Arms Protest : Priest’s Fast Decries the Way Hollywood Will Salute Troops

The moral debate over Los Angeles’ May 19 homecoming parade for troops returning from the Persian Gulf War intensified Wednesday as a Catholic priest began a fast to decry the planned pageantry of tanks, jet fighters and other weaponry on the streets of Hollywood.

Father Chris Ponnet, the pacifist director of the Catholic Peace Coalition, also urged other religious leaders to condemn the show of military hardware. He called on Mayor Tom Bradley, co-chairman of the parade, and pageant officials to withdraw such weaponry as the M-1 Abrams tank, an F-16 jet fighter and the Patriot missile launcher.

But organizers of “Hollywood’s Welcome Home Desert Storm Parade,” produced with the cooperation of the Department of Defense, say they intend to proceed with their plans, citing wide public interest. “The troops are proud of their equipment . . . and I think the taxpayers have a right to see what they’re paying for,” parade producer Johnny Grant said.

Bradley representatives declined comment, saying they had not read any communication from the priest.

Ponnet’s fast represents the latest development in a growing debate over whether the show of weaponry--also expected to include an Air Force flyover--will serve more to glorify warfare than to celebrate the return of troops.

Ponnet, the associate pastor of Our Lady of Assumption Church in Claremont, said he chose May 1 to begin his fast to symbolize the similarity between the Hollywood event and the Soviet Union’s May Day parade that, until recent years, traditionally displayed missiles and other weaponry in Red Square.

“It seems the May Day parade is becoming less of a show of military might. It’s too bad we’re moving the opposite way,” Ponnet said.

Like many other anti-war activists, Ponnet said he is grateful to welcome home the troops, but not willing “to applaud the weapons that killed children and other people.” He compared the display of military hardware to “worshiping an idol. . . . Now we’ll see them cleaned and polished as the gods of this war. . . .

“Do you really want your fourth-grader to see this?” he asked. “Are they going to see this as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle kind of cool thing or see this as something that . . . was used to kill children and other people?”

Last week, Grant and other organizers bowed to requests of veterans’ groups and rejected an attempt by a group of anti-war activists to march as an official entry in the parade. Activists argued that they had supported the troops as they opposed the war and had the right to present an alternative message to counter the militaristic display.

In a related development, an anti-war group associated with All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena is organizing a march and vigil the same evening as an alternative to the Hollywood parade. Spokesmen for other anti-war groups say they are pondering whether to protest or simply boycott the parade.

Emphasizing that the parade will show historic and current military equipment, Grant said it will be more of “a rolling history lesson” than a display of war machines.

“I respect the priest and his right to do what he’s doing,” Grant said. “I couldn’t do it. I love food too much.”

Ponnet and other members of the 10-year-old Catholic Peace Coalition participated in several anti-war demonstrations before and during the war with Iraq, including three in which they were arrested for pouring blood and oil on the steps of the downtown Federal Building.

Ponnet said he intends to drink only juices for the first week of his fast and then rely on water alone until military weapons are withdrawn or the parade is concluded.

He expressed hope that the war’s troubled aftermath--the misery of Kurdish and Iraqi Shi’ite refugees, the foundering of Arab-Israeli peace talks, the continued U.S. military presence--is demonstrating the pacifist view that “war is not the answer.”

“I think we’re at a point in history that we ought to find other ways to resolve conflicts,” he said. “The flaunting of these weapons in front of our faces shows a world vision that is pretty dead. And deadly.”