Peace-activist priest John Dear to speak Thursday at Newman Center Lent serie

The Newman Center and Chaminade University’s Campus Ministry are presenting Father John Dear, an internationally recognized voice for peace and nonviolence, at 7 p.m. Thursday as part of a weekly Lenten series at Newman.

The priest, activist and author will speak on Pope Francis’ call to dedicate 2017 as a year of “active nonviolence,” having helped the pope draft his Jan. 1 World Day of Peace message, a news release said.

Dear served as director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest interfaith peace organization in the U.S. After Sept. 11, 2001, he was a Red Cross coordinator of chaplains at the Family Assistance Center in New York and counseled rescue workers and thousands who lost family members in the terror attack.

Dear has traveled the war zones of the world, been arrested some 80 times for peace, lectures on peace extensively across the U.S. and pastored several churches in New Mexico.

His 35 books include “The Beatitudes of Peace,” “The Nonviolent Life,” “Walking the Way,” “Thomas Merton, Peacemaker” and “A Persistent Peace.” He has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, including by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat from Maryland among others.

A former Jesuit, he frequently presided at Mass at the Newman Center. He is now a priest of the Diocese of Monterey, Calif., and works for campaignnonviolence.org. See johndear.org.