Homily for January 27, 2008

Father Tom’s Homily
3rd Sunday
January 27, 2008

Today’s gospel begins by telling us that John the Baptist was arrested. Have you ever noticed how many disciples of Jesus were arrested? Not just in Jesus’ time, but throughout the history of the Church. It seems that many of them were outlaws. Jesus himself was arrested, tortured and executed. Being in prison was common among our spiritual ancestors.
Let me tell you about an ex-con that I have known and admire very much. It is a Franciscan sister who was sentenced to six months in a federal prison when she was 88 years old. Her name is Sister Dorothy Hennessey. I want to honor her memory because she died on Thursday at age 94. She will be buried tomorrow, Monday, in Dubuque, Iowa. She is a great example to all of us.

First, a little about her background. She was the oldest of fifteen children. One memory of her life on the family farm in eastern Iowa, was the way that her parents treated the poor who came to their door. “We always fed and housed the tramps who came to our farm.” This would be a most significant lesson in religious faith for any child. In Dorothy’s case it was a lesson that she took to heart.
She joined the Franciscans whose motherhouse is in Dubuque. Two of her younger sisters later became Franciscans too when they reached their twenties. Her brother Ron became a Maryknoll missionary priest.
For most of her life she was busy teaching in Catholic schools in Iowa. During her early years as a Franciscan nun, Sister Dorothy considered herself to be a very conservative person. It was only when she was about 55 that she was awakened to an important reality. It is the reality of the suffering of others. She felt called to be in solidarity with them.
She remembers several things that occasioned this change. One was the changing nature of the Catholic Church after Vatican II. Another was the growing realization of the injustice of the Vietnam War

But the most important influence in Sister Dorothy’s change was the letters she received from her brother, Father Ron Hennessey. He spent his years as a missionary in Guatemala and El Salvador.
His letters while he was pastor among the Mayan people of Guatemala described the massacres and terror brought by the government military forces. Many of the victims were his parishioners. To Sister Dorothy, Father Ron wrote, “Stop the madness.”
These stories and Father Ron’s words changed Sister Dorothy’s life. She became angry and began to speak out and join with others in public protests about U.S. policies that have treated innocent people so brutally.

Starting about 1968, Sister Dorothy began to write letters and attend talks and participate in demonstrations against war and the unfair treatment of others. It was some of these demonstrations that got her into trouble.
During the Vietnam War she joined protests at the Rock Island Arsenal. During the early 1980s, she visited Nicaragua with Witness for Peace as part of a human shield that protected northern border villages from CIA-backed Contra attacks. In 1990 she returned to Nicaragua in 1990 as an election observer.

In March 1986, at age 73, she set off from Los Angeles on The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament with 1200 other marchers. Over the next nine months Sister Dorothy and the other marchers crossed the U. S.
Despite predictions of failure, the marchers, still almost 1200 strong marched into DC where about 15,000 people welcomed them. During the 3500 mile march, Sister Dorothy had many opportunities to talk with people who gathered along the way. She became one of the most popular speakers among the marchers.

In the 1990s she stood with others almost every Wednesday at a Dubuque city park protesting the US military involvement in Central America. In 1992 she participated in a protest action at the SAC airbase in Omaha and ended up with 36 others in police custody. She made three trips to protest at a nuclear test site in Nevada during the 1980s.
Sister Dorothy was an activist for the victims of AIDS. She worked as a daily volunteer at a residence for AIDS victims, cooking cleaning and counseling them. In 1997 she gathered AIDS medications and delivered them to a clinic in El Salvador.

In 1997, she began to make annual trips to Fort Benning, Georgia to join the demonstration at the School of the Americas. For many years this military school has trained soldiers from Latin America, including Guatemala and El Salvador, to terrorize people who oppose their unjust governments. Twice Sister Dorothy got arrested for joining many others in entering the area close to the infamous school
Then in 2000 at the gates of the School of the Americas, she was arrested for a third. This time she and her younger sister who is also a nun, Sister Gwen Hennessey, were sentenced to six months in a federal prison in Pekin, Illinois.

After their release from prison, Dorothy and Gwen were invited to speak in many places. When they came to speak at the University of Illinois, they accepted an invitation to have supper at the convent of our Sisters.
In October 2002, the Hennessey sisters were the recipients of the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award given at St. Ambrose College in Davenport. Past recipients have included Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Cesar Chavez.

Even in her 90s Sister Dorothy did not consider herself to be in retirement. She attended events, speeches and peace protests whenever she had the opportunity. She stayed in touch with many of the people with whom she marched and protested.
While she was in prison in 2001, she responded to my request for a letter addressed to the people we were about to visit in the five settlements of Calavera that summer. Her letter which I read at the Masses caused a great interest and admiration among the people. There was loud, prolonged applause when I read it at the Mass at Monseñor Romero’s tomb.

Sister Dorothy never seemed to grow tired or discouraged in her work for peace and justice. Her parents’ example of hospitality to the poor at their door, her brother’s letters from Guatemala and the example of fellow activists she collaborated with over the years kept her going. In turn she was an example to so many others to work along with her.
On Thursday, a friend of Dorothy’s named Betty called me to tell me about her death. She was a close friend who was at her bedside as she died. Having worked in hospice for years, Betty has witnessed the deaths of many people. She told me that Sister Dorothy’s passing was most peaceful death she had ever witnessed.
In life Sister Dorothy was short and soft spoken, but she was a giant who voice will not be stilled by her death. She deserves to be remembered.
In recalling this 88-year old Franciscan sister in prison, I am reminded of Jesus and his disciples who were convicted of the crime of opposing injustice.
Sister Dorothy is now in heaven where she enjoys the company of the holy martyrs – many of them ex-cons.