Beyond conspiracy theories to why JFK assassination matters today
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters
By James W. Douglass. Orbis Books (Maryknoll, N.Y., 2008). 510 pp. $30.

A veteran peace activist and author, James W. Douglass is among the few people in the world today qualified to write a book such as "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters."

It's not just a rehash of the many conspiracy theories that have floated around literally since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963, although Douglass did an admirable job of winnowing the wheat from the chaff in that regard, too. Of course, those who advocate for the various conspiracy theories will continue to argue in support of their own theories.

"JFK and the Unspeakable" traces how Kennedy himself campaigned for and began his presidency as a classic cold warrior. Gradually, Kennedy moved away from the knee-jerk assumptions of the Cold War and toward new perspectives aimed at building peace in constructive ways.

It was, Douglass explains, precisely this reorientation that led to Kennedy's murder. "It is ... our intention," Kennedy said in July 1961, "to challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race --- to advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved."

Douglass' book clarifies why Kennedy was murdered and presents a highly plausible theory for who did it and why. Douglass has no doubt that there was a conspiracy, and that it was planned and carried out, in a highly organized and sophisticated manner, by powerful right-wing Americans in both the corporate and government sectors.

But he also concludes that the primary reason these people believed that the New Frontier couldn't be allowed to go forward was because Kennedy's desire to promote world peace threatened the Cold War vision, strategies and objectives of certain corporate and government entities who felt extremely threatened by the international relations policies of the Kennedy administration. Indeed, he suggests that the same forces were marshaled in 1968 to murder Robert Kennedy as well.

Along the way, Douglass discusses in detail John Kennedy's policy with regard to Vietnam and explains how it fit into the development of an anti-JFK movement among those who ultimately became responsible for his assassination. "As spring turned into the summer of 1963," Douglass writes, "President John F. Kennedy had decided to withdraw the U.S. military and neutralize Vietnam, just as he had done in Laos. When he said that one day to his aides Dave Powers and Kenny O'Donnell, they asked him bluntly: How could he do it? How could he carry out a military withdrawal from Vietnam without losing American prestige in Southeast Asia?"

"Easy. Put a government in there that will ask us to leave," the president said.

The main purpose of Douglass' book, however, is to highlight the goals for peace cherished by JFK and so show that those goals remain as worthy today as they were in the early 1960s. The difference, Douglass writes, is that with or without a sympathetic administration in the White House following the presidential elections this November, "John F. Kennedy is dead. Now peace is up to us."

---Mitch Finley

Books on nonviolence range from the personal to the more academic
A Persistent Peace: One Man's Struggle for a Nonviolent World
By Father John Dear, SJ. Loyola Press (Chicago, 2008). 440 pp., $22.95.

Gandhi and Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonviolence
By Terrence J. Rynne. Orbis Books (Maryknoll, N.Y., 2008). 228 pp., $20.

Witnessing the violence of the Middle East during a 1982 visit, a young and shaken John Dear, while hiking in Galilee, promised God that from that moment on he would "hunger and thirst for justice" and love his enemies. He told God, "For the rest of my life I'll work for peace and the end of war."

A rapid transformation had occurred in the young man's life since the start in 1978 of his university years at Duke University in Durham, N.C. Then he thought the future might hold a career for him as a newspaper publisher, a lawyer --- or a rock star.

"A Persistent Peace: One Man's Struggle for a Nonviolent World," his autobiography, describes his journey from fraternity life at Duke to life as a Jesuit priest and peace activist, to life in recent years as a circuit-riding pastor of several New Mexico parishes. Father Dear has been arrested more than 75 times while protesting war, nuclear weapons, violence and injustice.

Father Dear traces the roots of his commitment to nonviolence back to the Sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes and Jesus' instruction to love one's enemies. Among his ancestors in nonviolence he also counts Mahatma Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others. Father Dear credits Gandhi with prompting many Christians to shake the dust from their Bibles and peer again "at the core teachings of Jesus."

"A Persistent Peace" is joined in presenting this tradition of nonviolence and peacemaking by another 2008 book, "Gandhi and Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonviolence," by Terrence J. Rynne who founded the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking.

Gandhi believed that violence never will result in nonviolence, that violence cannot bring peace, Rynne explains. He says that "in our time, because of the example of Gandhi and the many who have been inspired by him, ... nonviolence has been given new credibility."

Many readers will welcome the opportunity Rynne offers to gain a fresh understanding of the Hindu Gandhi's conception of nonviolence and his appreciation of Jesus' teaching, particularly as found in the Sermon on the Mount. Rynne's book should prove valuable at a time when Catholic leaders consider the development of more positive relationships among the world's religions essential to peace.

Rynne is at pains to explain that Gandhi's nonviolence had nothing to do with passivity. He notes Gandhi's conviction that people should refrain from violence in the face of oppression and violence --- not because they are "incapable of it," but because they are "instead exerting soul force, an even more powerful weapon."

Father Dear makes essentially the same point, explaining the confidence placed in the power of "disarming love" by practitioners of nonviolence. His is a book that reveals the "makings" of someone who could devote his life so thoroughly to nonviolence and peacemaking. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of Father Dear's religious superiors found their patience tested by his activities and commitments, while other superiors encouraged him. And there were people who judged his anti-military stances as unpatriotic.

"A Persistent Peace" may well be an apologetics for nonviolence, but some will find its story of Father Dear's development in the ways of spirituality of equal interest --- how he needed to learn to pray, listen to others, listen to God, forgive, become "aware of God's action" in his life and rid himself of violence.

Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan, who appears to have served as one of Father Dear's mentors in the ways of nonviolence and peacemaking, once advised him, influentially, that "the point is to make our story fit into the story of Jesus."

In Father Dear's book, readers are introduced to the many well-known people he has met and worked with. Some readers may wonder if he indulges at times in a little name-dropping. I suspect, though, that part of what makes for enjoyable reading here is the fact that Father Dear is the sort of person who would decide to telephone Mother Teresa of Calcutta when he needed her assistance, who befriended the Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who protested alongside, was arrested with and was visited in jail by the actor Martin Sheen.

In the foreword to "A Persistent Peace," Sheen describes Father Dear as a person "of moral and physical courage," one who from a young age became "fiercely independent" and "spiritually disarming," and who "would never quite be comfortable unless he was at the very least slightly uncomfortable."

---David Gibson

Entertaining historical look at 'female pope' has scholarly gaps
Mistress of the Vatican: The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini: The Secret Female Pope
By Eleanor Herman. William Morrow (New York, 2008). 438 pp., $25.95.

Eleanor Herman is not afraid to take on seemingly controversial topics and unusual aspects of history. She has written "Sex With Kings" and "Sex With the Queen." In her latest effort, "Mistress of the Vatican," she chronicles the story of Olimpia Maidalchini, whose brother-in-law was Pope Innocent X. Historians agree that Maidalchini had considerable influence with the pope and his papacy, which lasted 1644-1655.

Herman has an engaging style and creates an interesting read about Maidalchini, Rome and the state of the church at that time. However, there are many implications in the book that make a reader wonder.

For example, the introduction notes, "The church, too, looked on females as defective creatures.... The church fathers, who in the second through fifth centuries grappled with Scripture to hammer out Catholic theology, were notorious misogynists."

Yet, she writes in Chapter 11 about the historical relationship of the Catholic Church and women. She states that for three centuries "women played a major role --- teaching, disciplining and managing material resources. According to tombstones found in France, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, some of these women were priests."

She also writes about the tradition of women priests through the fifth century.

Herman's book relies heavily on the writings of Gualdus Leti when it comes to facts about Maidalchini.

And church historians do not argue about the fact that she had considerable influence on the pope and his decision-making. The Catholic Encyclopedia even notes that.

The book is vivid but often filled with "might haves," "could haves" and "imagines." One reads sentences that begin "we can imagine that one day Sforza (Olimpia's father) had a servant call her into his sitting room." Or the sentence, "Perhaps Olimpia snuck out of the house and scurried across town to the bishop's palace, knocked loudly and handed her letter to his butler."

The book concludes with Maidalchini's death and notes "we can imagine her soul rising through the gold-embroidered velvet hangings of her four-poster bed."

Herman also refers to St. Thomas Aquinas as arguing his theology in the 12th century. He lived from 1225 to 1274, which of course makes him a 13th-century theologian. It is a small error but does make one wonder about other details.

The author also writes that the "Latin word for woman --- 'femina' --- was said to have come from 'fe' for faith and 'minus' for less since women were thought too weak to hold and preserve the faith." A quick check of Merriam Webster shows a different etymology.

She also writes about the decline of the town of Viterbo, north of Rome and site of the papal residence in the late 13th century, and notes "the papal court moved to the peace and quiet of Avignon, in southern France." The author probably does not want to delve into all the aspects of the Avignon papacy but it seems simplistic to describe it as a move to a quieter place.

Herman's book is revealing, entertaining and interesting. However, it is not a great scholarly work and it seems to have an agenda.

Herman concludes her book: "But Olimpia's story, completely true, has been completely forgotten. New church scandals fill the newspapers. New saints inspire the faithful. And in an age when other Christian churches have permitted female priests, the Catholic Church adamantly refuses to consider doing so, citing tradition. The church does not concede that a woman has already run the Vatican itself, and her name was Olimpia Maidalchini."

---Peggy Weber

----CNS The reviewers: Mitch Finley is a staff writer for the Inland Register, newspaper of the Diocese of Spokane, Wash., and the author of more than 30 books, most recently "The Rosary Handbook: A Guide for Newcomers, Old-Timers, and Those in Between," published by Word Among Us Press. David Gibson was the founding editor of Origins, Catholic News Service's documentary service. He retired in 2007 after holding that post for 36 years. Peggy Weber is the author of Advent and Lenten reflection booklets for families, published by Twenty-Third Publications.