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Dissertation Information for Penelope Adams Moon

NAME:
- Penelope Adams Moon

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Arizona State University (USA) (2001)

ADVISORS:
- Kyle Longley

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Gayle Gullett
- Edward J. Escobar

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: "We have got to lead them in the ways of peace": The Catholic Peace Fellowship in the Vietnam era

Abstract: The Catholic Peace Fellowship (CPF) was the most important Roman Catholic organization in the United States founded to protest the Vietnam War. Organized by a handful of lay Catholics and sponsored by a number of influential Catholic clerics and leaders, the CPF constructed a critique of American activities in Vietnam rooted in the Gospel, the life of Christ, and Church history and doctrine. The CPF employed both pacifist and non-pacifist arguments against the war and worked as an organization to legitimize pacifism and nonviolence among Roman Catholics.

To give form to their criticism of America's military intervention in Vietnam, members of the CPF drew on two traditions of witness used at various times throughout Catholic history. First, the CPF engaged in apostolic protest. Like the apostles from the New Testament, CPF members relied on informational services and devised initiatives that would help teach American Catholics about the Vietnam War and their Catholic faith. They also, however, engaged in prophetic protest. Drawing on the example of prophets in the Old Testament, members of the CPF engaged in dramatic acts of civil disobedience to raise awareness and speak truth to power.

The simultaneous commitment to apostolic and prophetic witness made the CPF unique among Catholic antiwar organizations and unusual within the larger antiwar coalition. Embracing both types of protest ensured that the CPF could reach a broad range of people, but it also created tension within the Catholic peacemaking community as activists grappled with how best to speak out against the war. Despite a host of problems, the CPF succeeded in reorienting the American Catholic Church away from its traditionally nationalist stance and rebuilding the Church as a more independent, peace-minded force in American society. As an organization the CPF helped popularize the concepts of Catholic conscientious objection and selective conscientious objection and made strong connections between the Roman Catholic faith and the practice of nonviolence. Its history demonstrates how religious belief impacted the public protest of some Americans and highlights the differences between those who protested from a religious basis and those who based their dissent purely in politics.


MPACT Scores for Penelope Adams Moon

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-04-21 13:21:14

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Students under Penelope Adams Moon

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None