Discerning Civil Disobedience When Cruelty Is the Point

By: Sr. Susan Wilcox

Sr. Karen Burke, Sr. Susan Wilcox, Brooklyn Vetter,
and Kristen Whitney Daniels at the Catholic Day of Action
in Washington, D.C. on July 18, 2019.

Last October, Atlantic writer Adam Serwer wrote an article titled, The Cruelty Is the Point about why there seems to be rejoicing in the suffering of others by some in our communities. Might we recall Attorney General Jeff Sessions gleefully announcing the family separation policy and the border agents mocking the sounds of terrorized children? Mr. Serwer refers to a history of this phenomenon in the lynching photos of the past in which white men delight in heinous acts posing for posterity. So, for any who think that we resolved that level of overt cruelty during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, clearly, we did not. That impulse to exhibit the holding of power, privilege, and control of others in a socially justifiable way merely went covert. Again fully unleashed, we cannot deny that the power of which I am referring is a structure of internalized white privilege. And our church is not immune.

As a long-time student of conscious evolution, this cruelty that we see towards humans who are only doing what we would do if we were in their circumstances (fleeing violence; protecting our daughters from ownership by a gang; reuniting with family in the U.S.; etc.) is a resurgence of that latent instinct to preserve privilege against a paradigm of equality. For Catholics, this equality is not just written into our federal constitution, but in our religious social teaching preserving the dignity of every human person. Every human person, no exceptions.

Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood Karen
Burke and Susan Wilcox can be seen
participating in nonviolent civil
disobedience at the Russell Senate
Building in Washington, D.C.

So for this reason, I chose to participate in the recent Catholic Day of Action at the U.S. Capitol in which Catholics gathered to demand an end to migrant child detention and inhumane immigration policies. Christianity is an embodied religion, what better way to hold authorities to account than by risking our bodies? At our day of action, 70 Catholics were arrested, out of that 23 were participating in nonviolent civil disobedience for the first time — that’s nearly a third. Nonviolent civil disobedience became ingrained in Catholic social justice efforts with leadership from Dorothy Day, César Chávez, Dan and Phil Berrigan, and the work of Pax Christi, the Catholic peace and justice movement, to name a few. Nonviolent civil disobedience is about standing up publicly and for the record among those who say no to injustice and yes to equal dignity. Equal. Dignity. For. All. 

I hope all who read this will begin a discernment of nonviolent civil disobedience. It’s a personal discernment but a communal action. You will not be alone. And the world needs you, now. The world needs us now. The world needs Catholics who are living their faith, publicly and for the record.  

[Sr. Susan Wilcox is a Sister of St. Joseph of Brentwood and the congregation's JPIC Coordinator]