Dear Occupy Catholics,
Blessings and peace to all!
We—a team of Occupy Catholics who helped found the group in New York City—have a proposal. Many of us feel that the Occupy moment has passed. We are finding ourselves and our movements going in new directions, with new language—from Keystone XL blockades to #BlackLivesMatter, from worker-owned co-ops to sanctuary for immigrants, from contemplative activism to debt abolition. We see these developments as part of the same story as Occupy, even if they take different forms and belong to a different time. We want to adapt our Christian witness in tune with them. One of the ways that we’ve been doing this is through Guerrilla Communion, a new, slowly growing group of Catholics supporting one another in their faith, and supporting the movements for justice around us, through a network of small groups in different communities. Here’s our fledgling website.
What we propose is to transfer the Occupy Catholics online networks over to Guerrilla Communion, thereby using the momentum Occupy Catholics has continued to build for an organization that will keep its spirit alive in more adaptable ways. This would include our Twitter account, our Facebook page, and our mailing list. This website would remain as is, standing as a record of Occupy Catholics’ work over the past several years.
Meanwhile, we invite Occupy Catholics supporters everywhere to consider starting their own Guerrilla Communion groups to help foster safe space for the intersection of faith and justice in your communities. If you want to explore doing so, please let us know at info@guerrillacommunion.org.
Please offer your thoughts and responses below. This is just a proposal, and we won’t proceed without widespread agreement.
Occupy, Catholics! 
Why the military motif? Occupy has some scriptural resonance – pitching a tent and remaining in hope, and certainly nothing about guerilla warfare. I looked it up: a member of a usually small group of soldiers who do not belong to a regular army and who fight in a war as an independent unit. Yes, it is a battle. Yes, we do have to do the unconventional. On this day in which we remember Martin Luther King, Jr., yes, he was involved in a battle, and was selective in choosing the time and place and means, but it was not simply skirmishes. Perhaps I am misinterpreting you. These are just my initial thoughts.
I do not like the term guerrilla. It is definitely too warlike.
I agree totally. Pitch the tent is scriptural and speaks of endurance and commitment.
sounds great!
From the definition of guerrilla: “A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary force operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy, as by surprise raids.” To me this makes the social justice movement sound too likely to be violent and militaristic. I get it we are in spiritual warfare, in a great battle of good and evil, but we must prevail through nonviolence.
I approve the change. Thanks!
I consider myself a founding member of Occupy Catholics. I was involved in Occupy Lexington, Kentucky, not NY’s Occupy, so I have been somewhat out of the loop. However, I started a Facebook group that eventually emerged with Occupy Catholics and have helped along the way with Occupy Catholics’ online presence, so I have a long-term commitment to this project.
I think this proposed change would be a mistake. I am very proud of the name “Occupy Catholics” and feel comfortable inviting people, including non-Catholics, to follow the page. The name is very clear. The Occupy movement may have faded (at least under that name), but people still know what Occupy is/was and understand the feelings of hope and revolutionary transformation it represented.
“Guerrilla Communion” is far less clear, and I would feel more restricted in how I could ask people to join such an organization. It would certainly take more explanation. Also, maybe I am being unfair in saying the following, but the name sounds sort of immature…something about being ironically “guerrilla” about having a potluck annoys me…I’m sure it’s a great group of people, but I am thinking about our wider audience. I can also picture some nice white-haired old pacifists not liking the name because it sounds violent, for example. It’s also not clear from the name whether it tends to be Catholics or whether it is ecumenical. I have nothing against ecumenical organizing, but I think a specific Catholic presence on the left is needed, and Occupy Catholics has “Catholics” in the name.
Finally, especially since it was formed out of Call to Action, Guerilla Communion gives the impression of being mainly a Church reform organization. I have nothing against Church reform projects, but I have always believed Occupy Catholics could be something more radical than the run-of-the-mill reform efforts…that it could radically challenge capitalism. I am less interested in groups that bring together people who are interested in “the Enneagram and progressive Catholic nerdiness” and would rather be building a movement that is more explicitly focused on challenging the military-industrial-prison-etc.-complex. “Occupy” clearly represents that kind of radical challenge.
Excellent points. I am in total agreement with you, Joan Braune. I do not like the militarism or the hit and run motif. Occupy has the Scriptural tradition of pitching a tent and hanging in for the long term.
Thanks for all the commentary on this proposal. I’m genuinely impressed that there is some protective energy around OC.
Just to be clear about the use of the word Guerrilla in Guerrilla Communion, I always liken it to Guerrilla Gardening. In my view,GG really seems to be a transformation-al use of the word Guerrilla away from a top-down-orders-giving-militaristic term to a description for horizontal direct action.
Can we agree that we don’t oppose taking action?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_gardening
I would also like to acknowledge that there are other reasons for opposing this shift which I have not addressed.
Come and join with other former Roman Catholics, and other Christians, in the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, truly Catholic, truly inclusive.