Sr. Sue Sattler, IHM, says in book that Bishop Gumbleton’s 1979 visit with U.S. hostages in Iran showed another path
MONROE — As bombs continue to fall in the Middle East amidst the widening conflict following the United States and Israel’s military campaign in Iran, bishops and religious communities around the world are calling for a peaceful resolution and an end to violence.
On March 2, the U.S. and Israel launched joint military operations in Iran, attacking several Iranian sites and killing senior leaders after simmering tensions over Iran’s nuclear program reached a boiling point.
In response, Iran has launched missiles and attacks on multiple Middle Eastern targets, including U.S. military bases and energy infrastructure, closed the vital Strait of Hormuz, and vowed to continue fighting as fears grow of a longer war in the region.
Catholic leaders, including Pope Leo XIV and Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have urged an end to the violence and have repeated appeals to leaders to work for peace and dialogue, with Pope Leo warning of a “tragedy of enormous proportions” if a solution isn’t reached.
Like many religious communities around the globe, the Monroe-based Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary joined the call for peace, saying in a March 5 statement that “we oppose the U.S.-Israeli military strikes on Iran and any further escalation toward war.”
“War is not strength. War is not leadership. War is not peace,” the statement read, emphasizing Pope Leo’s warning. “Catholic social teaching is unambiguous: war must always be a last resort, undertaken only under strict moral conditions.”
Tensions surrounding Iran have been a constant reality for more than 50 years, said Sr. Sue Sattler, IHM, a longtime member of the Monroe religious community and advocate for peace and justice.
Still, the Church has always warned against the terrible cost and consequences of war, through which immeasurable suffering always follows, Sr. Sattler said.
Perhaps no one knew that more than the late Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton, who, in 1979, was one of three American clergy members allowed to celebrate a Christmas Eve ecumenical service with hostages at the American embassy in Tehran after the Iranian Revolution, said Sr. Sattler, who with Frank Fromherz co-wrote a biography of the late bishop in 2023.
“This war goes back to 1979, because that’s when the students took over (the embassy) and the theocracy was installed,” Sr. Sattler said. “Tom felt it was important to understand — not to accept, but to understand — why they were so motivated. He believed that violence begets violence.”
When Bishop Gumbleton was asked to visit the embassy under the escort of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, he initially had misgivings, Sr. Sattler said.
“He didn’t want to be used for propaganda, but he thought, ‘If I can give any comfort to these hostages, I certainly want to do that,’” Sr. Sattler said about the incident, which is detailed in the book, “No Guilty Bystander.” “There were moments when he was concerned about how the media in Iran would portray this, but that was really overcome by his interaction with the hostages.”
Before he left for Tehran, Bishop Gumbleton met with the family of Joseph Subic Jr., a U.S. Army sergeant from southeast Michigan who was one of the 52 American hostages.
During the tense diplomatic crisis — which lasted for 444 days — the clergy members’ visit was a chance not only to comfort the hostages, but to witness to the world that another path was possible, Sr. Sattler said.
“There were Catholics (among the hostages), but they didn’t necessarily put Catholics with him,” Sr. Sattler recalled. “It didn’t matter what faith they were, but it was just an opportunity for some of the hostages to be with a clergyman at Christmas, to share the experience and meaning of Christmas together in this desolate experience they were having.”
Bishop Gumbleton, who died on April 4, 2024, at the age of 94, was “so moved by the experience” that he spent the next four decades working for peace around the world, Sr. Sattler said, speaking out against conflicts and wars and doing everything he could to help people see the humanity in their neighbors.
“When he came back, he gave a lot of talks, and his thing was, everybody involved in this is a person — from those screaming ‘Death to America’ to the hostages themselves,” Sr. Sattler said.
War has a way of crystalizing division and hatred, of grouping and classifying people as “other,” Sr. Sattler said. But human beings are not groups, she said, and context always matters, as war affects not just militaries and governments, but citizens, families and the most vulnerable.
“I don’t think we realize how old Persia is — that’s what modern-day Iran is,” Sr. Sattler said. “They’re in terrible straits right now for many, many reasons. They have survived so much, and they think they can survive more than we think they can.”
Despite the geopolitical situations that lead to conflicts, the Church takes a strong opinion on war precisely because of the humanity involved, she added.
“We have to stop the violence,” Sr. Sattler said. “I mean, 160 schoolchildren, mostly girls, were killed on the first day of the war.”
In addition to the Iran hostage crisis, the biography also describes Bishop Gumbleton’s advocacy in other contexts throughout his life, Sr. Sattler said, including Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, his travels to war-torn regions, and efforts to stand with those on the margins both at home and abroad. In 1972, Bishop Gumbleton helped bring Pax Christi, a Catholic organization dedicated to nonviolence, peace and antiracism, to the United States.
The Vietnam War was a particular turning point, Sr. Sattler recalled. During the 1960s, he was sent to talk with a group of priests who were protesting the war, but after meeting with them, found his own views changed.
“He would listen to people, pray about the situation and what he observed, and let it transform him,” Sr. Sattler said. “It was a real change of heart.”
Even in her own life, Sr. Sattler said she’s witnessed the power of treating people as people — a simple and fundamental concept embedded in the Catholic faith.
Sr. Sattler herself spent time ministering amidst conflict in Central America, especially in El Salvador during the civil war in the 1980s. St. Oscar Romero, a Catholic bishop, had been killed in 1980, and four U.S. Catholic women missionaries were murdered later that year.
Sr. Sattler said she knew someone who knew one of the murdered missionaries, and “many of us in the religious world were concerned” about what was unfolding.
“The people who were being killed were catechists, health care promoters, teachers and labor organizers,” Sr. Sattler said. “These were peasants. These were poor people, and they were being massacred.”
Sr. Sattler visited El Salvador with a U.S. delegation for the first time in 1987, when refugees who had been sent to Honduras during the war were returning to find their villages “bombed out,” with no running water, electricity or infrastructure.
“They were building tents for widows and children,” Sr. Sattler said. “They had one for health care, one for church, one for education.”
Sr. Sattler recalled the visit took place during the first week of Advent, and “I remember just being transformed by seeing the reality of the Gospel coming alive,” she said.
In El Salvador, Sr. Sattler said she witnessed the simple things that brought joy to the refugees: family, faith and community. A mother watching her children wake up in the morning. Neighbors sharing what they had. Communities pulling together.
“I now understand what was meant by (the Church’s understanding of) the ‘preferential option for the poor,’” Sr. Sattler said. “The poor have nothing to lose, so they live close to the basic values of life. I don’t mean every poor person — I’m not romanticizing it — but I have seen it.”
Practicing nonviolence in a world beset by violence is not easy, Sr. Sattler acknowledged, but the Gospel has never been easy.
“I think it begins in your life treating everyone you meet as a potential friend, as a neighbor, not as the other, whatever category they are in,” Sr. Sattler said. “When we break down the view of someone else as ‘another’ — another race, another culture, another lifestyle — we see that each person in this life is created by God. They are all our brothers and sisters.”
