What would you like to know about St. Joan of Arc? Do you have a story about our parish or of general interest that you think others would like to hear? For story ideas, contact Jeff Rholl, jeff@stjoan.com.
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“The future will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines. The future will belong to those who have passion and are willing to work hard to make our country better.” |
The nation has honored and buried Rosa Parks whose simple act of defiance in 1955 was to sit down in the wrong seat of a segregated bus. It sparked the modern day Civil Rights movement. It is almost three years since Paul Wellstone died. He made a broken down old green bus his route to the United States Senate. In the parking lot of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in South Minneapolis last September, a man got on a bus that would take him and many others, to Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Iraq. This man did not ride into history; he came back to his job at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and got a three-day work suspension. He had not been expected to be at work that weekend and was taking the bus ride on his personal time. Hurricane Katrina caused the Pioneer Press to seek additional help that weekend. When the newspaper called the man's home, his wife told them he was in Washington at the peace march. One man's weekend choice became a public display of values and the workplace. The Twin City’s City Pages (October 26, 2005, page 12) carried the story, as did several national newspaper guild publications. The man was told that any further display of personal conviction would lead to work termination. The plot thickens and to get a better perspective on this one small act of tyranny, one needs to learn a bit about this would-be Midwest insurgent.
First of all, Tim Mahoney is not from the Midwest. He is from New Jersey, born and raised in the section of New Jersey that is used for the opening shots of The Sopranos. He says he is Irish and Yankee and the oldest of nine children. He grew up in the 50’s. His parents’ limited income helped determine who went to Catholic schools and who went to public. The smart ones went to the Catholic schools. So Tim Mahoney did 13 years of 1950 style Catholic education. He describes his academic feats by saying he graduated near the bottom of the class and spent most of his high school years in the back of the classrooms. To those of us who taught high school, it was known that hidden talent and rebellion frequently was found amongst those seated in the back seats of the classroom.
With no further academic goals in mind, Tim got a job in equipment sales, and five years later in 1970 his draft number came up. As for so many of those young men drafted, it was a brief training period and a flight to Vietnam for a 360-day tour of duty - if you lasted. Tim was trained to fire mortars, and at times, sweep villages. Two wrenching encounters changed Tim Mahoney. During a hidden bomb shelter search he drew his gun on a pair of eyes, but for some reason he did not pull the trigger. A second later he discovered the eyes belonged to a seven year old Vietnam girl. That day Tim lost what little interest was left of soldiering. A walk through a hospital ward filled with child victims of the war solidified his hatred of it all.
We seem to have a history in this country of naively thinking that our military men come home and start a Mayberry life again where they left off. The veteran’s hospitals, our homeless shelters, our city streets say otherwise. Tim,like other veterans, attests to the reality that is sometimes takes years to right-side, or to to find some life balance. Changed by the experience, Tim decided to try college. Two years at a community college got his academic grades up, and then he went off to the islands of Hawaii to finish college.
The boy, who sat in the back of the classroom and at the academic bottom of his class at the age of 34, won a scholarship to none other than the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Life became better, and Tim wrote two books about the war that he had no trouble publishing and found employment at the San Francisco Chronicle as a copy editor. He fell in love and married at 40. His wife wanted to get her doctorate in botany, so they moved to Madison and eventually both landed jobs in Minnesota.
Now to the part about stepping over that unseen line in the sand. All of us have had times when we find ourselves doing something we didn’t think we would do. This year, Tim as copy editor was checking out a story about St. Joan of Arc and decided to look at the St. Joan 
Community website. As a long ago East coast Catholic, he was intrigued by what he saw on the website and decided to check it out. Tim Mahoney at 58 one day walked through the gym doors of St. Joan of Arc and stepped over a personal line because he came back the next Sunday, and the Sundays that followed.
Five months later and still going to St, Joan’s, the subject of buses going to Washington to protest this war in Iraq got Tim’s attention. Many of the old tapes in Tim’s head began to play and he thought back as he said to the times in Vietnam when he wished the peace protests would get bigger so the nightmare would end sooner. He repeats his mantra that it was the peace marchers of the 60’s and 70’s who brought pressure to lower the troop numbers and scale down the war. He says that he always believed that some peace marcher had saved his life. In September of 2005, Tim Maloney, writer, copy editor, and Vietnam vet stepped on a peace bus because he wanted to be one more number to count against this Iraqi bloodbath.
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Beware of Slanted Apostrophes It's very distressing to learn that copy editor Tim Mahoney was suspended without pay for taking part in a peaceful antiwar protest, and that the newspaper might terminate his employment if he participated in similar events in the future. Having to relinquish one's right to participate fully as a citizen in our democracy is just too high a price to pay for being a copy editor. There has never been an ethics-based requirement that journalists give up their freedom, and such a rule should not be imposed now. Mahoney is a Vietnam War veteran and author of two wonderful novels, We're Not Here and Hallaran's World War. He has learned about war from the inside and has risked his life defending his country. Clearly, he has earned the right to exercise his conscience, to protest peacefully on his own time. An experienced journalist knows how to keep his personal beliefs out of his work. As long as Mahoney doesn't twist the facts or write slanted headlines, what the newspaper has done is wrong. It should stop its heavy-handed treatment of its workers. |
Shakespeare said “Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.” In the end only Tim Mahoney knows why he stepped on that bus or walked into St. Joan of Arc because it is his journey. Tim Mahoney’s life has been rich and wide with experience. He gives the appearance of a quiet man, but in conversation one senses the boy who chose at first the back of the class room but then later became a published author writing about the horrors of war. When Tim Mahoney signed up to participate in a peace rally, did he know he was stepping over that line? But like a Colleen Rowley, or a Dorothy Irvin, or a Kathy Itzin and so many more at St. Joan of Arc and in other churches and communities, there comes a time when you know you must step over that unseen line. If you do not, you will have no peace.
“Modern wars do terrible things to innocent people, children included. Sometimes in this world of fog and ambiguity, there is a clear right and wrong. I can’t think of anything more clearly wrong than to inflict suffering on the innocent in an ‘optional’ war.”
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