KATHY BOYLAN, kathyboylan5@gmail.com
Boylan is a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker community. Video of her — “Pope Francis, go to Gaza for God’s sake!” — has gone viral on Instagram.
She said: “The Pope should go to Gaza — immediately. I think the Pope has a responsibility to go. The Pope knows that God has commanded us not to kill. Killing on a genocidal level is going on in Gaza. The Pope has to denounce it, has to be with the victims. This is a violation of all the commandments of God. Pope Pius XII could have gone to one of Hitler’s concentration camps — but Pope Pius XII did not do that.
“The Pope has got to go to the concentration camp called Gaza. I’m sure Israel would find it very difficult to say ‘no’ to the Holy Father’s presence in Gaza — and he might stop the bombing and he might stop the killing. And he should stay there, not just go and visit for a while. The Pope should stay — we beg the Pope to do that.
“And I have a message for all the other people, if you’re not the Pope, I’m asking everyone who is paying taxes to refuse to pay even a portion of their federal taxes, to end their complicity.”
Earlier this year, Boylan was arrested with 12 other activists while praying for peace at the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda. See piece by Art Laffin, one of the activists. She is also a long-time tax resister and has worked with the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.