Book Review: “No Guilty Bystander: The Extraordinary Life of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton”

It was March 8, 1965 and under the direct order of President Lyndon Johnson some 3,500 marines of the Ninth Marine Expeditionary Brigade came ashore on the beach at Danang, Vietnam. The Vietnam conflict had been simmering until then, mostly out of the sight of most Americans, but it was now expanding into a full-blown war.

About the same time, half way around the world, a young Detroit priest was tapped by his bishop to calm down the growing protests of a handful of local priests who were beginning to speak out publicly against the growing US Vietnam involvement.

That priest was the 35-year-old Tom Gumbleton. He spent two and a half hours listening to these fellow priests. He left not demanding them to silence, but, instead, beginning to question the US government, persuaded by the clarity of their arguments.

The story of a series of Gumbleton conversions as he further drilled down into the challenging applications of a Gospel oriented life are brilliantly laid out in a new biography, No Guilty Bystander (Orbis Press). Authors Frank Fromherz and Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister Suzanne Sattler deftly detail Gumbleton’s more than six-decade long pastoral journey as diocesan priest and auxiliary bishop. Theirs is a remarkable story, highlighting a singularly important Catholic prelate who has not been afraid to stand up for his beliefs, whatever the personal consequences. In doing so, he has often been a thorn in the side to his fellow bishops and he has been a beacon of hope to many.

No Guilty Bystander: The Extraordinary Life of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton (Orbis Books)

This biography offers an intimate look into the life of a man of extraordinary conviction and courage. You’ll not only discover Gumbleton’s significant contributions to peace, justice, and the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church, but also witness his personal growth and transformation.

Among the highlighted stories in No Guilty Bystander are the following, each placing Gumbleton at a critical vortex of US church and government history.

The authors reveal:

• By the Fall of 1972 the United States had flattened Vietnam with four million tons of bombs, more than the allies had dropped in World War II. Gumbleton recommended that the bishops clearly condemn the bombing campaign. They voted 186 to 4 for the end of the bombing.
• In 1979, after Iranian students took over the American embassy in Tehran, Gumbleton was asked to join a small; group of clergy to meet with the students and hostages. Gumbleton formed warm personal relationships with some of the hostages and their families back home. He succeeded in having the UCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) forge a strong resolution opposing the use of military force to solve the crisis.
• In 1983, Gumbleton, serving on a draft committee, had a strong influence in keeping the US bishops’ first formal statement on war and peace, “The Challenge of Peace,” from being watered down. The statement ended up condemning the arms race, promoted selective conscientious objection, and condemned the idea of nuclear of deterrence, — if the nation did not take determined steps toward nuclear disarmament.
• Throughout the 1980s, the U.S. government continued to make massive investments in modernizing and testing nuclear weapons. Gumbleton, as President of Pax Christi, supported one confrontation after another at key nuclear development sites. In the later years of the decade, Gumbleton joined the resisters and went to jail
• Continuing sanctions of Iraq under the Bush and Clinton administrations led to mass starvation. Bishop Gumbleton joined Kathy Kelly’s mission, “Voices in the Wilderness,” to bring food and medicine to Iraq and plead with the Clinton administration to halt the hidden war. Gumbleton traveled eight separate times to Iraq to bring solace to the Iraqi people.
• After 9/11, Americans were demanding revenge “to teach the terrorists a lesson.” On Nov. 15, 2001, a majority of the bishops affirmed the right to respond militarily. Gumbleton was one of four who voted against it. He objected to the depiction of the terrorists’ attacks as an act of war. He said it was a crime committed by criminals, not soldiers. It was a matter for police not the military.
• When President George Bush, Vice-president Dick Cheney, and others decided that Iraq was the next target, Gumbleton made his seventh trip there. Upon returning, he reported, “It is impossible to exaggerate the sense of terror the Iraqi people feel as they await the bombs to drop again.” The Catholic Bishops of the United States loudly and clearly said: “A preemptive war is completely immoral.” Millions gathered around the world to express their opposition to war. The bombs fell, nonetheless, once again.
• Central America: After the assassination by Salvadoran soldiers of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Jesuit martyrs and Gumbleton’s friend, Sister Dorothy Kazel and her companions , Bishop Gumbleton began to travel to the countries of Central America — accompanying people at risk of violence, criticizing the United States’ funding of violent militia groups and the training of soldiers from Central and South America in torture methods at the School of the Americas. For over thirty years Bishop Gumbleton continued his travels to Central America. The authors of “No Guilty Bystander,” refer to Gumbleton as a “peripatetic and persistent prelate.”

The title of the book No Guilty Bystander, is derived from the famous book by Thomas Merton, ”Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” in which Merton bemoans the fact that so few engage in positive acts of peace and justice. Thomas Merton was not a guilty bystander and clearly neither is Bishop Thomas Gumbleton an idle bystander. This biography not only showcases Gumbleton’s significant peace and justice contributions — opposing the government’s violent tactics, galvanizing the Catholic Church, and supporting those seeking peace — it also humanizes him. It illustrates his growth into the figure he has become, a process he described in 1982: “God has been remaking me…I have a deep sense of being at peace with all that has happened, and I am totally confident that each re-shaping of the clay is okay.”

The first conversion experience relates to the Bishop’s acceptance of gay people in the church. At a 1992 symposium by New Ways Ministry, he told his own story of receiving a letter from his brother Dan in the late 1980s declaring to his family that he was gay and how he and his family gradually accepted his brother and his partner into the family. That public admission led many gay people and their families to contact him. Later, he and his brother were interviewed on “All Things Considered,” a national public radio program. Bishop Gumbleton was asked: “Does it bother you that your brother no longer goes to church”? He responded: “I am disappointed in the church that they cannot understand the love that Dan shares and the beauty of gay love.” Over the years care for the LGBTQ community became a significant part of his ministry.

The second conversion experience related to his embrace of nonviolence at a time when the Church invariably turned to the ‘just war theory’ when it came to issues of war, violence and peace.

His conversion began when, as described above, he began to doubt the wisdom of the US involvement in Viet Nam after talking with a group of young priests. It continued as he counseled conscientious objectors and read their sincere letters to draft boards expressing their understanding of Jesus’ message and their abhorrence of killing. He read Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day. It really took hold as he developed a style of prayer — with Jesus, not just to Jesus. Jesus never responded to violence with violence. The authors give a number of examples of Gumbleton’s consistent embrace of nonviolence:

At a 1975 Pax Christi Conference he encapsulated his nonviolent stance, saying, “If we want the prophecies of Isaiah to be fulfilled, the swords to be beaten into plowshares, then we have to listen to Jesus’ message, his word that proclaims nonviolence and his life that lives it out…The theology of ‘just war’ is based on reason. It seems to me that Jesus asks us to go a little beyond that.”

He elaborated this view in a 1976 article he wrote in the quarterly, Gamaliel: “To someone who did not know about the life and death of Jesus, our way of life would seem rather absurd, imagine telling a person who does not know Jesus, that we are called to a life where we ‘love our enemies.’ Imagine telling a person about forgiving ’70 times 7,’ or turning the other cheek, or doing good to those who hate you… In terms of human logic, violence is seen as the quick, practical way to get one’s way. It does not solve the deeper problems. It breeds more of the same…. Nonviolence is the only way to a world truly at peace.”

In a 2022 phone interview, Gumbleton affirmed his belief in nonviolence. He said: “We do not have to take up arms. Nonviolence is capable of civilian-based defense, You’ve got to prepare for that and that is what we refuse to do. It takes time and it takes training.”

No Guilty Bystander offers a profound and inspiring insight into the life of a man who has refused to stand idly by in the face of injustice and, instead, has chosen to challenge norms, fight for peace, and stand up for those marginalized by society. Gumbleton’s life serves as a compelling testament to the power of conviction and the potential for change, even in the face of daunting odds.

Reviewer: Terrence Rynne, author of Gandhi and Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonviolence and Jesus Christ, Peacemaker, A New Theology of Peace. Instructor of Peace Studies at Marquette University.