The Story of a Great Peace Builder

By: Jim Forest

Jean Goss has been to the Philippines many times. His seminars on active Non- violence influenced our Bishops in that fatal Pastoral Letter which sparked the last days of Marcos. In a later visit, he personally confronted General Fidel Ramos using an interpreter, to complain of certain activities of the Cafgus. He and his wife Hildegard gave a special retreat on Non-Violence to the Columban Sisters and Fathers. His powerful, strong presence is unforgettable. One of his great phrases: “Peace-building is not difficult, it is impossible...without the grace and help of Jesus Christ.”

A Faith that Wiped Away fear

When I was twenty five, the Second World War began. I listened to the mass media; they said Hitler was the devil- if we killed Hitler then everything would be ok. So I joined the French army to kill Hitler. And I killed every day and night for many weeks- but I never killed Hitler. I killed so well that I received medals. I was a war hero, but within myself I become more and more destroyed  because I saw I was killing peasants and workers, sons, of families like my own, the people I wanted to defend....

Non-violence is a germinating seed, and you see nothing for a long time. I cry in the desert and see nothing move. To impose non-violence is literally non sensesical. People take time to be converted, that is to say, take the path of love.

-Jean Goss-Mayr
Jean Goss is Dead
Jean Goss is died only hours after packing his bags for a journey to Africa that was to start April 3, 1991. We will hear his passionate voice again in this life, nor feel his powerful embrace.

Urgent Compassion
Thanks to Jean, I can easily imagine what the apostles of Jesus were like after the courage and understanding given to them on Pentecost. Jean had in common with them a similar strength of conviction, the disciplined use of energies, a great hospitality to those around him, an urgent compassion for those who were victims of brutality, an at-homeness with plain people, and an inexhaustible eagerness to share with others, high and low, the truth God had given him, even if he risked being dismissed as a fool or risked being beaten or killed

Working at Fifteen
That Jean might one day become a renowned non- violent leader, and someone repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace, would surely have astonished him early in his life.
He was born in Lyon, France, in 1912 and raised in the rougher quarters in Paris. “Poverty forced me to start working young”, he re called. At the aged of 15, he was employed in the printing trades and became a union activist. “The union was the first organization I encountered, he explained, “which respected people”. At 16, I worked at a biscuit factory in 1937, he got a job at a French railway.

Croix de Guerre
In 1939, following Germany’s attacked on France, Jean enlisted into the military, rising quickly to become an artillery sergeant. His courage in combat won him the Croix de Guerre. He was lucky not to be killed on the battlefield. “My regiment was scarified,” he recalled, “given the task of covering the retreat to Dunkirk. We shot and killed as many Germans as we could. Those of us who were not killed were taken prisoner.”

Plan to Kill Hitler
It was during his five years as a prisoner that Jean was converted to Christianity and in the process, renounced killing as a method of social protection or changed.
“I went into the army”’ Jean often explained in subsequent years, “because I was convince that Hitler had to be killed. But I found that I could only kill ordinary people like myself.”

The Violent Person is Normal
Like Gandhi, Jean was convinced that only a violent person could become non-violent, and that the violent person is normal. “If I slap your face and you are normal,” he said, “you react, you want to hit back. You don’t want to get away with it. The question became for him not whether to respond but how to do it so that the response could provide a way out of the endless cycle of violence and counter- violence.

Torture in the Nazi Camp
Jean often said he had no attraction to heroism. Yet admitted there were moments when, nonetheless, he had done things that others would regard as heroic. “When I was a prisoner being tortured and humiliated,” he recalled,” I wasn’t afraid. It surprises me to think about it now. How did I live through all that? Yet I can assure you that since my meeting with Christ, I have never been afraid. I’ve been worried, but I have never really been afraid anymore. I know I would face up to the whole world. I am absolutely certain that God loves us more than we can dream, think know or believe, loves us beyond all our faults. That sort of faith wipes away every fear.
It was his willingness to talk about his faith even with those in prison that saves his lifetime and again. In one case, a German soldier lost his own life protecting Jean.

Jeans Meet Hildegard
The war was over, Jean returned to his work on the railway and his involvement in unions (in 1953), he was a leader of a General Strike in France. He also joined MIR-the movement de la Reconciliation, through which he took part international meetings in Budapest, Warsaw and Moscow. He was happy to discover through IFOR so many others who had similar commitment to active non- violence and became deeply involved. One of those he met was Hildegard Mayr, IFOR’s Traveling Secretary. She had a similar faith. Despite a difference in age of fifteen years, the two were drawn in each other and married in 1958, becoming partners in marriage, parenthood and service in IFOR.
Around The World
In their 32 years of teaching non-violence, they traveled around the world. Their extended stay in South America were crucial element in the development of Sevicio Paz y Justicia, the Latin American non-violent movement. In Eastern Europe they influenced many of the people ultimately responsible for the non-violent overthrow of tyrannic governments. In recent years they lead seminars on non-violence in the Philippines, Israel, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Bangladesh, and various European countries both east and west. On his own, Jean lead seminars in Lebanon and French speaking African countries, especially Zaire.

I am Not Yet Non-violent
“Non-violence,” said Jean “is like the Gospel. It is not something so ideal that it is unlivable. When you idealize the Gospel or non-violence, you make it unlivable. You move it into outer space along with comets, completely out of reach. It is no good to us out there. You can’t breathe up there. Your ideas and your life need to be down to earth when you try and fail but you keep trying. I am not yet non –violent. I have hit my children, you can see what a failure I am. Peter denied Jesus three times-still he went on trying to be faithful. Jesus is, after all, the only one Who is non-violent, not us. His absolute respect for the life of each person is where we find the model for our own efforts. In Him we find the model for speaking truthfully. Just listen to the hard words He spoke to the political and religious authorities around Him. And so He suffered. Telling the truth about a system of violence always means suffering. But He was always concerned first of all with individuals. He approached every one He met with love and truth and in doing that He planted the seeds of liberation. He gives me the example I try to live by. Without Jesus I am a failure.
“With Him, I’m a poor man happy to be in my way, part of the non-violent, part of non-violent movement created from those first friends of Jesus, what we call the “Church.”

Dom Helder Camara and Jean
A devout Catholic, the fact that the Catholic as an institute was often far from espousing active non-violence compelled Jean spend much of his life  helping the Church to recover its true identity. Perhaps nothing is more remarkable about Jean than his belief that even bishops at home with the world’s political and economic structures could be converted to authentic Christianity. Many Church leaders, including Dom Helder Camara, credit Jean and Hildegard with transforming their understanding of their faith and vocation.

Jean at Vatican II
With the backing of IFOR, Jean and Hildegard played a vital role assisting the Second Vatican Council, which at its final session issued a major statement (Gaudiam et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World), which recognized conscientious objection and non- violent methods of struggle for social change. Jean’s friendships with Cardinal Otavianni, head the Vatican Holy Office, was a crucial element in opening the Council for reflection on such long ignored topics.

Last Judgment
Christians, Jews and Moslem have strong belief in the Last Judgment: the gathering together at the end of time of everyone who has live, from St. Francis of Assisi to Adolf Hitler, from Stalin to Gandhi. Why is he weighing up of each life no longer has influence on what will happen next. It is a doctrine reminding us that what I do or fail to do has consequences for the rest of the history.
It gives me hope to think of all the good that will continue to come out of Jeans’ faithful, loving and courageous life.