Fr. Roy Bourgeois: Your Witness Will Bear Fruit, encouraging words at the "Festival of Hope" given in honor of the School of the Americas Watch 11 on the eve of their trial January 27, 2008 

     Tomorrow is a special day, a big day, a sacred day. The great peacemaker in El Salvador Bishop Oscar Romero said, "We can all do something for peace, and we can do it very well." We have had a lot of people in our movement for many years who have been doing it very well. Something happens when we cross that line. Over 200 of our people have done that over the years, and we all acknowledge that it has--in some very special and unique way--it has energized our movement. It has helped it to grow, to blossom. 

     Tomorrow eleven more of our sisters and brothers will be going on trial. It's a sacred moment because they will be speaking for sisters and brothers in Central America and from other countries in the south who cannot come here to Columbus, GA to that courthouse and tell their story. They really rely on us to do that. We'll also be putting our country's foreign policy and that school down at Ft. Benning on trial and each of us in our own, at times, humble ways have tried to address that. When they sent us to prison, and when they will send you to prison, we've learned long ago that they can't silence us. We speak from these prisons around the country. 

     We discovered long ago as did so many before us--our spiritual leaders and great peacemakers like Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi, Cesar Chavez...and so many others. They've taught us that the truth cannot be silenced. It simply can't be silenced. We will speak from where ever we are, wherever we have our feet.... …Every time we go to prison, more people come and put their feet before that main gate of Fr. Benning, and that's the way it has worked. So your witness in November, your witness which brought you here for tomorrow, is something very sacred, very special. It has touched the lives of many. I notice that wherever I go I have to always speak about our prisoners of conscience at high schools, especially at colleges, at church groups, and I just see how people respond. I tell our story of our movement and how it has grown. And I come to the prisoners of conscience and the trial tomorrow, and something happens. People really pay attention to that. 

     Friday night I was in Connecticut talking to 300 United Auto Workers, and there too it was the same response. They started clapping when they knew that Monday you're going on trial. They see our struggle of course connected to theirs with the United Auto Workers. When we go to Latin American with our Latin American Initiative (over the last couple years we've visited 13 countries of Latin America) as you know, five of those countries have said “no” to the SOA. Next month we'll go to Nicaragua and Ecuador, and the response there will be the same when we meet with heads of state, defense ministers, indigenous leaders and human rights leaders. It’s the same response. They know of our movement here, quite well, very well. But when we give them that book Voices in Solidarity with statements from some of our prisoners of conscience, when they hear that over 200 have gone to prison, and they will hear that 11 of you are in prison when we will be visiting them next month, something happens in those meetings. They want to hear more about it.  They see ours as a very special and unique solidarity to their struggle. For them to know that here "en el emperio," as they refer to our country, there are citizens in prison because of our solidarity with their struggle to peace and justice and their liberation; I want to tell you all that they will know about your trial tomorrow, about your sentence. 

     Lastly, we don't know how all of this affects others. But I'm reminded by Gordon Zahn who wrote this very important book about a great peacemaker Franz Jaegerstatter, who said 'no' to violence, to militarism, to war. And for that he was killed. But for 20 years, he was forgotten, he was forgotten. He went to prison and left behind a wonderful wife, Francesca, and three wonderful little daughters. And he gave his life for peace. But for 20 years he was unknown, forgotten, by the people of his town, his church leaders, his country's leaders and then something happened. People began to hear about this peacemaker and what he did. And what Gordon Zahn said at the end of his book was that no witness is ever lost. No action for peace will be forgotten. And I think we've got to remember that. We don't try and judge our actions. We're not worried about being successful, but rather trying to be faithful. We can be assured of one thing, because I know we all have doubts when we go on trial. We want to say things more eloquently than we are able at times. And we have doubts while in prison, perhaps about how effective our action, or about if what we said in court means to others or what changes we will bring. It's not that important. What we should know without any doubts: that your witness, carried out in November and tomorrow, it will bear fruit. It will bear fruit, that no witness is ever lost. No action for peace will ever be forgotten. Gracias. 

editor's note:  thanks to Art Landis and the others of the SOAW 11 for their witness, Roy for his words, Robert Daniels for the video, available here, and Bille Greenwood for the transcription