By Reid Forgrave
Enquirer staff writer

EVANSTON - The silence of the sisters was deafening.

They held crosses, stars of David and crescent moons, each symbolizing 50 people - 13,000 in all - who have died during the Iraq war. They held up placards of protest: "For me PEACE is ... disarming others and ourselves." "For me PEACE is ... not being afraid." "For me PEACE is ... being sisters and brothers to everybody."

Sister Margaret Quinlan of Buffalo, NY, holds an "Iraqis Killed" sign as she marches with about 550 people toward Victory Parkway from Xavier University's campus in demonstration for peace in Iraq. (Enquirer photo/STEVEN M. HERPPICH)

They prayed not with their words but with their bowed heads, for peace and a remembrance of all the victims of America's most recent war.

"This is an intense call to look at the human face of war," said Mercy Sister Marilyn Gottemoeller, who organized Sunday's prayer for peace, shortly before the 570 Sisters of Mercy began their march and prayer. "We have had huge posters on our tables here the last couple of days, showing the names and ages of all the people killed in the Iraq war up to July 12, according to official U.S. records.

A nun read a passage from the Koran. Another read a passage from the Bible.

Then they marched.

The steady sound of rubber soles hitting pavement resonated.

At the end of the march was a woman, slowly beating a drum.

The Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, in Cincinnati for a convention, walked down the hill from the Cintas Center on the Xavier University campus to a patch of grass across Victory Parkway. There, the sisters stood in a circle and read off hundreds of names of Americans and Iraqis.

Anthony Thompson, age 26. David Perry, age 36. Seventeen members on one Iraqi family, 15 members of another. Richard Torres, age 25. James Wright, age 27.

At the edge of the circle, the mother of a 19-year-old deployed Marine held up a sign adorned with his picture: "I support our troops. Bring them home."

---

E-mail rforgrave@enquirer.com