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Cover Image Note
Patrick Jamieson, Victoria
Volume 40 Issue 7, 8, & 9 | Posted: October 20, 2025
Len Desroches’s new book Sister Water, Brother Sultan Francis of Assisi provides the cover image and overall theme for our print version of this issue of ICN. Catholics, Gaza and St. Francis is the topic that pretty well decided itself.
The famine and genocide in Gaza would seem a no brainer about where to take a stand but The Catholic Register and presumably many Catholics are decidedly pro-Israel, even pro-Zionist and pro-Netanyahu. Thus the need for a counterbalancing presentation of voices and reports. (see the article by Joe Gunn called “Continuing Anti-Palestinian Pro-Zionist Policy of The Catholic Register” in our Letters to the Editor tab.)
Veteran middle east analyst Noam Chomsky says the key for all Israel’s support is Christian Zionism, which is a whole study unto itself. Christian Zionism is a form of fundamentalist interpretation about the role of Israel in The Second Coming of Christ.
Len Desroches is a veteran of the struggle for Satyagraha, Gandhi’s term for radical nonviolent Love. His new book, reviewed by Lori Dueck, (in the Literary/Arts tab) a newcomer to Catholicism and these struggles, is derived from his fifty years of preaching, teaching and performing as a non-violent warrior.
I first encountered Len, along with Father Richard Renshaw, his brother in arms, so to speak, when they went on a fast against capital punishment outside the Don Jail in Toronto in the mid 1970s, before capital punishment was banned in Canada. They and many others were successful in their action in that instance, now the challenge is the horror of Gaza.
I went to study theology in 1975 in Toronto, and the three of us resided in Christian Intentional Community on Grant Street, in Riverdale, a working class district. The two houses on Grant Street were part of a network of such communities, all engaged in the social struggle of the time – the grape and lettuce boycott was at its peak in support of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers – Len was involved with support for Vietnamese political prisoners.
The Jesuits and other religious orders such as Father Renshaw’s Holy Cross priests, had a couple of houses, inhabited by, among others Michael Czerny, SJ, now a cardinal in Rome appointed by the late Pope Francis and retained by Pope Leo in charge of the Refugee and Ecology programs of the Global Catholic church.
Len’s book reads like his teaching notes and illustration from his retreats on St. Francis, which he delivers throughout North America. Len once told me that his daily job was to get up each day and go to work for Peace, like corporate executives do every day. Len was there when the protest was focused on Litton Weapon System. He wrote a book about his struggle to have the Cross removed from certain war memorials and now risks prison in civil disobedience about banks’ support of environmentally damaging projects and weapons manufacturing.
Now well into his seventies, Len and Father Renshaw are part of a Group of Seven prophetic Catholics who meet on Zoom every few weeks. My sister the theologian Christine Jamieson, who specializes in First Nations Spirituality, Jim Morin who resided at Coady House with us on Grant Street, now in Chile, (see “Weaving a Narrative of Hope for a Broken World” in the Features tab) as well as Hugh Williams, who resides in the village of Debec, New Brunswick, editorial entitled “On Changing My Religion” (in the Editorial tab) and Walter Hughes, a retired economist, “A Eulogy of Mary Louise McCluskey” (in the Obits tab) round out the group, which discuss Len’s books, including Who Owns the Eucharist and Richard Renshaw’s Dealing With Diversity, Questions for Catholics.
We recently sent a letter to progressive Catholic Mark Carney on the situation in Gaza, printed elsewhere. (see “Hello Prime Minister Carney” in the Letters to the Editor tab).
Patrick Jamieson, Victoria