Pope Francis inspires prayer vigil at Ben Salmon's grave

On June 20, 2017 Pope Francis will visit the graves of "a pair of 20th century priests who were ostracized by church leaders partly due to their support for pacifism and conscientious objection." (https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/francis-rewriting-italian-church-history-visit-priests-tombs-june) The National Catholic Reporter online article states that the pope is praying at each of the tombs in a "private and non-official" capacity. One of the priests advocated for conscientious objection and the other criticized the Catholic church's just war teaching. Ben Salmon's witness incorporated both aspects, as he spent years in military prison as a conscientious objector and completed a line-by-line rebuttal of just war teaching in his Magnum Opus.

Pope Francis' prayers to be offered at the pacifist priests' graves has inspired American Catholics to perform a parallel prayer vigil on June 20 at Ben Salmon's grave in Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. The Gospel nonviolence working group of the Association of US Catholic Priests has a petition of support entitled "Pope Francis blesses War Objectors June 20, 2017, as do I". If you can't make it to Mt. Carmel for the Prayer Vigil (or if you can), you can show your support online at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/176/365/383/.

Keep checking back for more information on the Prayer Vigil as June 20 approaches.