Easy Essays, as we have come to call them, that many disregarded them. It was the sanctity of the man that made them dynamic. Although he synopsized hundreds of books for all of us who were his students, and that meant thousands of pages of phrased paragraphs, these essays were his only original writings, and even during his prime we used them in the paper just as he did in speaking, over and over again. He believed in repeating, in driving his point home by constant repetition, like the dropping of water on the stones which were our hearts. -- Dorothy Day