CHICAGO — Kathy Kelly, a Chicago-based peace activist and nonviolence innovator, has been named the sixth recipient of the Berrigan-McAlister Award, an award founded by DePaul University’s Department of Catholic Studies in 2021. The annual award honors those whose Christian acts of nonviolence — like those practiced by Father Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister — resist conflict, foster reconciliation and seek justice and peace for all.
“Kathy Kelly has pioneered creative and bold nonviolent initiatives aimed at pulling back the curtain of secrecy surrounding war — from Central America to Iraq, Afghanistan to Sarajevo, and Gaza to nuclear weapons facilities — often at great personal risk and cost, while building friendships and bonds across cultures, borders and ideologies,” said Michael L. Budde, professor of Catholic studies and coordinator of the Berrigan-McAlister Award Committee.
Kelly will receive the award and speak at a May 11 ceremony on the university’s Lincoln Park Campus, with an option to join online as well. Admission is free, and attendees must register in advance. Kelly will deliver a public lecture and engage in conversation with in-person and online attendees.
A peace activist and nonviolence innovator
A longtime Catholic school teacher in Chicago, Kelly has been a leader in the U.S. and around the world in bringing attention to the suffering caused by war-making. She has called for nonviolent resolution to conflicts and demanded that governments and military leaders hold perpetrators of warfare accountable. She pioneered new approaches to deploying nonviolent resistance in conflict zones around the world and integrated local and transnational peacemaking strategies that have inspired movements around the world.
Kelly created and led numerous organizations and ad hoc coalitions over her 40-plus years of nonviolent activism. She co-founded Voices in the Wilderness in 1995 to bring medical and relief supplies to Iraq, going against U.S. economic policy that had led to large increases of deaths among children under five years of age.
As part of Afghan Peace Volunteers and Voices for Creative Nonviolence, she worked in Afghanistan over a 10-year period, engaging in nonviolent war resistance, resource sharing and permaculture. She later assisted with refugee resettlement outside the country. In addition, she was part of initiatives working on the ground in war zones including Sarajevo, Palestine and Lebanon and as part of Christian Peacemaker Team delegations to Haiti and Iraq.
Her work in active nonviolence encompasses many campaigns within the U.S. These range from longstanding work with the Pledge of Resistance, the Eighth Day Center, Synapses, the Catholic Worker and other important collective efforts in opposition to military interventionism, militarism and nuclear weapons.
She served 18 months in federal prison for her role in protests at nuclear weapons and other facilities. Starting in 1980, she became a war tax resister, keeping her taxable income below the federal taxation minimum for 40 years.
Kelly currently serves as board president for World Without War, a nonprofit volunteer network dedicated to eliminating the institution of war; it has more than 170 affiliates and chapters around the world.
About the Berrigan-McAlister Award
Founded in 2021, the Berrigan-McAlister Award honors a person or organization who exemplifies the practice of active Christian nonviolence. This vision of nonviolence draws from the life of Jesus, who combined the refusal of violence in violent situations with the power of universal love.
Few Catholics in the U.S. have been more influential in the peace and nonviolence movements than the Berrigan brothers (Daniel and Philip) and Elizabeth McAlister (McAlister married Philip Berrigan and was his lifelong collaborator). Their work against war and in support of peace — a life of provocative nonviolent protest, extensive writing and teaching and everyday experiments in intentional community — has earned them international stature in the Church and secular society.
Previous winners of the Berrigan-McAlister Award are the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation, Elizabeth Kanini Kimau, the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and Oram Haramy.
DePaul’s Special Collections and Archives holds a portion of Berrigan-McAlister papers, which are available to students and scholars.
DePaul’s Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, the Program in Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies, the Division of Mission and Ministry, the University Libraries and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences support the Berrigan-McAlister Award.
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Source:
Michael L. Budde
mbudde@depaul.edu
Media Contact:
Russell Dorn
rdorn@depaul.edu
312-362-7128