Ernest Evans, Rest in Peace
A model of decency and citizenship
I didn’t know Dr. Evans well, but we spoke at the National Press Club together for the release of Jack Ross’s book on the Socialist Party USA years ago. While I was in Kansas we were part of a Catholic dinner group in Leavenworth, and his contributions were always worth listening to. He was very devoted to Our Lady of Fatima as an intercessor for peace. I’m told he died this week.
He was a professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth, and later at Kansas City Kansas Community College. He also taught at CUA, Georgetown and Rhodes College, and was the author of Wars Without Splendor: The U.S. Military and Low-Level Conflict, and Calling a Truce to Terror: The American Response to International Terrorism. He was a columnist for the Leavenworth Times and wrote a number of articles for World Affairs, the most interesting of which have to do with the Vatican’s foreign policy, and was an expert on terrorism and guerrilla warfare. I was given to understand that he was a Democrat, but of a kind you don’t see very often anymore.
He left a few comments on this blog in the last 12 months, one suggesting that both sides wanted a riot on January 6, and another agreeing with me that Israel should not grow close to China, and that our success as a nation is in part related to the degree of freedom afforded to America’s Jews that is virtually unheard-of in world history. I agree with both points. His columns for the Leavenworth Times are a good example of the charming kind of localism that’s disappearing with the decline of the local newspaper. He was disturbed by the direction some things were heading.
He sent out a message to his Catholic friends in 2018, when the Russia situation was in decline. I’ll leave it here:
This March 25, 2018 is a special day for us Catholics. It is, of course, Palm Sunday and Annunciation Day. It is also an important day in the story of Our Lady's apparitions at Fatima in 1917. When Our Lady appeared to the three children in Portugal in 1917 she told them of the great revolution that would sweep Russia away from the faith, and that Russia would scatter its errors all over the world. She told the children that she wanted the Holy Father to consecrate Russia to her, but she did not say when. She said that his act of consecration would lead to the downfall of Communism in Russia. In 1929 Sr. Lucia, the survivor of the three children, had an apparition in which Our Lady told her the day that the consecration was to take place: March 25, 1984. Sr. Lucia gave this information to the Church, and on March 25, 1984 the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, consecrated Russia to Our Lady of Fatima—despite strenuous efforts by Satan, his Dark Angels, and his human followers to try and block the consecration. The rest, as they say, is history: In 1991 the Soviet Union imploded.
Today, we are again living, as we were in the early 1980's, in a world where there is a real danger of a nuclear war between Russia and other nations, including the United States. Such a war could destroy world civilization as we know it. Given this danger of a nuclear war, I would respectfully ask all of my fellow Catholics to stay a few minutes after Mass this weekend to say a Prayer of Petition to Saint John Paul II to ask for his intercession on behalf of world peace, and to also say a Rosary for peace this weekend.
Worthwhile things to pray for at any time. Ernest Evans, rest in peace.