Our 2008 Fact-Finding Trip to Palestine: In Memory of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, by Rev. Dick Toll
By Rev. Dick Toll
One of my most memorable experiences as chair of Friends of Sabeel North America (2001 – 2011) was hosting the world-renowned Catholic peacemaker, Rt. Rev Thomas Gumbleton, a retired bishop from Detroit Michigan and founder of Pax Christi USA who died on April 4th. The trip was sponsored by Sabeel Jerusalem over ten days, including Holy Week, in the spring of 2008, and included visits to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nablus, Gaza, and the Galilee.
Bishop Gumbleton and I were accompanied by Meta Floor, a Sabeel volunteer, and Bishop Gumbleton’s photo journalist, Linda Panetta, as well as other members of the Sabeel group. For Bishop Gumbleton and me, this was not our first pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but an important one due to its focus on fact-finding. As the “soul of the Catholic peace movement, as he has been called, and his access to media outlets mainly through his Peace Pulpit homilies, Bishop Gumbleton’s voice had a wide reach well beyond the Catholic community.
I remember attending a number of Roman Catholic services throughout the week in Jerusalem and Bishop Gumbleton’s participation in Holy Communion service at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center where he spoke. Other activities stand out in my memory. We stayed in Bethlehem (West Bank) before going to Nablus where a Melkite priest invited me and Bishop Gumbleton to concelebrate Holy Communion on Easter morning. I told the priest that I was an Episcopal priest from the United States. His response was “Welcome brother. I invite you to concelebrate”. Three traditions—Catholic, Melkite, Episcopal—in one holy celebration of the resurrection of Christ in the midst of the same injustice of occupation and oppression that Jesus experienced. I will always remember moments like this that have made such a difference in my understanding of what the Roman military occupation of Palestine meant for Jesus and the Jews of his time and continues to mean in our time for the Palestinians.
After that service, we traveled to Nazareth and spent two hours with Bishop Elias Chacour, Archbishop of the Melkite Church in the Galilee and a special friend of Bishop Gumbleton. Bishop Chacour was also a co-founder of Sabeel in Jerusalem and the author of Blood Brothers, the story of his life as a child during the Nakba. We met in his home on Easter night listening to his explanations of what was taking place with the military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. He shared with us what was taking place with the Palestine citizens in Israel who make up 20% of the State of Israel’s population but have second class citizenship because they are not Jewish.
We then went to Gaza, a very painful experience hearing from Gazans who are subjected to the worst forms of Israeli subjugation. Extreme poverty, crowded refugee camps, sewage in the streets, no electricity or water sometimes, no access to fishing in the sea beyond Israel’s stated limits. This is Mother Teresa territory, the poorest of the poor and, indeed, the Sisters of Charity continue today to serve near Gaza’s embattled Al-Shifa hospital. There’s one Catholic church in Gaza, whose priest is from the West Bank. He told us he was not given the necessary permission to attend his father’s funeral in the West Bank because of Israel’s lock down of the border. The student body of the Catholic school nearby is 95% Muslim, 5% Christian. On this day, the day after Easter, he gave them candy and listened to them singing, as a way of honoring him.
Bishop Gumbleton told me that he had not been in the Holy Land since 1964 and how important this visit meant to him. In an article written by Nick Meyer for the Arab American News in 2008, he writes “Fast forward to the present and Gumbleton has completed his fact-finding mission. He traveled both up and down in Israel and Palestine, interviewing people from downtrodden Palestine villagers to Israeli soldiers patrolling the border walls, and he came back with a promise to do more to help restore peace in the region.” He is also quoted at a talk given to the Ramallah Club in Dearborn, Michigan upon his return. “We give more financial assistance to Israel than any other country and almost all of it is military aid.” Back in the U.S. later that month Bishop Gumbleton was a featured speaker at the Friends of Sabeel conference held at Villanova University in Philadelphia. The title of his presentation was “The Radical Challenge of Non-Violence.”
It was a rare privilege for me to spend Holy Week in 2008 with Bishop Gumbleton in the Holy Land, worshipping in Roman Catholic churches and having intimate conversations with Palestinians and Israelis throughout the West Bank, Israel, and Gaza. I will remember the man, his legacy of justice and peace, and give thanks to God for his vision and commitment.
Friends of Sabeel North America mourns the passing of Rt. Rev Thomas Gumbleton, a remarkable man, a beloved friend, founder of Pax Christi USA, and long-time member of the FOSNA Advisory Board.