{"id":28740,"date":"2023-09-24T21:03:17","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T04:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=28740"},"modified":"2023-09-24T21:03:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T04:03:18","slug":"father-louie-vitale-s-f-peace-activist-often-arrested-for-the-cause-dies-at-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/09\/24\/father-louie-vitale-s-f-peace-activist-often-arrested-for-the-cause-dies-at-91\/","title":{"rendered":"Father Louie Vitale, S.F. peace activist often arrested for the cause, dies at 91"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a>Sam Whiting<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sep. 20, 2023 (SFChronicle.com)<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Father
Father Louie Vitale greets a cab driver after sprinkling a taxi with holy water at the annual Blessing of the Taxicabs outside St.\u00a0Boniface Church on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco in August 2005.Brant Ward\/The Chronicle<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In his weekly homily, Father Louie Vitale could not contain himself when he looked out upon his flock of the poor and distraught at St. Boniface Catholic Church in the Tenderloin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d smile and raise his hands and say, \u201cIt is just about love, all about love\u201d to his audience, some of whom would be lying down in the pews asleep. These were his \u201cbrothers and sisters,\u201d and he spoke to them in English at the 8 a.m. sermon, and in Spanish at 10 a.m.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Vitale did not have his hands outstretched in a gesture of giving, they were usually behind his back being cuffed. True to his Franciscan spirituality, Vitale proved his love for all mankind by participating in acts of nonviolence and demonstrations for peace. He claimed to have been arrested some 400 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of his legal trouble came through his position as co-founder of the Nevada Desert Experience, which pressured the government to end nuclear weapons testing. Closer to home, he founded the Gubbio Project, which made St. Boniface the first church in America to let homeless men and women sleep in its pews during daytime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That program continued long after he retired to the Mercy Retirement and Care Center in Oakland, where he died Sept. 6 after an all-night prayer vigil as he clutched his rosary beads. The cause of death was pneumonia, said his close friend and fellow activist Anne Symens-Bucher, who was with him until the end. He was 91.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLouie was a dynamic and charismatic prophet for our times,\u201d said the Rev. John Hardin of St. Boniface, which was established in 1864 as the first German language parish in San Francisco. A huge complex that houses a school, residences for the friary and a high-ceilinged church that seats 400, St. Boniface is across Golden Gate Avenue from St. Anthony\u2019s Foundation, where parishioners often take their meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a sanctuary for the voiceless,\u201d Hardin said, \u201cand Father Louie became their spokesperson.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 100 block of Golden Gate Avenue is now closed to auto traffic, but before that, Vitale would stand in the street in his Franciscan habit for the annual Blessing of the Taxicabs, a drive-thru ceremony in which he would sprinkle holy water on car hoods and lean into windows to touch the drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBless you, brother. Please drive safe,\u201d he\u2019d say. Or, \u201cI pray God keeps you safe. You doing OK today?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At age 84, in 2016, Vitale published \u201cLove Is What Matters: Writings on Peace and Nonviolence,\u201d detailing the life of what Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan described<\/a> as \u201cone of the most \u2014 if not the<\/em> most \u2014 rabble rousing peace activist priests in Northern California.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vitale had the credentials to back that statement. In 1982, he and Symens-Bucher created the Nevada Desert Experience to bring protesters out to the Mojave Desert near Las Vegas, and bring awareness to a federal weapons test site. They helped get the testing stopped, but it took years and years of persistent witness, including the 40-day season of Lent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vitale would stand by the road in his habit, tall and thin, always holding a sign calling for disarmament. Hours of this, in heat or cold and wind, were followed by a homily he\u2019d deliver to as many as 100 protesters in a circle. Among those standing and listening was Martin Sheen, the actor and activist. \u201cFather Louie is the best follower of St. Francis of Assisi that I know,\u201d Sheen later wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another witness was Sally Hindman, a Berkeley advocate for the unhoused and Quaker minister involved in civil disobedience.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLouie Vitale lived his Franciscan values at the deepest level,\u201d she said, \u201cand put his faith into action in profound ways by putting his body on the line over and over again, as needed in order to live out his Christian faith.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louis Vitale was born June 1, 1932, in San Gabriel (Los Angeles County) and raised in Pasadena, where his father was a seafood distributor. Vitale attended a military academy and joined the ROTC at Loyola University in Los Angeles. Upon graduation in the early 1950s, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was a navigator and bombardier, and in one instance his plane targeted what was detected to be a Soviet military aircraft headed over the North Pole. Vitale was preparing to fire a missile when the target plane was determined to be carrying civilians. That near miss turned his head around, and he soon left the military for the ministry.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he arrived at St. Boniface in 1992, it was to fill an interim position for nine months, which turned into 13 years. He lived in a monk\u2019s cell below the church tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known for fasting, he kept getting thinner, which only accentuated his ears, which were huge to begin with. \u201cThe better to hear you with,\u201d Vitale would say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing he heard was the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which damaged St. Boniface. Vitale oversaw a retrofitting project after raising $13 million to get it done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While working on that project, Vitale co-founded Pace e Bene (Peace and All Good), an action organization that trained 40,000 people worldwide in how to carry out nonviolent strategies for change. Its annual mobilization is Sept. 21, to involve some 5,000 actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLouie lived by a simple equation,\u201d said Ken Butigan, a professor of peace studies at DePaul University in Chicago. \u201cLove plus clarity plus determination plus hundreds of arrests leads to a life well-lived for the well-being of all.\u201d      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aug. 31, 2005, was his final day at St. Boniface, the annual Blessing of the Taxicabs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t the end of my work for God,\u201d he said afterward. \u201cYou\u2019ll probably see me again, maybe getting arrested somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was true to his word. Within six months he had been arrested at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in Fort Benning, Ga., for protesting the teaching of interrogation techniques. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he got arrested for a second time at Fort Benning, he earned himself six months in federal prison, first in Georgia, then in Lompoc in Santa Barbara County. He got a job cleaning the prison chapel and had no complaints about the accommodations or the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m getting to know a lot of guys here, and they\u2019re very receptive,\u201d he told the Chronicle\u2019s Fagan in a collect phone call \u2014 the way they always communicated. \u201cA lot of guys want to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, when Vitale was 79 and had been released from one of his longer sentences, his return to San Francisco was celebrated by Pace e Bene with a mass at the National Shrine of Francis of Assisi monument in North Beach. More than 100 people came, with speeches delivered by Daniel Ellsberg and Laura Slattery of the Gubbio Project, which has since moved to St. John the Evangelist in the Mission District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Boniface still offers Sacred Sleep, a project run by the St. Anthony Foundation. The people who pass their days in the church and everybody else can give thanks to Vitale at a Memorial Mass at 3 p.m. Oct. 6 at St. Boniface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe greatest tribute that we can give to Father Louie is to follow his example as peacemakers in a world that is headed toward destruction,\u201d said Hardin, who will be master of ceremonies at the event. \u201cHe saw all of humanity and Mother Earth herself as divinely created and dedicated his life to peace and justice.\u201d     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reach Sam Whiting: swhiting@sfchronicle.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written By Sam Whiting<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Whiting has been a staff writer at The San Francisco Chronicle since 1988. He started as a feature writer in the People section, which was anchored by Herb Caen’s column, and has written about people ever since. He is a general assignment reporter with a focus on writing feature-length obituaries. He lives in San Francisco and walks three miles a day on the steep city streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"San<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\"HEARST\u00a92023 Hearst Communications, Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Whiting Sep. 20, 2023 (SFChronicle.com) In his weekly homily, Father Louie Vitale could not contain himself when he looked out upon his flock of the poor and distraught at St. Boniface Catholic Church in the Tenderloin. He\u2019d smile and raise his hands and say, \u201cIt is just about love,… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1130],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28741,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28740\/revisions\/28741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}