This week’s guest is actor and activist Martin Sheen, one of our most celebrated, award-winning actors from movies such as “Apocalypse Now,” “Gandhi,” “Selma,” “The American President,” “Gettysburg,” “The Way,” “Badlands,” and many more, and the star of the TV series, “The West Wing,” where he played President Bartlett.
Martin is perhaps the most committed activist celebrity, who has been speaking out against war, injustice, homelessness, and nuclear weapons and advocating for justice, disarmament, and peace for over 4 decades.
Fr. John will ask Martin about his activism, his understanding of Gospel nonviolence, and how his movies and activism have shaped his life and his peacemaking faith journey.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Dear, and today I'm speaking
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with my friend, actor and activist Martin Sheen. This podcast is a project of www.beattitudescenter.org,
you can find many other podcasts and Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing
nonviolence and working for a more just, more nonviolent world. What I'd like to do is begin
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with a little prayer, so I invite everyone to just take a deep breath and relax and enter
into the presence of the God of peace who loves you infinitely and personally. And let's
welcome the nonviolent Jesus here with us and ask for the grace to follow the nonviolent
Jesus ever more faithfully and do God's will. God of peace, thank you for all the blessings
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of life and love and peace that you give us. Be with us now as we reflect together on the
life and teachings of the nonviolent Jesus that we might follow him more faithfully and
do our part to help end war, poverty, violence, racism, execution, nuclear weapons, and environmental
destruction and welcome your reign of universal love, universal compassion, and universal
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peace in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
Yeah, Martin Sheen is one of our most celebrated award-winning actors for movies such as Apocalypse
Now, Gandhi, Selma, the American President, Gettysburg, The Way, Badlands, and many more,
and of course, the star of the TV series The West Wing where he played President Bartlett.
(01:58):
But Martin is also perhaps the most committed activist celebrity who's been speaking out
against war, injustice, homelessness, nuclear weapons, and advocating for justice, disarmament,
and peace for many, many, many decades. Hello, Martin, and welcome to my Nonviolent Jesus
podcast.
Hi, thank you so much, John. Thank you for that beautiful prayer and introduction. I'm
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delighted to be with you.
Oh, thank you. Well, you know, I want to talk first about the nonviolent Jesus and in particular
the phrase because you helped me, and full disclosure, Martin and I have been friends
for over 40 years. You helped me over the decades to realize how important that phrase
is in this world of violence and permanent war. You were at my first mass in 1993 at
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an inner-city parish in Washington, DC where I spoke of the nonviolent Jesus, but you've
been reminding me about that over the years. And now I refer to Jesus that way all the
time. And I'm trying to help...
Oh, so it's my fault.
Yeah.
This is what I'll tell the Pope. So what do you think about it? Tell me about it.
Well, you know, the very first time I heard the phrase was at that mass at St. Aloysius
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down in the basement, your very first mass as an ordained priest. And you came in and
gave the blessing, many a grace and peace of God our Father, the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit and the love of the nonviolent Jesus be with all of you. And the place erupted.
Normally, the congregation would say also with you, but they just said, welcome. And
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I think that the powers that be heard the echo from that little assembly that morning,
that Sunday morning, and it has gone worldwide. I had never heard the phrase before, the nonviolent
Jesus. I was raised Catholic and was an altar boy back in the Latin days before Vatican
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II. And I've come through the church all these decades, and the only person besides you and
Dan Berrigan and some of the peace people have used that phrase. And it has become the
only way that we can address our brother Jesus, the nonviolent Jesus. It makes all the difference
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in the world.
I think so too, because everybody in the world thinks Jesus is violent. So Truman said, well,
no, really, Jesus was violent in the temple, so I could drop the bomb on Hiroshima. But
the thing, he was nonviolent. He was even more nonviolent than Gandhi, Dorothy Day,
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and Dr. King.
Don't you think?
Well, of course, and all of them were inspired by his teachings, his life. I mean, if you
just took his face value, he was a total failure, and he was killed before he had a chance to
realize his mission. But in fact, that was his mission. It was realized. And it was saying,
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the phrase, if what we believe is not costly, we're left to question its value.
So, yeah, go on.
So, what is the value of our belief if it is not in accordance with this itinerant young
rabbi more than 2,000 years ago that inspired us and changed the world with what we call
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Christianity today? Although one of my favorite quotes from Gandhi is, we shouldn't be too
critical of Christianity. It's never been tried.
Well, you know, the thing about Gandhi is, if you're saying, you were sort of joking
Jesus was a complete failure, like except in this. So, Gandhi says, and then you realize,
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actually, this is all that matters. To be totally nonviolent is to be human. And Gandhi
said Jesus was the greatest person of nonviolence in history, and the only people who don't
know that he's nonviolent are Christians.
Yeah, it's the absolute truth.
Really? So, tell me about you. What about Jesus and his nonviolence inspires you or
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touches you? Why does that touch you?
Well, frankly, I've never committed to the level that you have, John, where it led me
into prison cells for long periods of time.
Oh, you've done your stints here and there overnight.
I know, here and there.
You have a record.
But never the extent. I think most of the time I spent in prison was visiting you in
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the plowshares whenever I had the occasion.
It was a lot of fun, by the way. Thank you for that.
No, great blessings. And, you know, I felt part of a community that changed my life,
beginning with Dan Berrigan and all the peace people back on the East Coast. As you know,
my first arrest for civil disobedience was with you and Dan in New York City in June
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of 1986. I had been inspired by Dan all the way through the horrible violent years of
the 60s. And I was deeply moved by his total commitment. He and his brother Phil reflected
Dorothy Day, who reflected the nonviolent Jesus and Gandhi and Reverend King. They all
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come to mind in the same breath and for the same reason. They all gave their lives. They
actually believed in the truth of the Scriptures and the stories of the gospel. And it was
extremely costly in their lives and in your life as well. I mean, I don't know anyone
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who has paid a higher price for their nonviolent activism and following the nonviolent Jesus.
So you're all an inspiration to me.
But Dan said something particularly interesting back in the day before he began his prison
term, he was having a conference with people and he was saying that we had to fill the
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jails if we were going to end this war in Vietnam. And someone in the crowd says, oh,
that's all well and good for you, Father Berrigan. You can go to jail. You have no children.
What about us? What's going to happen to our children if we go to jail? And Dan said, what's
going to happen to them if you don't? And that goes right to the heart of it. You know,
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that we, you know, that our good deeds as well as our unconscious deeds affect our children,
our grandchildren. They affect the depth of the community in ways that are, you know,
you can't, they're unspeakable. We can't, you know, why aren't we in prison? Why aren't
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we speaking out against all war all the time with our lives? And the bottom line is it's
going to cost you. If that's what you really believe, it's going to cost you. And if it's
not costing you anything, you have to question, you know, does it have any value what I believe?
So that's what's at stake. And it's a never ending war around the world that we have to
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face. We don't have to look far from Ukraine and, you know, the Gaza and the West Bank
and all over the Mideast now, you know, it's very tenuous. And we're still at that point
of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And as Gandhi said, we'll all end up blind
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and toothless if we continue.
Yeah. Well, you had mentioned Dan, our friend, Father Daniel Berrigan, his brother, Philip
Berrigan. And so you first got arrested with Dan in the mid-80s, and now you've been arrested
about 60 times, which is amazing and rare for any person, much less a well-known beloved
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actor that you are. No, seriously.
I was halfway through with my life.
And what happened? Where did you go wrong?
Before I finally got arrested, you know, mind you, I've been arrested for other things that
I've done wrong.
Oh, no, I didn't know that. Let's not talk about that. You know, there's...
Well, I'm always arrested under my real name because I can't identify myself officially
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other than my real name, Ramon Estevez.
Dr. King said there are just laws and unjust laws, Martin. We're focusing on the unjust
laws here.
The unjust laws
Defend war and nuclear weapons.
Thank you for that.
Yeah. So you're okay there. We won't get into the others. No, but seriously, so you and
I have been arrested at the Nevada test site protesting the testing of nuclear weapons
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in the 80s and 90s, which stopped. The Riverside Research Institute in Manhattan, where they
were working on post-nuclear laser beam warfare, which is where you got arrested with Dan,
and that stopped. The El Salvador campaign in the 90s, where we blocked the federal building
in LA to stop US military aid to El Salvador, and it stopped. I think nonviolence is civil
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disobedience in the end, in all the movements' works. What's it been like for you? What have
you learned in the School of the Americas, another campaign, in all of these experiences?
Or was there one in particular that was very helpful or meaningful? And especially in light
of the nonviolent Jesus, as Dan always said, he told me as a kid, Martin, all you have
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to do is make your story fit into the story of the nonviolent Jesus. Isn't that great?
Yeah, yeah, it's so true.
So how has these civil disobedience affected you?
Well, you know, you and I were doing an interview together just a few weeks ago, and we talked
about our friendship going back, it is 40 years and more, and most of the time I see
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you, it's on the line somewhere, being carted off and charged with something.
I know.
And you too.
But you know, I mentioned in that interview we did that every issue that I protested for
or against has not really changed. And I learned something from Dan very early on. He once
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said, you know, you can't look over your shoulder and expect anyone to be following you if you're
on a nonviolent journey and you're doing it publicly. He said, you basically have to accept
the fact that the only one that will ever be changed is you, you know, with what you're
doing. And that I took to heart. And it meant the world to me because I knew I wasn't going
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to change the world. And in fact, if I changed myself, that was as good a reason to do what
I was doing. And so I followed that. And I don't know, you know, you mentioned the war
in El Salvador and the Star Wars initiative that Reagan was proposing that we helped to
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end the research on that in New York. But still we're making nuclear weapons and we're
still, you know, talking about how to control the world through our satellites and, you
know, our bases all over the world. And so, you know, we are engaged by my just being
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citizens of this great nation. It is a great nation. I remember, John, you know, so often
we'd be arrested at at the federal institute, whether it's the Pentagon or the White House
or Congress or whatever. And the first question you would be asked while you were in custody
was do you advocate the overthrow of the United States government? Do you remember that, John,
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how often we have to answer that? We'd always laugh and say, what are you kidding? We love
this country. We know we're drawing its wrath by drawing attention to the things that are
un-American, you know, violence and the larceny of the poor and our dependence on the false
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gods of weapons and violence. But we love the country. We just took issue with some
of the of our, you know, our nation's involvement in violence and the accumulation of weapons
and the enormous expense spent on weapons and so-called security that we have we've
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isolated ourselves and we're not, you know, we're not our we're not our true selves. And
it's a national disease, really. We, you know, we we we we don't trust nonviolence. We we
still have the bomb. We still we're still looking for, you know, places to place our
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influence militarily with weapons. And, you know, we're putting most of them now in remote
areas, some of them in a large portion of them now in submarines where they can't be
located. But, you know, the point is that we live in a violent culture and yet we still
live in this extraordinary country that produces a Dan and Phil Berrigan and a, you know, Dorothy
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Day and the John Deere and all the other wonderful peace and justice advocates. And so we have
to we have to deal with that. There's another thing, you know, in our prayer life where
the old before Benedict changed the the wording in the creed before that the wording was it
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was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. And one night I was at a mass in a church
I wasn't familiar with. And the guy behind me was saying the prayer. And here's what
he said, born of the Virgin Mary and became human. That made all the difference, John.
And it is still today, you know, I'm unable to say became man because it just, you know,
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it eliminates the female but it also isolates our God, you know, our God is human. And Jesus
came, you know, like I'm just thinking of this phrase Dan sent me on a card one day,
a quote from Thomas Merton into this world, this demented in in which there is absolutely
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no room for him at all. Christ comes uninvited. Yeah, that is that, you know, the nonviolent
Jesus comes uninvited. We don't want any part of this guy because of what he demands of
us and what that presence in us God chooses to dwell within us, whether we like it or
not, you know, it's not up to us whether we choose to recognize the presence that where
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God chooses to dwell is really none of our business, you know, it's a foregone conclusion.
We came after the fact. We don't have any choice.
Yeah, Dan once said, you know, he came uninvited and we quickly showed him the door. We got
rid of him. And you know, for me, the whole Christmas story and incarnation is God wants
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to be human. And yeah, but the human race wants to be God. And we have it all mixed
up. But either way to be human or to be godly is to be nonviolent. That's the bottom line.
Hey, so I wanted to ask you a question about nonviolence. I remember in the early 90s under
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the Bush-Quail administration, and I think you were on the Murphy Brown show, which brought
in all this national talk about the Republican Party talking about family values. And I was
visiting you one day and you had made a bumper sticker. Do you remember this? And it said,
nonviolence is a family value. And I thought that was brilliant. Why did you do that? What
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does that mean?
I should reprint that because...
Well, it's a global value.
What does it mean? How is nonviolence a family value and is it the ultimate value? It's such
a beautiful phrase.
Well, is violence a family value?
Apparently so in this country.
Yeah, we're getting closer to embracing that, particularly with where we are in our culture
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at the moment, where we are projecting the male dominance again. And this phrase, it's
reared its ugly sound in our ears, you know, Christian nationalism. What does that sound
like? You know, that's reverberating from a Nazi regime in the 1930s in Germany. You
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know, Christian nationalism was what inspired Dietrich Bonhoeffer to raise his voice and
to call the church into account, you know.
So let me ask you...
Yeah, that's where we are now.
So nonviolence is really the bottom line value for me. Let me ask you about one of the beatitudes
about being a peacemaker. So, you know, I have this project, the Beatitudes Center,
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and I'm talking about the beatitudes, and you and I have been so much time talking about
peace and peacemaking. But for me, the beatitudes all reach a climax in that teaching. Here
it is, blessed are the peacemakers, they will be called the sons and daughters of the God
of peace. And to me, that's just it. That's everything. But you know, it's so shocking
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as a kid, I couldn't figure out who I was. What does it mean to use your phrase, to be
human? And the country, the culture of violence war is always saying, I'll tell you what it
is, you're an American, or you want to be all you can be, be a Marine. And Jesus comes
along and says, you are the beloved son, the beloved daughter of the God of peace, and
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therefore you go and make peace, you're a peacemaker. So, tell me, what does that mean
for you? How are, have you seen your life as a peacemaker? And what advice do you have
to people, especially young people, for becoming peacemakers?
Well, you know, it's a deeply personal question, and it's a deeply personal responsibility
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that I certainly have not conquered it. I'm 84 years old, and I still deal with my anger
and my righteousness and my cheering on when, you know, there's, when the Ukrainians strike
the Russians at a particular spot and seem to be winning that war, or at least holding
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them off. And so, and I find myself in the West Bank and in Gaza and in Lebanon and so
many other countries that are not getting the worldwide attention that are at war, that
are at conflict, that violence is the norm. And so I still, I still have to look in my
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heart, my soul, I see my anger and my violence reflected in my children and grandchildren
and great grandchildren. And so that, you know, it's an ongoing daily grace of remembrance
of who I really am. Like you said that the other day, John, I thought that was very,
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very insightful that when we remember who we really are, we become more human and less
violent, and we're more inclined to live the gospel of the nonviolent Jesus. But it's a
deeply personal thing. And I had so many decades where, you know, I supported violence. I was
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violent. I did violence. I thought violence. I felt violence and envy and retribution and
vengeance and hatred and all of the, the, the pronouns of violence I, I inhabited in
the depths of my being and my spirit. So it's a lifelong journey. I'm still at it. I haven't
had any luck yet. No, no, that's, we're all like that. And let me ask you, did it work?
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Did it make you feel good? It doesn't work, does it? No violence? It doesn't work?
It is a good, you know, we become acquainted, you know, when we receive the sacraments,
particularly the Eucharist, you know, and we, we, it isn't a representation in our belief,
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in our dogma with Catholicism. It's the real deal. So we're dealing in a deeply personal way
with, with the, the God who creates us, who breathes us, who loves us endlessly. And,
and we, we bring all of our total selves, all of the, the things that, you know, it's like I lift
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up at the offertory, I lift up all those that I was given to love and I, and I, and I give a prayer
of gratitude and praise. And then when the cup is lifted, I say, and I lift up all those you gave me
to love that I refuse to love. They're known to me as well as you. Do you know what I'm saying?
So that we, even in our family relationships, there are people in, you know, in our,
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on our immediate sphere that we do not embrace. So how can we expect to embrace, you know,
someone and, you know, in a bomb making factory or someone who's dropping them or someone who's
firing them? How, you know, how, how do we, it's a different grace that we have to embrace. And it's,
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and it's deeply personal. It's a journey. I don't, it is a journey. Yeah. And I don't have any,
I don't have any advice to give anyone except to just continue.
That's good.
To stay in touch with that deeply personal nonviolent Jesus. Because if it's not personal,
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if Jesus is not personal, He's impersonal to us. And if He's impersonal…
You know, I was going to ask you about that. Let me ask you, because you said that at Philip
Berrigan's funeral, it was amazing. We remember we were marching and it was a cold rainy day
following the casket and there were thousands of us and we were going to the funeral. And Amy
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Goodman of Democracy Now was interviewing you and I was standing next to you. And you said,
so what did you think about Philip Berrigan, who spent, by the way, folks, 11 years of his life in
prison for protesting war? And you said, without missing a beat to Amy Goodman, well, Phil took
the gospel personally. I never heard anybody say that before. And it's so obvious. That's what
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you're just saying again now. Do you agree still? You think that?
Yeah. Yeah. I think if we don't take it personal, it's impersonal. And if it's impersonal, so what?
You know, who cares?
So, these are teachings to practice personally, to be peacemakers and to try to be people of
universal love and nonviolence. Well, I got to ask you about the movies though, because you're…
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Okay, so I will look you up.
Oh dear.
It's rough, man. So, you were, I'm going to mention name dropping four movies. You
starred in one of the biggest war movies ever, Apocalypse Now, with the great Marlon Brando,
your friend. And then you were in the greatest movie, hands down, about a peacemaker ever,
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Gandhi, where you played the reporter. You also were in the only movie about Dorothy Day,
called Entertaining Angels, where you played Peter Moran, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker.
And you're in the only movie, major movie about Dr. King, called Selma, where you played the judge,
who lifted the injunction and allowed the march to proceed. So, here we're talking
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movies about war, but also the greatest peacemakers, Gandhi, Martin Luther King,
and Dorothy Day. What did you, just tell me a little bit about what you might have learned
from all of that, the war movie and the peacemaker's movies about your own journey of peace and non-violence?
I know that's a ridiculous big question, but maybe one or two things.
You know what's interesting, you mentioned Apocalypse Now. That had a profound effect on me.
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And, you know, because I felt that I had exposed my brokenness, you know, my vulnerability,
my insecurity so flagrantly on film, you know, and I had to account for that in my own spirit.
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But that film had a profound effect on a lot of young men. And it went two ways. It was a two-edged
sword, because an equal number of young men told me that that picture inspired them to join the
military, and an equal number told me that they were inspired to reject the military, to reject
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violence. And so, you know, it's a personal responsibility that all of us have to face.
That movie, you know, led me to, on a very, very deeply personal journey, which culminated in Paris,
after, you know, I went to, I was in India for Gandhi, just for five or six weeks in 1981. And
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shortly thereafter, I was in Paris doing a film, and I was alone because none of the family could
join me. It was school year, you know. And I began to examine my own spiritual life, or lack
thereof. And India had really sparked it, because you see such injustice on the poor. You know,
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the country is, you can't turn right, left, or in front or behind you, on top of you, everywhere.
The poverty is so overwhelming, and the poor are so horribly crushed by poverty. I remember Gandhi's
quote, where he said, when he had to make a decision, he conjured up the most dire
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person he could remember, and he made his decision based on whether it would help or
hinder that person, that image. And that resonated with me also. What decision was I making for the
wretched soul that I had become? And so, I returned to the Catholic faith in Paris on May 1st,
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1981. It was a long journey, and it was the happiest day of my life. I didn't come back to
the church that I had left, which was fear and, you know, angst about being caught in mortal sin
and being condemned to hell should I die in such a state. But I came back to the church of Dan
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Berrigan and Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day, the church of service, the church of nonviolence,
the church that serves the world to its human needs, which is equal to its spiritual needs.
We can't really accept one without the other. You know, the phrase I use is,
we have to find a way to unite the will of the spirit to the work of the flesh.
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And that, to me, is peacemaking. That, to me, is my way of doing things.
That, to me, is my real Catholic faith. That is where I meet the God of nonviolence. That is
where it gets real personal for me, is that effort to unite the will of the spirit to the work of the
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flesh. And when you find that, you know, the saying is, like Théodice Donne said, when we find out how
deeply we are loved, we have discovered fire for the second time. And I use that phrase in trying
to inspire people when I speak publicly about the journey that we're all called to. And that is to,
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we're challenged to find something in our lives worth fighting for, something deeply personal
and uncompromising, something that unites the will of the spirit to the work of the flesh.
And when we find that, we have discovered fire for the second time.
Well, thank you, Martin. Well, that's a good note to wrap it up on in you speaking.
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Oh, I'm not done yet, John.
Oh, well, we'll have to come back someday.
You and I talked before, and I thought I might share Dan's poem, if I may.
Yeah. Is this the Apologies poem?
Yeah.
So, this is from 1968, the day he did the Catonsville Nine action where they burned
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draft files with homemade napalm and spent face six or seven years in prison. This is the statement,
I think, that you're going to read. And then I want to ask you about Tagore.
Okay. So, this is from Dan Berrigan, and it's from his book Night Flight to Hanoi.
Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of
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children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the Channel House. We could not,
so help us God do otherwise. We say killing is disorder. Life and gentleness and community
and unselfishness is the only order we recognize. For the sake of that order,
we risk our liberty, our good name. The time has passed when good people can remain silent,
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when obedience can segregate people from public risk, when the poor can die without defense.
We ask our fellow Christians to consider in their hearts a question that has tortured us night and
day since the war began. How many must die before our voices are heard? How many must be tortured,
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dislocated, starved, maddened? How long must the world's resources be raped in the service of
legalized murder? When and at what point will we say no to this war?
Tom Hanks Wow, Martin, that is so powerful.
Thank you for reading it.
Martin Luther Well, that's Dan. His voice is still very,
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very much alive in our spirit. Yeah.
Tom Hanks Well, one of the things when you give public lectures for all these years,
you always end with the beautiful poem, I Tagore, and I thought it would be lovely if you ended with
that and then I'll wrap it up and then we'll stay on a minute. But would you mind giving us that
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final blessing? Martin Luther Sure, I'm delighted. I learned this
poem while I was in India doing Gandhi. And it was taught to me by a fellow actor,
Rascal Lee Brown. May he rest in peace. The poem is by Tagore.
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And I liken it to my own country. So I preface it. We are called to that place where the heart is
without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free, where the world has not been
broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls, where words come out from the depths of truth,
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and tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, where the clear stream of reason has
not lost its way into the dreary desert sands of dead habit, where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever-widening thought and action into that heaven of freedom, dear Father, let our country
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awake. Amen. John Deere Amen. Well, wow. Thank you so much,
Martin Sheen, for speaking with me today. Martin Sheen Thank you so much, John Deere. I adore you
and I'm inspired by you every day of my life. John Deere Thanks, dear friend. Thank you,
friends, for listening to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. You can hear more podcasts and find other
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upcoming Zoom programs at www.piatitudescenter.org. And there you can offer any comments and feedback
and make a donation to support this free work. Join me next week on the Dr. King holiday when
my guest will be Dr. Bernard Lafayette, one of the leaders and heroes of the Civil Rights Movement
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from Nashville to Birmingham to Selma to Memphis, who is also Dr. King's assistant,
as we celebrate Dr. King's 100th birthday. May the God of Peace bless everyone. Keep on
following the Nonviolent Jesus. See you next time.
Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Dear, and today I'm speaking
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with my friend, actor and activist Martin Sheen. This podcast is a project of www.beattitudescenter.org,
you can find many other podcasts and Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing
nonviolence and working for a more just, more nonviolent world. What I'd like to do is begin
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with a little prayer, so I invite everyone to just take a deep breath and relax and enter
into the presence of the God of peace who loves you infinitely and personally. And let's
welcome the nonviolent Jesus here with us and ask for the grace to follow the nonviolent
Jesus ever more faithfully and do God's will. God of peace, thank you for all the blessings
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of life and love and peace that you give us. Be with us now as we reflect together on the
life and teachings of the nonviolent Jesus that we might follow him more faithfully and
do our part to help end war, poverty, violence, racism, execution, nuclear weapons, and environmental
destruction and welcome your reign of universal love, universal compassion, and universal
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peace in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
Yeah, Martin Sheen is one of our most celebrated award-winning actors for movies such as Apocalypse
Now, Gandhi, Selma, the American President, Gettysburg, The Way, Badlands, and many more,
and of course, the star of the TV series The West Wing where he played President Bartlett.
(01:58):
But Martin is also perhaps the most committed activist celebrity who's been speaking out
against war, injustice, homelessness, nuclear weapons, and advocating for justice, disarmament,
and peace for many, many, many decades. Hello, Martin, and welcome to my Nonviolent Jesus
podcast.
Hi, thank you so much, John. Thank you for that beautiful prayer and introduction. I'm
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delighted to be with you.
Oh, thank you. Well, you know, I want to talk first about the nonviolent Jesus and in particular
the phrase because you helped me, and full disclosure, Martin and I have been friends
for over 40 years. You helped me over the decades to realize how important that phrase
is in this world of violence and permanent war. You were at my first mass in 1993 at
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an inner-city parish in Washington, DC where I spoke of the nonviolent Jesus, but you've
been reminding me about that over the years. And now I refer to Jesus that way all the
time. And I'm trying to help...
Oh, so it's my fault.
Yeah.
This is what I'll tell the Pope. So what do you think about it? Tell me about it.
Well, you know, the very first time I heard the phrase was at that mass at St. Aloysius
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down in the basement, your very first mass as an ordained priest. And you came in and
gave the blessing, many a grace and peace of God our Father, the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit and the love of the nonviolent Jesus be with all of you. And the place erupted.
Normally, the congregation would say also with you, but they just said, welcome. And
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I think that the powers that be heard the echo from that little assembly that morning,
that Sunday morning, and it has gone worldwide. I had never heard the phrase before, the nonviolent
Jesus. I was raised Catholic and was an altar boy back in the Latin days before Vatican
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II. And I've come through the church all these decades, and the only person besides you and
Dan Berrigan and some of the peace people have used that phrase. And it has become the
only way that we can address our brother Jesus, the nonviolent Jesus. It makes all the difference
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in the world.
I think so too, because everybody in the world thinks Jesus is violent. So Truman said, well,
no, really, Jesus was violent in the temple, so I could drop the bomb on Hiroshima. But
the thing, he was nonviolent. He was even more nonviolent than Gandhi, Dorothy Day,
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and Dr. King.
Don't you think?
Well, of course, and all of them were inspired by his teachings, his life. I mean, if you
just took his face value, he was a total failure, and he was killed before he had a chance to
realize his mission. But in fact, that was his mission. It was realized. And it was saying,
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the phrase, if what we believe is not costly, we're left to question its value.
So, yeah, go on.
So, what is the value of our belief if it is not in accordance with this itinerant young
rabbi more than 2,000 years ago that inspired us and changed the world with what we call
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Christianity today? Although one of my favorite quotes from Gandhi is, we shouldn't be too
critical of Christianity. It's never been tried.
Well, you know, the thing about Gandhi is, if you're saying, you were sort of joking
Jesus was a complete failure, like except in this. So, Gandhi says, and then you realize,
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actually, this is all that matters. To be totally nonviolent is to be human. And Gandhi
said Jesus was the greatest person of nonviolence in history, and the only people who don't
know that he's nonviolent are Christians.
Yeah, it's the absolute truth.
Really? So, tell me about you. What about Jesus and his nonviolence inspires you or
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touches you? Why does that touch you?
Well, frankly, I've never committed to the level that you have, John, where it led me
into prison cells for long periods of time.
Oh, you've done your stints here and there overnight.
I know, here and there.
You have a record.
But never the extent. I think most of the time I spent in prison was visiting you in
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the plowshares whenever I had the occasion.
It was a lot of fun, by the way. Thank you for that.
No, great blessings. And, you know, I felt part of a community that changed my life,
beginning with Dan Berrigan and all the peace people back on the East Coast. As you know,
my first arrest for civil disobedience was with you and Dan in New York City in June
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of 1986. I had been inspired by Dan all the way through the horrible violent years of
the 60s. And I was deeply moved by his total commitment. He and his brother Phil reflected
Dorothy Day, who reflected the nonviolent Jesus and Gandhi and Reverend King. They all
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come to mind in the same breath and for the same reason. They all gave their lives. They
actually believed in the truth of the Scriptures and the stories of the gospel. And it was
extremely costly in their lives and in your life as well. I mean, I don't know anyone
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who has paid a higher price for their nonviolent activism and following the nonviolent Jesus.
So you're all an inspiration to me.
But Dan said something particularly interesting back in the day before he began his prison
term, he was having a conference with people and he was saying that we had to fill the
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jails if we were going to end this war in Vietnam. And someone in the crowd says, oh,
that's all well and good for you, Father Berrigan. You can go to jail. You have no children.
What about us? What's going to happen to our children if we go to jail? And Dan said, what's
going to happen to them if you don't? And that goes right to the heart of it. You know,
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that we, you know, that our good deeds as well as our unconscious deeds affect our children,
our grandchildren. They affect the depth of the community in ways that are, you know,
you can't, they're unspeakable. We can't, you know, why aren't we in prison? Why aren't
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we speaking out against all war all the time with our lives? And the bottom line is it's
going to cost you. If that's what you really believe, it's going to cost you. And if it's
not costing you anything, you have to question, you know, does it have any value what I believe?
So that's what's at stake. And it's a never ending war around the world that we have to
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face. We don't have to look far from Ukraine and, you know, the Gaza and the West Bank
and all over the Mideast now, you know, it's very tenuous. And we're still at that point
of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And as Gandhi said, we'll all end up blind
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and toothless if we continue.
Yeah. Well, you had mentioned Dan, our friend, Father Daniel Berrigan, his brother, Philip
Berrigan. And so you first got arrested with Dan in the mid-80s, and now you've been arrested
about 60 times, which is amazing and rare for any person, much less a well-known beloved
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actor that you are. No, seriously.
I was halfway through with my life.
And what happened? Where did you go wrong?
Before I finally got arrested, you know, mind you, I've been arrested for other things that
I've done wrong.
Oh, no, I didn't know that. Let's not talk about that. You know, there's...
Well, I'm always arrested under my real name because I can't identify myself officially
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other than my real name, Ramon Estevez.
Dr. King said there are just laws and unjust laws, Martin. We're focusing on the unjust
laws here.
The unjust laws
Defend war and nuclear weapons.
Thank you for that.
Yeah. So you're okay there. We won't get into the others. No, but seriously, so you and
I have been arrested at the Nevada test site protesting the testing of nuclear weapons
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in the 80s and 90s, which stopped. The Riverside Research Institute in Manhattan, where they
were working on post-nuclear laser beam warfare, which is where you got arrested with Dan,
and that stopped. The El Salvador campaign in the 90s, where we blocked the federal building
in LA to stop US military aid to El Salvador, and it stopped. I think nonviolence is civil
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disobedience in the end, in all the movements' works. What's it been like for you? What have
you learned in the School of the Americas, another campaign, in all of these experiences?
Or was there one in particular that was very helpful or meaningful? And especially in light
of the nonviolent Jesus, as Dan always said, he told me as a kid, Martin, all you have
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to do is make your story fit into the story of the nonviolent Jesus. Isn't that great?
Yeah, yeah, it's so true.
So how has these civil disobedience affected you?
Well, you know, you and I were doing an interview together just a few weeks ago, and we talked
about our friendship going back, it is 40 years and more, and most of the time I see
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you, it's on the line somewhere, being carted off and charged with something.
I know.
And you too.
But you know, I mentioned in that interview we did that every issue that I protested for
or against has not really changed. And I learned something from Dan very early on. He once
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said, you know, you can't look over your shoulder and expect anyone to be following you if you're
on a nonviolent journey and you're doing it publicly. He said, you basically have to accept
the fact that the only one that will ever be changed is you, you know, with what you're
doing. And that I took to heart. And it meant the world to me because I knew I wasn't going
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to change the world. And in fact, if I changed myself, that was as good a reason to do what
I was doing. And so I followed that. And I don't know, you know, you mentioned the war
in El Salvador and the Star Wars initiative that Reagan was proposing that we helped to
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end the research on that in New York. But still we're making nuclear weapons and we're
still, you know, talking about how to control the world through our satellites and, you
know, our bases all over the world. And so, you know, we are engaged by my just being
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citizens of this great nation. It is a great nation. I remember, John, you know, so often
we'd be arrested at at the federal institute, whether it's the Pentagon or the White House
or Congress or whatever. And the first question you would be asked while you were in custody
was do you advocate the overthrow of the United States government? Do you remember that, John,
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how often we have to answer that? We'd always laugh and say, what are you kidding? We love
this country. We know we're drawing its wrath by drawing attention to the things that are
un-American, you know, violence and the larceny of the poor and our dependence on the false
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gods of weapons and violence. But we love the country. We just took issue with some
of the of our, you know, our nation's involvement in violence and the accumulation of weapons
and the enormous expense spent on weapons and so-called security that we have we've
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isolated ourselves and we're not, you know, we're not our we're not our true selves. And
it's a national disease, really. We, you know, we we we we don't trust nonviolence. We we
still have the bomb. We still we're still looking for, you know, places to place our
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influence militarily with weapons. And, you know, we're putting most of them now in remote
areas, some of them in a large portion of them now in submarines where they can't be
located. But, you know, the point is that we live in a violent culture and yet we still
live in this extraordinary country that produces a Dan and Phil Berrigan and a, you know, Dorothy
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Day and the John Deere and all the other wonderful peace and justice advocates. And so we have
to we have to deal with that. There's another thing, you know, in our prayer life where
the old before Benedict changed the the wording in the creed before that the wording was it
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was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. And one night I was at a mass in a church
I wasn't familiar with. And the guy behind me was saying the prayer. And here's what
he said, born of the Virgin Mary and became human. That made all the difference, John.
And it is still today, you know, I'm unable to say became man because it just, you know,
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it eliminates the female but it also isolates our God, you know, our God is human. And Jesus
came, you know, like I'm just thinking of this phrase Dan sent me on a card one day,
a quote from Thomas Merton into this world, this demented in in which there is absolutely
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no room for him at all. Christ comes uninvited. Yeah, that is that, you know, the nonviolent
Jesus comes uninvited. We don't want any part of this guy because of what he demands of
us and what that presence in us God chooses to dwell within us, whether we like it or
not, you know, it's not up to us whether we choose to recognize the presence that where
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God chooses to dwell is really none of our business, you know, it's a foregone conclusion.
We came after the fact. We don't have any choice.
Yeah, Dan once said, you know, he came uninvited and we quickly showed him the door. We got
rid of him. And you know, for me, the whole Christmas story and incarnation is God wants
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to be human. And yeah, but the human race wants to be God. And we have it all mixed
up. But either way to be human or to be godly is to be nonviolent. That's the bottom line.
Hey, so I wanted to ask you a question about nonviolence. I remember in the early 90s under
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the Bush-Quail administration, and I think you were on the Murphy Brown show, which brought
in all this national talk about the Republican Party talking about family values. And I was
visiting you one day and you had made a bumper sticker. Do you remember this? And it said,
nonviolence is a family value. And I thought that was brilliant. Why did you do that? What
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does that mean?
I should reprint that because...
Well, it's a global value.
What does it mean? How is nonviolence a family value and is it the ultimate value? It's such
a beautiful phrase.
Well, is violence a family value?
Apparently so in this country.
Yeah, we're getting closer to embracing that, particularly with where we are in our culture
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at the moment, where we are projecting the male dominance again. And this phrase, it's
reared its ugly sound in our ears, you know, Christian nationalism. What does that sound
like? You know, that's reverberating from a Nazi regime in the 1930s in Germany. You
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know, Christian nationalism was what inspired Dietrich Bonhoeffer to raise his voice and
to call the church into account, you know.
So let me ask you...
Yeah, that's where we are now.
So nonviolence is really the bottom line value for me. Let me ask you about one of the beatitudes
about being a peacemaker. So, you know, I have this project, the Beatitudes Center,
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and I'm talking about the beatitudes, and you and I have been so much time talking about
peace and peacemaking. But for me, the beatitudes all reach a climax in that teaching. Here
it is, blessed are the peacemakers, they will be called the sons and daughters of the God
of peace. And to me, that's just it. That's everything. But you know, it's so shocking
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as a kid, I couldn't figure out who I was. What does it mean to use your phrase, to be
human? And the country, the culture of violence war is always saying, I'll tell you what it
is, you're an American, or you want to be all you can be, be a Marine. And Jesus comes
along and says, you are the beloved son, the beloved daughter of the God of peace, and
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therefore you go and make peace, you're a peacemaker. So, tell me, what does that mean
for you? How are, have you seen your life as a peacemaker? And what advice do you have
to people, especially young people, for becoming peacemakers?
Well, you know, it's a deeply personal question, and it's a deeply personal responsibility
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that I certainly have not conquered it. I'm 84 years old, and I still deal with my anger
and my righteousness and my cheering on when, you know, there's, when the Ukrainians strike
the Russians at a particular spot and seem to be winning that war, or at least holding
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them off. And so, and I find myself in the West Bank and in Gaza and in Lebanon and so
many other countries that are not getting the worldwide attention that are at war, that
are at conflict, that violence is the norm. And so I still, I still have to look in my
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heart, my soul, I see my anger and my violence reflected in my children and grandchildren
and great grandchildren. And so that, you know, it's an ongoing daily grace of remembrance
of who I really am. Like you said that the other day, John, I thought that was very,
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very insightful that when we remember who we really are, we become more human and less
violent, and we're more inclined to live the gospel of the nonviolent Jesus. But it's a
deeply personal thing. And I had so many decades where, you know, I supported violence. I was
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violent. I did violence. I thought violence. I felt violence and envy and retribution and
vengeance and hatred and all of the, the, the pronouns of violence I, I inhabited in
the depths of my being and my spirit. So it's a lifelong journey. I'm still at it. I haven't
had any luck yet. No, no, that's, we're all like that. And let me ask you, did it work?
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Did it make you feel good? It doesn't work, does it? No violence? It doesn't work?
It is a good, you know, we become acquainted, you know, when we receive the sacraments,
particularly the Eucharist, you know, and we, we, it isn't a representation in our belief,
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in our dogma with Catholicism. It's the real deal. So we're dealing in a deeply personal way
with, with the, the God who creates us, who breathes us, who loves us endlessly. And,
and we, we bring all of our total selves, all of the, the things that, you know, it's like I lift
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up at the offertory, I lift up all those that I was given to love and I, and I, and I give a prayer
of gratitude and praise. And then when the cup is lifted, I say, and I lift up all those you gave me
to love that I refuse to love. They're known to me as well as you. Do you know what I'm saying?
So that we, even in our family relationships, there are people in, you know, in our,
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on our immediate sphere that we do not embrace. So how can we expect to embrace, you know,
someone and, you know, in a bomb making factory or someone who's dropping them or someone who's
firing them? How, you know, how, how do we, it's a different grace that we have to embrace. And it's,
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and it's deeply personal. It's a journey. I don't, it is a journey. Yeah. And I don't have any,
I don't have any advice to give anyone except to just continue.
That's good.
To stay in touch with that deeply personal nonviolent Jesus. Because if it's not personal,
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if Jesus is not personal, He's impersonal to us. And if He's impersonal…
You know, I was going to ask you about that. Let me ask you, because you said that at Philip
Berrigan's funeral, it was amazing. We remember we were marching and it was a cold rainy day
following the casket and there were thousands of us and we were going to the funeral. And Amy
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Goodman of Democracy Now was interviewing you and I was standing next to you. And you said,
so what did you think about Philip Berrigan, who spent, by the way, folks, 11 years of his life in
prison for protesting war? And you said, without missing a beat to Amy Goodman, well, Phil took
the gospel personally. I never heard anybody say that before. And it's so obvious. That's what
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you're just saying again now. Do you agree still? You think that?
Yeah. Yeah. I think if we don't take it personal, it's impersonal. And if it's impersonal, so what?
You know, who cares?
So, these are teachings to practice personally, to be peacemakers and to try to be people of
universal love and nonviolence. Well, I got to ask you about the movies though, because you're…
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Okay, so I will look you up.
Oh dear.
It's rough, man. So, you were, I'm going to mention name dropping four movies. You
starred in one of the biggest war movies ever, Apocalypse Now, with the great Marlon Brando,
your friend. And then you were in the greatest movie, hands down, about a peacemaker ever,
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Gandhi, where you played the reporter. You also were in the only movie about Dorothy Day,
called Entertaining Angels, where you played Peter Moran, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker.
And you're in the only movie, major movie about Dr. King, called Selma, where you played the judge,
who lifted the injunction and allowed the march to proceed. So, here we're talking
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movies about war, but also the greatest peacemakers, Gandhi, Martin Luther King,
and Dorothy Day. What did you, just tell me a little bit about what you might have learned
from all of that, the war movie and the peacemaker's movies about your own journey of peace and non-violence?
I know that's a ridiculous big question, but maybe one or two things.
You know what's interesting, you mentioned Apocalypse Now. That had a profound effect on me.
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And, you know, because I felt that I had exposed my brokenness, you know, my vulnerability,
my insecurity so flagrantly on film, you know, and I had to account for that in my own spirit.
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But that film had a profound effect on a lot of young men. And it went two ways. It was a two-edged
sword, because an equal number of young men told me that that picture inspired them to join the
military, and an equal number told me that they were inspired to reject the military, to reject
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violence. And so, you know, it's a personal responsibility that all of us have to face.
That movie, you know, led me to, on a very, very deeply personal journey, which culminated in Paris,
after, you know, I went to, I was in India for Gandhi, just for five or six weeks in 1981. And
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shortly thereafter, I was in Paris doing a film, and I was alone because none of the family could
join me. It was school year, you know. And I began to examine my own spiritual life, or lack
thereof. And India had really sparked it, because you see such injustice on the poor. You know,
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the country is, you can't turn right, left, or in front or behind you, on top of you, everywhere.
The poverty is so overwhelming, and the poor are so horribly crushed by poverty. I remember Gandhi's
quote, where he said, when he had to make a decision, he conjured up the most dire
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person he could remember, and he made his decision based on whether it would help or
hinder that person, that image. And that resonated with me also. What decision was I making for the
wretched soul that I had become? And so, I returned to the Catholic faith in Paris on May 1st,
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1981. It was a long journey, and it was the happiest day of my life. I didn't come back to
the church that I had left, which was fear and, you know, angst about being caught in mortal sin
and being condemned to hell should I die in such a state. But I came back to the church of Dan
(29:54):
Berrigan and Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day, the church of service, the church of nonviolence,
the church that serves the world to its human needs, which is equal to its spiritual needs.
We can't really accept one without the other. You know, the phrase I use is,
we have to find a way to unite the will of the spirit to the work of the flesh.
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And that, to me, is peacemaking. That, to me, is my way of doing things.
That, to me, is my real Catholic faith. That is where I meet the God of nonviolence. That is
where it gets real personal for me, is that effort to unite the will of the spirit to the work of the
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flesh. And when you find that, you know, the saying is, like Théodice Donne said, when we find out how
deeply we are loved, we have discovered fire for the second time. And I use that phrase in trying
to inspire people when I speak publicly about the journey that we're all called to. And that is to,
(31:03):
we're challenged to find something in our lives worth fighting for, something deeply personal
and uncompromising, something that unites the will of the spirit to the work of the flesh.
And when we find that, we have discovered fire for the second time.
Well, thank you, Martin. Well, that's a good note to wrap it up on in you speaking.
(31:25):
Oh, I'm not done yet, John.
Oh, well, we'll have to come back someday.
You and I talked before, and I thought I might share Dan's poem, if I may.
Yeah. Is this the Apologies poem?
Yeah.
So, this is from 1968, the day he did the Catonsville Nine action where they burned
(31:48):
draft files with homemade napalm and spent face six or seven years in prison. This is the statement,
I think, that you're going to read. And then I want to ask you about Tagore.
Okay. So, this is from Dan Berrigan, and it's from his book Night Flight to Hanoi.
Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of
(32:11):
children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the Channel House. We could not,
so help us God do otherwise. We say killing is disorder. Life and gentleness and community
and unselfishness is the only order we recognize. For the sake of that order,
we risk our liberty, our good name. The time has passed when good people can remain silent,
(32:36):
when obedience can segregate people from public risk, when the poor can die without defense.
We ask our fellow Christians to consider in their hearts a question that has tortured us night and
day since the war began. How many must die before our voices are heard? How many must be tortured,
(32:56):
dislocated, starved, maddened? How long must the world's resources be raped in the service of
legalized murder? When and at what point will we say no to this war?
Tom Hanks Wow, Martin, that is so powerful.
Thank you for reading it.
Martin Luther Well, that's Dan. His voice is still very,
(33:17):
very much alive in our spirit. Yeah.
Tom Hanks Well, one of the things when you give public lectures for all these years,
you always end with the beautiful poem, I Tagore, and I thought it would be lovely if you ended with
that and then I'll wrap it up and then we'll stay on a minute. But would you mind giving us that
(33:39):
final blessing? Martin Luther Sure, I'm delighted. I learned this
poem while I was in India doing Gandhi. And it was taught to me by a fellow actor,
Rascal Lee Brown. May he rest in peace. The poem is by Tagore.
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And I liken it to my own country. So I preface it. We are called to that place where the heart is
without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free, where the world has not been
broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls, where words come out from the depths of truth,
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and tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, where the clear stream of reason has
not lost its way into the dreary desert sands of dead habit, where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever-widening thought and action into that heaven of freedom, dear Father, let our country
(34:44):
awake. Amen. John Deere Amen. Well, wow. Thank you so much,
Martin Sheen, for speaking with me today. Martin Sheen Thank you so much, John Deere. I adore you
and I'm inspired by you every day of my life. John Deere Thanks, dear friend. Thank you,
friends, for listening to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. You can hear more podcasts and find other
(35:08):
upcoming Zoom programs at www.piatitudescenter.org. And there you can offer any comments and feedback
and make a donation to support this free work. Join me next week on the Dr. King holiday when
my guest will be Dr. Bernard Lafayette, one of the leaders and heroes of the Civil Rights Movement
(35:31):
from Nashville to Birmingham to Selma to Memphis, who is also Dr. King's assistant,
as we celebrate Dr. King's 100th birthday. May the God of Peace bless everyone. Keep on
following the Nonviolent Jesus. See you next time.
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