Stephen Spiro – Presente!
Editor’s Note: I only met Stephen once at the Pax Christi National Assembly in 2006, but through e-mail was connected to him to the very end of his life. I count myself among the many who were touched by his life of great conviction and faith.
By Patrick O’Neill
Originally published in the National Catholic Reporter
In his obituary, longtime Catholic peace activist Stephen J. Spiro called himself a “political criminal.”
Spiro, who lost his battle with liposarcoma Oct. 23 in New Jersey, made sure he said his good byes to the scores of people he knew from close to 50 years as a consistent life Catholic pacifist, pro-life activist and war resister.
With help from his son, John-Paul, Spiro kept in touch with friends via cyberspace. Two weeks before he died Spiro sent his son the obituary he personally wrote in the third person and instructed his son to make sure the announcement was sent out to various E-mail lists.
Spiro, 67, was born in the Bronx. Spiro wrote that he applied for conscientious objector status “with the help of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, Thomas Merton and the Berrigan brothers,” but was denied. When he was drafted, he refused induction, and he was convicted of refusing the draft. His two-year prison sentence was eventually reduced to five years probation. He was later pardoned by Pres. Gerald Ford, “but his family was always prouder of the conviction than the pardon.”
Spiro wrote that “he gradually became a biblical anarchist and a radical Christian pacifist.” John-Paul, a professor of philosophy and literature at Villanova, said his father taught his three children about the Catholic faith from the perspective of peace and social justice. “I would then be shocked when I would talk to kids that I knew in church or kids that I knew in things like scouts or whatever who were Catholics and to realize that for them Catholicism didn’t have anything to do with war, with the death penalty, with helping the poor, with any of that stuff,” John-Paul said. “It was a strange kind of awakening to a particular kind of American Catholicism that, as I did learn, was much more diverse.”
Spiro went to New York City’s Xavier High School, a Jesuit education that made him a critical thinker, John-Paul said. “He believed the way he saw the faith was the way the faith was,” his son said. “This was not a particular interpretation. This was actually real Catholicism. He wouldn’t be belligerent about it, but he would say, ‘I don’t understand how you can be Catholic and be anti-immigrant. I don’t understand how you can be Catholic and support war.’ “He would say, ‘If you knew the doctrines better, if you read the scripture better, if you really thought things through you would understand that this is God’s position on these matters.’” Spiro received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from Fairleigh Dickinson University. “It was enough for him to know when politicians were lying or ignorant about economic issues, and helped confirm his anarchist beliefs,” he wrote.
Spiro credited “the grace of God and the fellowship of Gamblers Anonymous” with helping him overcome a gambling addiction. In an E-mail update Spiro sent to friends three weeks before he died, he wrote of falling and not being able to get up. “The telephone was across the room, and the floor is ‘non-slip’. Took me an hour to scuttle across to where I could knock the telephone off the table with my cane. “… I don’t mind death – I almost look forward to it. But the process of dying is aggravating as all hell!” Since his father’s death, the family has been flooded with E-mails, letters and calls, John-Paul said. “People are calling him a prophet,” John-Paul said. “Of course it’s sad, but there’s also something really beautiful about it.” Spiro’s wife, Diane Rankin Spiro, died in 2003. He is survived by a brother, Chris Spiro; two sisters Lyn Runfeldt and Jane Eagle; two other children, Judee Fiorello and Dan Spiro and one grandson, Justin Fiorello. Spiro’s memorial Mass was celebrated Dec. 1 at St. Francis Cathedral in Metuchen, NJ.
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