Category Archives: Saints and Soldiers

Marine Sniper Found Dead

Retired Cpl. Robert Richards, 28, was found dead in his home. He was one of the Marines in the infamous video of American soldiers urinating on dead bodies. The cause of his death is not yet known.

In reading this, I stumbled upon a video of him explaining his controversial actions and how war changes your mind: “I want to say you’re not killing human beings and I still don’t look at them as human beings. I never will.  You don’t feel any empathy or remorse for them…At the time it meant nothing. It was just funny.”

He also says, “It was the only thing I was really good at in life was being a Marine sniper. I’ll miss it every day. I still miss it to this day.”

My God have mercy on his soul.

This is a great series about dehumanization of the enemy in war.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, Aug. 14

The following reflection was written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.

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The story of St. Maximilian Kolbe is fairly well known. He was a Franciscan priest with an intense spiritual relationship with Jesus’ mother, Mary, who founded a monastery in Nagasaki that survived completely intact the August 9, 1945 atomic bombing of that city, and who on August 14, 1941, at Auschwitz, freely offered to lay down his life for a Jewish man with a family, Franciszek Gajowniczek, who had been selected to be killed in retaliation for the escape of some prisoners. The man and his family were at Maximilian Kolbe’s canonization by John Paul II in 1982.

St. Maximilian Kolbe in this act of nonviolent, dying to self-love at Auschwitz on behalf of that man is an excellent witness to defending others in a Way utterly consistent with the Way of Jesus and with the Will of the Father of all as revealed by Jesus. His is a witness to Christlike, nonviolent, self-sacrificial love (agape) of a neighbor, even if one does not even know him or her personally. So, St. Maximilian Kolbe has been officially designated by the Church as a Martyr of Charity.

Charity is the English translation of the Latin word, caritas, which is the Latin translation of the Greek word agape, which in the New Testament is used 318 times out of the 338 times that love appears as a noun, verb or adjective. (The other 18 times the Greek word for love that is employed is philia, as in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia.) The word martyr derives from the Greek word for witness, martys.

In its original meaning, the word martyr, meaning witness, was used in the secular sphere as well as in the New Testament. The process of bearing witness was not necessarily intended to lead to the death of the witness, although this could be a consequence. During the early Christiancenturies, the term acquired the extended meaning of a believer in Jesus Christ, who is called to witness to his or her belief, and on account of this witness, may have to suffer and/or die. In Christianity a martyr, in accordance with the meaning of the original Greek martys in the New Testament, is one who gives testimony, usually written, verbal or incarnational. In particular, the testimony is that the Gospel is theWord of God, is true and is worthy in every way of total trust.

Eusebius, the first Church historian (c.337), wrote of these first three centuries of Christians: “They were so eager to imitate Christ … they gladly yielded the title of martyr to Christ, the true Martyr.” The early Christians who first began to use the term martyr in its new sense, saw Jesus as the first and greatest martyr, on account of His crucifixion in fidelity to the Word of God. For them He was seen as the archetypal martyr. A Christian witness, whether written, spoken or lived, is a witness to Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and Savior of all humanity, whether or not death follows. But, regardless whether death ensues, the Christian witness follows the example of Jesusin offering up his or her life in nonviolent, suffering love of God through loving others, as well as, in order to communicate to others the truth and trustworthinessof God as revealed in the Person, words and deeds of the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels.

One of the aspects of Maximilian Kolbe’s Christlike martyrdom in Christ, with Christ and for Christ and for those whom Christ came to save is that he did not know if it was going to work or make any difference for the man. Nazis starting, with their leader, did not have much of a track record for keeping their word or telling the truth. Kolbe was told the man would be spared if he took his place. But he certainly knew the odds that the SS, who ran Auschwitz, would be faithful to a promise were not promising, as well as, the odds of the man for whom he was giving his life could survive in such place until the war was over. Maximilian Kolbe, like the Nonviolent, merciful Jesus of Nazareth on the cross at Golgotha, had no human assurance that what he was doing would make any difference at all. All he knew was, what St. Edith Stein knew almost exactly a year later when confronted with Jewish children bedraggled, dirty, terrified and confused because they were separated from their parents, she began to wash them, comb their hair and comfort them. “Here is a human being,” they both would have said to themselves, “ who needs help and love and I have the power to offer some help and love in a way that is in totals conformity with the will of the Father of all as revealed by Jesus Christ. So, Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein did just that without the slightest earthly guarantee that the Christlike love they gave in the midst of the madness of war would make the slightest difference or be known to any one but God.

From the perspective of seventy years after their choices, we know the difference those Christlike acts have made. A Christian never has to worry about being a socially responsible person towards other or meeting his or her obligation to defend others from evil, if he or she is as creative and courageous following the Way of the Word of God Incarnate, as were St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Edith Stein. As Dorothy Day often said, “It is our faith that the good deed will ultimately produce good results.” Human beings never define good. Only God is good and therefore only God knows what is good. Therefore what the good, but invisible, God says in His visible image, Jesus Christ, is good. Anything that contradicts that good is evil.

If St. Maximilian Kolbe could have saved a hundred lives or ten thousand lives by an act of nonviolent self-sacrificial love for others, without knowledge that it would alter anything, but simply because a person or people needed that act of Christlike love, solidarity and hope now, needed that witness to the truth and trustworthiness of Jesus now, would he have done it?

There was a time when one man on earth had an opportunity to possibly prevent a war from starting, that has since killed and maimed millions upon millions of people. The choice he had to make was to go to the country that was about to be invaded by a military juggernaut a thousand time more powerful that that of the country to be invaded, and sit with the poor people of that country and say to the invading country, “If you want to kill these brothers and sisters of mine, you’ll have to kill me along with them.” He didn’t, and the carnage of that war goes on in full force to this very hour.

Christlike, nonviolent, agapic creativity, courage, truthfulness and fidelity in presenting the spoken Word, the written Word and the lived Word is what the Church needs now from its popes, cardinals, bishops priests, ministers and pastors. It does not need any more of the travesty of expanding that deceitful illusion of Jesus’ moral teaching, Catholic Just War Theory, into where it had never gone before, namely, into the wide open spaces of selectively chosen cross-border interventionist “humanitarian” military slaughter to stop selectively defined and interpreted crimes against humanity. Continuing to pass-off such thinking as morally compatible with the teachings of Jesus simply opens the doors wide for government-corporate empire builders, like the Project for a New American Century, to recruit Christians to murderously steamroll their agenda across the face of the earth. The works of war, regardless of the grandiose reasons given for choosing them, are never the works of Christlike love, which are the exclusive means by which God saves the individual and all humanity. And, such love is the power that vanquishes all other power, believe it or not. There are many things in this world that cannot be done with Christlike love, and therefore cannot be done by Christians. The intentional destruction of human beings, regardless of how lofty the cause, is one of them. It is in the Christian’s and Christian community’s resolute commitment to that truth, that hitherto unseen possibilities reveal themselves.

Nevertheless, as the late Rev. John L. McKenzie succinctly focuses the issue, “The thing about following Jesus is that you don’t do the right thing because it works; you do it because it’s the right thing. If it doesn’t work, nothing works because the wrong thing doesn’t work either. I think we have proven that.”

 

Pat Tillman Anti-War?

Worth Fighting For? by David Swanson is a great article about a book by a former soldier, Rory Fanning, who walked across the United States to raise money for the Pat Tillman Foundation after leaving the Army Rangers as a Conscientious Objector. There is reason to think Pat Tillman turned against the war and had planned on using his fame as a platform to speak out against it upon his return, and so naturally there is reason to suspect that his death was not an accident. Of course, we can’t be surprised to hear this:

“Fanning recounts a conversation with a military chaplain.  Fanning made the case that the whole war was unjust.  The chaplain made the case that God wanted him to do it anyway. “

worth

In Defense of JPII, Peacemaker

In 2005 Justin Raimando wrote this incredible defense of Pope John Paul II. Can’t believe I missed it. He writes “John Paul II is a unique figure, a giant of a man who towers so high above his critics that to focus on the latter is, in a sense, an injustice. But somebody ought to remind pope-john-paul-IIthe world of the sins of his detractors (even as today, they praise him, or hold their tongues), and it might as well be me, a sinful unbeliever. I may be ‘exuberantly pagan,’ as neocon enforcer David ‘Axis of Evil’ Frum put it, but I recognize a real saint when I see one…” Here’s more.

“’A defeat for humanity’ is how John Paul II characterized the Iraq conflict. The Vatican rejected the arguments of neoconservatives, who sought to replace the “just war” theory that had ruled the Church since the time of St. Augustine with their own preemptive war doctrine, a throwback to the pagan era. As Bush and his British poodle prepared to go to war over nonexistent ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ the Pope sent a message to Roman Catholic military chaplains attending a Vatican-sponsored course on humanitarian law expressing the great ‘comfort’ given to him by the antiwar movement, which was taking to the streets in massive numbers: ‘It should be clear’ at this point in human history, he declared, that a ‘large part of humanity’ has rejected war as a means of resolving conflicts between nations. (Self-defense, he averred, is another matter). Hailing the ‘vast contemporary movement in favor of peace,’ the Holy Father backed up his rhetoric with action, calling on Catholics to fast in protest against the coming war and sending a diplomatic mission to Baghdad.”

 

St. Joan of Arc, May 30

Saint Joan of Arc, patron saint of soldiers

Saint Joan of Arc, patron saint of soldiers

Here is an interesting reflection on Saint Joan of Arc, a saint who was not canonized by Church authorities until almost 500 years after her execution, immediately after World War I.

“All saints are ex-sinners (minus one) and partially ignorant—so it must be carefully discerned what in each saint’s life is worthy of imitation and what is not. This is accomplished by measuring the whole and the parts of the respective saint’s life ultimately by the standard set by Jesus.”

25th Anniversary

“I don’t know that the United States learned anything from it.” Oliver Stone speaking recently on the Vietnam War at Ebertfest.

Here’s one we can’t forget on our People page, whenever we get around to finally making it: Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July.

Credit this photo: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

Credit this photo: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

Mr. Kovic contributed this letter for the American people to the MY HERO website on Sept. 14, 2001.

Dear Friends,

My heart and soul weeps with everyone in America right now. I was deeply saddened by the terrible tragedy that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. I didn’t sleep much again last night, as it’s been for me, and I’m sure so many others since Tuesday. I wonder if we will ever sleep “normally” again? I have thought about it a lot and I am deeply disheartened by the blind patriotism, hatred and desire for revenge that I see growing more and more in this country each day. Resorting to violence and warfare is a great mistake. The painful anguish resulting from this senseless act of violence stirs in all of us a desire for swift retribution. I strongly believe that to move in this direction will lead us into a terrible and disastrous war which we, as a people and a nation, may never recover from. It is a dark and dangerous time in America, and I, in good conscience, will never support such an act of madness! We seem to have learned nothing from Vietnam, and those of us who have come to understand through great suffering the awful waste and deep immorality of war, are not being listened to. Those of us who have found that love and forgiveness are more powerful than hatred are not being heard. We remain invisible, isolated and alone, voices in the wilderness in a country that has truly gone mad. I encourage all of you to raise your voices on behalf of peace and non-violence everywhere. I love this country so much that I don’t want to see it go through the senselessness and agony of war ever again.

With love and a sincere hope for peace!

Ron Kovic

Ron Kovic at an anti-war rally in Los Angeles, California on October 12, 2007.

Ron Kovic at an anti-war rally in Los Angeles, California on October 12, 2007.

 

Battlefields to Farmfields

Good for these veterans. From the website groundoperations.net:

Our warriors are coming home from battle. They face a daunting transition back to civilian life, marked by unemployment, prescription drug addiction and astronomical suicide rates. They need a new mission.  Simultaneously, we are losing half of American farmers to retirement and the USDA is calling for one million new farmers to fill the gap.  Agriculture’s problem is the veterans’ solution. 

“Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farmfields” champions combat vets who are rebuilding their own lives as organic farmers & ranchers and revitalizing their communities with access to local, affordable, fresh, healthy food. These heroes blow the lid off stereotypes and you’ll be rooting for them all the way to your farmers market.

America needs a million new farmers. Veterans want the job!

Free Saint Patrick!

 

The above video is from the 2012 Saint Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston. It shows the famous float of Saint Patrick, followed by the Immaculate Heart of Mary School Band followed by a tank.

This year, as usual, the parade was surrounded by controversy. The issue: should gays march in the parade as an organized unit and openly acknowledge their sexual orientation with banners, signs, t-shirts, etc.? It was a little more heated than usual, because we have a new mayor in Boston and he tried to broker a deal between Mass Equality (a gay rights group) and the South Boston Allied War Veterans, the group which organizes the parade.

It is a complicated story, but basically, for a short time, there was an apparent agreement to allow gay veterans to march. The principal from the Catholic school featured in the above video declined to let his school participate with their band and float if the gays marched. The parade organizers said they had been misled by Mass Equality and cancelled the deal. The gays did not march. As usual, almost all politicians, including the mayor, boycotted the parade, and this year, the Boston Beer Company (maker of Sam Adams), declined to participate in the parade and took the side of the mayor.

The War Veterans insist that the parade must reflect family values and their Faith:

“We are tough proud South Bostonians, with deep scars from controversy that dates back decades. Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of our Irish. We love our parade. This parade is a chance for all to join together and celebrate the love of friends, family, and the faith of our community.”

In 1995 the vets won a Supreme Court decision that they have the right to exclude groups from their parade. They may have won a battle but they are losing the war. In Massachusetts gay marriage has been legal for years and the Boston Archdiocese had to end its charitable adoption services as a result. The US military, with the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell,”  has now been fully conformed to the American elite’s vision of gay rights. How can the Southie vets argue that gays should be excluded when a Brigadier General in the U.S. army is a married lesbian and an Okinawan Air Base hosts a drag show fundraiser for a group that advocates the military LGBT cause?

But more importantly, gay rights aside, the American military as an institution is increasingly incompatible with Catholic values. You know the story: unjust wars of aggression (as in Iraq), torture, remote controlled assassination drones, perpetual undeclared war on terror around the globe, an epidemic of suicide. Most recently there is the push for “women in combat.”  What could be more anti-Catholic than women in combat?

Those proud South Boston men may have won in the Supreme Court, but they will lose in the court of public opinion if they continue to hold a semi-secular parade that celebrates militarism. The best strategy would be to make the parade more exclusive of secular values and more inclusive of Catholic groups and the values of the Catholic Church, which is after all the most diverse and inclusive institution on the planet. Make it officially a Catholic parade to celebrate a Catholic saint and the heritage of Irish American Catholics. Lose the militarism, the tanks, and the guns. Have more Catholic Schools, marchers from prolife groups, and recruit faithful Catholic politicians (if you can find any) and public figures. Seek sponsorship from Catholic businessmen. Maybe there can be participation by Courage, the Catholic apostolate that ministers to folks with same sex attraction. Include workers from Catholic hospitals and charities.

It’s not my job to plan the parade but you get the idea. Peace, family values and solidarity with the poor as opposed to celebration of war and incessant bickering and vitriol over culture war issues that detract from the mission of the Church. The debate will end once it is a real Catholic parade. Promotion of gay marriage is no more acceptable in a Catholic parade than promotion of artificial birth control or Playboy magazine. Even Mayor Walsh will understand that.

The parade must change in order to survive. Massachusetts is the most Catholic state in the country. We can do better.

Note: I mention the company that makes Sam Adams beer, because, in 2002, they were involved in a notorious and depraved incident of what can only be termed “live radio pornography.” Ironically and tragically, there was a connection to St. Patrick back then too. I am not sure how this company ever became involved with the parade. Let’s pray those responsible for the 2002 scandal have repented, but if Boston Beer won’t support the new parade, here’s their replacement:

Massachusetts Trappist Monk beer story. 

Rape, Domestic Violence, Divorce

Sexual Assault Against Women in the Armed Forces

In this article, Joachim Hogopian gives an excellent overview of the problem of sexual assault in the military and the developments (and disappointments) related to the pursuit of justice that have unfolded in the past couple of years, but my only problem with it is that he offers a pretty traditional “feminist” critique, framing it as a problem of sexism, chauvinism, and an “old boys network” that gives sexual predators in the military only a slap on the wrist for committing the most violent and egregious crimes against women. While that certainly is true, and the justice system in the military can hardly be called that when it comes to sexual crimes, my feeling is that the rates of sexual assault in the military are less a gender issue and more like a spiritual issue. If you train people in aggression, violence, subjugation, exploitation, hate, and the use of force on a mass scale, and you send them out to utilize those “skills” year after year, how can you be surprised when they begin to act that way on a smaller scale and on an interpersonal level? These statistics are indicative of something far more sinister than sexism.

Matthew 7, 15-16: “By their fruits you will know them.”