Blind Obedience

From Thomas Merton’s Peace in the Post-Christian Era:

“The vague statement that a ‘Catholic cannot be a pacifist’ is often taken to mean that a Catholic is never under any circumstances permitted to object to war on moral grounds. It is understood to mean that as soon as a Catholic layman approaches a priest with doubts about participating in a…war effort he is told to forget his doubts, and treated as if the matter had been automatically settled for him. On the contrary, it comes to be assumed that a Catholic is in duty bound to participate in any and every war effort, whatever may be the cause, whatever be the means used, whatever the possibilities that war will arrive at an equitable and rational solution of international problems. All these considerations are for the government, for the military. The only thing the Catholic has to do is to obey blindlydecisions made by somebody else for reasons which he does not fully understand.”

In the linked video above, Naomi Wolf talks about the tactic of the past two administrations to “over classify” information about the activities of our military, to keep Americans in the dark, and punish anyone who dares bring it to light. Blind obedience is never a virtue.

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