Star Wars, Tom O' Rourke
The Philadelphia Archdiocesan Commission 
for World Peace and Justice, 1987

Looking back over thirty years

Looking back over thirty years with Tom, there was an evolution, a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of it all. He knew the hard, hard time people of his generation had, starting with Vietnam, in challenging the government, not accepting the party line and seeing love of country expressed in dissent and demonstration, often angering relatives and friends. I remember Dick McSorley, Jesuit of Georgetown, showing a movie on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at an early CPF meeting that seemed to crystallize the issue for Tom. The rest of his life was unrelenting opposition to nuclear weapons, and he became extremely knowledgeable on the issue. When Reagan was pushing Star Wars in the 80s, Tom published an excellent small book as part of the Cardinal's Peace and Justice Commission, condemning Star Wars as a violation of Catholic morality. Cardinal Krol blessed the effort.

Another memory of Tom is signs. CPF had the biggest, clearest condemnations of the Bomb and Start Wars, always in the name of God. Sometimes at a march or demonstration I'd hope Tom would leave the signs home, give us a little quiet anonymity, but he dragged them to DC, the Nevada test site, the Liberty Bell. They always knew who we were. Tom felt the effort to nuclearize space, the heavens, was the ultimate blasphemy - man seeking to usurp the divine. And he always wrote and pleaded on the issue, as with capital punishment, that it was beneath our dignity as human beings to support individual, or massive, killing of our fellow human beings. He would express these views in parishes and take the wrath that inevitably came with dignity, and calmly, but unflinchingly, call the people to higher ground. It took a great deal of courage.

He was deeply discouraged, when the Gulf War broke, out that the church was not unequivocal in opposing the ensuing massacre. It was not the role of church to bless the weapons. He was often hearfeltly disappointed in the church's response as not representing the voice of Christ, as diluted religion.

Lastly he became passionately committed to the plight of the earth, mentored by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme. As always, he gained a profound understanding of the topic. But this issue, above all, radically transformed his view of the universe, the earth, his life style, and his relationship to all living beings. Over the last few years, a simplicity of life emerged, a gentleness toward the planet. Consumerism was not on his agenda. The fate of the Earth was his passion. Just this past year he retreated with Jonathan Schell and a few others to plot and plan how to save our precious earth. He was a star; integrity was his middle name.

Joe Bradley

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