Disturbing the Peace: The Story of Father Roy Bourgeois and the Movement to Close the School of the Americas

Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois is a further example of the US repression of our religious expression. When Bob Dole went to Nicaragua for a Nixon-style Kitchen debate with freely and fairly elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega prior to the 1984 US elections, Dole accused the Nicaraguan government of religious repression. President Ortega, accompanied by hisministers of foreign relations and of education and of culture, Fathers Ernesto Cardenal, his Jesuit brother, and Maryknoll Father Miguel D'Escoto, pulled out a photograph of Father Roy Bourgeois being arrested and dragged away by US military forces at Fort Benning Georgia. This spelled the end of Bob Dole's presidential aspirations and political carreer, to be replaced with an interesting advertising endorsement. On the other hand the Reverend Father Roy has never wavered from his carreer and his commitment to preaching and to living the Gospel of Peace and Justice in Jesus Christ, with orthodoxy through orthopraxis, to the final consequences, running ever bravely in the footsteps of Our Lord. He remains strong in opposing those assassins of his own Maryknoll brothers and sisters like Bill Woods, and as on the cover here, Maryknoll Sister Ita Ford, killers and generals trained and directed from the SOA in terrorism, torture and homicide, who did not flinch from killing even the greatest prophet, martyr and saint of the Americas, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. Father Roy finds his duty and obligation as Catholic, as priest, as true follower of Jesus Christ, to call to stop the killing and oppression, the torture and genocide. Father Roy never fails to stnad tall as a true prophet of Peace and of Jesus Christ. Let us learn by his holy example to do as well, for as long, in life-long commitment to peace, justice and the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullest daily, courageous expression. Read this book. Every Christian must read this book. All Americans must read this book. Each Catholic must embrace this book as lectio divina, as our own hagiography, as manual and rulebook of how to live as Catholics under this present military regime, courageously, integrally, standing up for peace and for Jesus Christ in our darkened and bloody day. Read this book before you judge him or stand with those who condemned Jesus Christ before the Sanhedrin. Father Roy is a great man, a great Catholic, an excellent priest, and a fine American, the kind we truly most need for our national moral and ethical recovery. Please read as well School of Assassins: The Case for Closing the School of the Americas and for Fundamentally Changing U.S. Foreign Policy, Ita Ford: Missionary Martyr, Witnesses to the Kingdom: The Martyrs of El Salvador and the Crucified Peoples, Rigoberta Menchu, Salvador Allende, General Noriega, ARENA in El Salvador, the contra, etc., etc., etc.

Disturbing the Peace is a compelling story of a cleric who has dedicated his life to waging what some might call a quixotic battle against the highest military and political forces of the United States. These same forces look away from the evil they have wrought in other lands, specifically Latin America, and in American-run jails in Iraq. These evils, thanks to the machinations of the School of the Americas, include torture, murder, rape, and pillage. The school, costing Americans millions of dollars to maintain at Ft. Benning, Ga., is at the center of Bourgeois' relentless crusade. Bourgeois, who as a young man of the Louisiana bayoulands had beauteous Cajun mademoiselles at his beck and call and almost married one, chose the priesthood after heroic service and a Purple Heart in Vietnam. Following discharge, Bourgeois was appalled at America's foreign policy, which fawned upon megalomaniacal foreign dictators and which gave rise to the founding of the School of the Americas. This is no Bush-bashing book. Presidents of recent years have all contributed to the shameful institution that teaches young foreign soldiers how to commit the most nefarious crimes, then sends them back home to put into practice what they have been taught on American soil by American teachers. Item: Dismembering a 55-year-old woman with a chainsaw. Item: Torturing a priest before throwing him out of a high-flying helicopter. Item: Killing an archbishop, priests, and nuns in cold blood. Bourgeois and his followers have served time in jail and have had their lives threatened over their never-ending crusade to close down this inhumane cancer of the American military. Irony aside, the subject of this insightful, provocative biography is a modern Thomas Paine in clerical garb, indefatigably fighting for justice everywhere and against tranny in his own country.

The one thing that stands out the most about this book for me is that this priest was only standing for truth, freedom and justice. Yet the one country that he fought for during the Vietnam War prosecuted him for these beliefs. So much suffering in the world today is simply based on greed. One country trying to profit by controlling the government and natural resources of a smaller, weaker country.That is really what it is all about and the truth is there as long as we do not turn a blind eye as we did on Father Roy Bourgeois. Too many people today simply do as they are told and believe what they hear. You should read this book because the greatest threat facing the world is not knowing or ignoring the truth and sadly the world will continue to suffer at the hands of a few powerful people if we do not open our eyes.

This book inspires and educates while still being a page-turner. Roy Bourgeois is a purple heart Vietnam veteran who became a Maryknoll missionary priest. He has been in and out of Latin American countries and in and out of prison as he fights for social justice. In his struggle he discovers the now infamous School of the Americas - Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, GA. This school has trained the hemisphere's worst human rights violators. This book skillfully weaves Fr. Roy's story with that of the School of the Americas leaving the reader uplifted by the courage of a man and a movement and appalled by the secret teaching of torture and anti-democracratic use of force. Great read!

This brutal and sincere account of one man's journey down the paths of realization and revelation concerning the School of the America's is directly relevant and instantly accessible. It's grandest triumph is in it's ability to trump it's journalistic dictation with a strongly personable and poetic narrative that will have the reader making the same journey as it's engagingly active / reflective subject Roy Bourgeois--- whether taking action or contemplating inaction, Roy Bourgeois is a troublemaking saint and a hero for our times. Not overly symbolic or mouthpiece myth-making, this is a book that should be read and, most of all, understood.