Blase Anthony Bonpane was the director of the Office of the Americas in Los Angeles, California, which he co-founded with his wife Theresa in 1983. Throughout his life, he worked on human rights issues as well as the identification of illegal and immoral aspects of United States government policy. Bonpane served as a Maryknoll priest in Guatemala and was assigned by the Cardinal of Central America as National Advisor to Centro Capacitacion Social, a center for university and high school students working in the field with indigenous people on matters of health, literacy and labor organization. He was expelled from that country in 1967 in the midst of a revolution. In 2006, The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation awarded Bonpane the Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. In June 2018, Bonpane announced he would stop broadcasting World Focus.
Bonpane hosted the radio program "World Focus" on Pacifica Radio station KPFK in Los Angeles at 10:00 am each Sunday as well as internationally from the KPFK site. On 15 May 2018, after 50 years of broadcasting, Bonpane retired from the program. "Blase’s commentaries and his guests on World Focus were truth-tellers with a passion for justice, human rights, and peace. It’s an understatement to say he will be missed." He died two weeks short of his 90th birthday on April 8, 2019. Blase Bonpane was a leader of the in Central America, December 10, 1985 – January 27, 1986. This venture from Panama to Mexico included some 30 nations and 400 participants. Bonpane served on the Advisory Council of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
He played a significant role in the dialogue in Latin America between Christianity and Marxism. Blase Bonpane led investigative delegations to Nicaragua, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica and Peru. He traveled through the conflict zones of Chiapas, Mexico together with Bishop Samuel Ruiz on a series of peace missions and served on the board of SICSAL, a hemispheric ecumenical secretariat based in Mexico City. He also participated in peace missions to El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador and Iraq. .
Electoral politics
Bonpane ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992 as a member of the Green Party. He received in Congressional District 30, the highest ever for a Green in the United States in a five-way race, in which there was also both a Democratic and Republican candidate.
Recognition
A complete list of Bonpane's awards together with those granted to him and his wife together and to the Office of the Americas can be seen .
