Professor Discusses New Book About ‘Spiritual Criminals’ of the Vietnam War

Loyola history professor Michelle Nickerson presented her new book, “Spiritual Criminals: How the Camden 28 put the Vietnam War on Trial” Oct. 16 at an event co-sponsored by the History Department, Theology Department and Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies. 

Nickerson’s book, published in August, follows the story of the Camden 28, a group of Catholics who burglarized a Vietnam draft board in Camden, NJ in 1973. After three months at trial, all 28 people were found not guilty of breaking in, stealing and destroying draft files.

The event, held in Coffey Hall’s McCormick Lounge, included Nickerson’s presentation and a Q&A session. Nickerson’s books were also available for purchase.

Nickerson said she started writing the book in 2012 and 2013. Since Nickerson is from Camden she said she would often visit home to work on the research.

“We would go and spend the whole summer at my parents,” Nickerson said. “My mom would take care of my kid or we would drive him to camp and I would do research. It worked out really well.”

Despite growing up in Camden, Nickerson said she had never heard of the Camden 28 until she watched a documentary about it.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Nickerson said. “I grew up 15 miles away and I never heard this story, never heard about any of this and this is my church. And what a story.” 

The Camden 28 were unique because they walked away free despite being caught red-handed by the FBI, she said.

“The story of the Camden 28 captured me,” Nickerson said. “It is a story of people who essentially used moral suasion to convince a jury to acquit them.” 

Nickerson said she wanted to use her book to tell a largely unknown story of ordinary people who affected history.

She was able to take a few semesters off to work on the book through the Faculty Fellowship offered by the Gannon Center for Women and Leadership. The Hank Center for Catholic Intellectual Heritage financially supported Nickerson’s travel and the transcription of interviews.

Nickerson’s presentation gave the historical and religious context for the trial and Catholic anti-war movement, the Catholic Left. Second Vatican Council from 1962-1965 and the issuing of the Rerum Novarum, a encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 led some Catholics in the U.S., including Jesuits, to seek religious reform. Most of the participants of The Camden 28 were raised Catholic, according to Nickerson.

“As part of their political awakening and their adulthood, they broke mostly from the church,” Nickerson said. “I think a lot of people have to make a decision at that point in time. They didn’t see any reason to participate in organized religion, but that was their world. Those were the people they knew. They felt very at home in the culture of the movement.” 

Nickerson’s earlier book, “Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right and Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Place, Space, and Region” focuses on conservatives in the 1950s and 1960s before American escalation in Vietnam. She said she was inspired by her colleagues who were able to write about the intersection of history and theology.

“I thought it was really effective and compelling for helping people to understand the mind of conservatives,” Nickerson said. “I really was excited by the possibility of writing a book about religion, and maybe even about my own religion. So when this presented itself, I was like ‘This is perfect. I want to go there.’” 

The book is dedicated to her uncle, Ronald Nickerson, and to her dad, E. Allen Nickerson. Ronald enlisted in the army not expecting to be deployed and died in Vietnam in 1965, according to Nickerson. Nickerson said she grew up hearing about Vietnam.

Robert Di Vito, chairman of the Theology Department, attended some of the Woodstock parties Nickerson described as part of the Catholic Left movement. The Woodstock Theological Seminary was a movement where some Jesuits moved their seminary to New York City and chose to lead more independent lives, according to Nickerson’s book. 

“It was a very exciting time, especially for somebody in the church,” Di Vito said. “We wanted to change the world and this was part of it. I think it still fires a lot of us. It was more a question of what it meant to be a Jesuit or Christian in the world. A lot of things got wild at times, but that was part of the learning.”

A theme of the evening was the intersectionality of history and theology and how theology has influenced people historically. The talk included a discussion on how the interpretation of Catholicism impacted people and politics.

“This talk by Michelle Nickerson demonstrated again how theology and religion have long been a part of our political discourse in this country,” Di Vito said. “That is certainly true today when in the current election we see the language of Christian nationalism is everywhere.”

Randall Newman, program coordinator for the Theology Department, said he helped organize the event after talking with Nickerson about her book and the Catholic Left.

“I don’t know that a lot of students, even in spite of the core, understand how important it is to understand the role of religion when it comes to various aspects of our public life,” Newman said. “This really exemplifies that.”

Mara Brecht, associate professor and assistant chair of the Theology Department, introduced the event and encouraged students to pick up a theology major or minor.

“Without telling stories like that of the Camden 28, theology might seem to operate only in the rarified air of the academy, or the local cathedral,” Brecht wrote in an email to The Phoenix. “But no. Theology matters and theology can change the course of history. History enriches theology and — maybe even more than that — makes a demand of theology.”

Nickerson said she doesn’t feel the calling to protest in the same way the Catholic Left did in the ‘60s. But she is still influenced by them and sees their ideas at Loyola today in Cura Personalis. 

“I wrote about them because they inspire me,” Nickerson said. “They focus my attention on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. They force me to think about where I am addressing and incorporating those principles into my daily life. It makes me attentive to the mission of Loyola.” 

Amber Smith, an exchange student from Deakin University in Australia, attended the event with a friend and had little prior knowledge about the U.S. during Vietnam.

“It was interesting to hear the distinction between the right Catholic and the left Catholic,” Smith said. “As someone who isn’t really involved in religion, I hadn’t really considered that as a potential before. It hadn’t really crossed my mind that there was a difference.”

Nickerson said she will continue to speak and educate people and students about the Camden 28 and she is in the process of turning the story into a podcast.