Monthly Archives: November 2013

Final Note on AMS Collection

For the last few days we’ve had a chance to peruse the comments threads on various websites where people are chiming in about CAM’s initiative, described in a recent article in the National Catholic Reporter. There’s been some confusion about why we encouraged Catholics to put statements of protest in the collection basket. Critics accused us of “attacking” the military chaplaincy and trying to “deny” sacraments and pastoral care to Catholics in the military. Neither of these charges is true.

1) To reiterate: The collection was accompanied by militaristic sermons and appeals in Catholic churches across the United States, with priests and laypeople honoring the military for keeping us “free” and “safe.” Behind the campaign’s message lies an assumption that America’s wars are good and necessary to keep us free and safe, a comforting myth but a debatable assumption. This campaign shamelessly capitalized on and took advantage of one of America’s greatest sins: idolatrous nationalism. In its imagery and advertising, slogans and sentimental appeals, it discouraged serious reflection on America’s foreign policy, the moral gravity of war, and the appropriateness of Catholics serving in the military, especially in wars such as these. In short, militaristic propaganda has no place in the House of God.

2) Let’s keep in mind this was the first ever collection for AMS. AMS managed to survive for almost 30 years without this collection. To say our efforts were an “attack” that posed an actual threat to AMS was a bit alarmist. Even if nobody gave a dime, AMS would still be in the exact same position they were in last year. They’d probably just throw a fundraiser, invite a bunch of beltway Catholic neocons with stock in the arms industry, play some golf, pray for the troops, smoke some cigars and cha-ching! Problem solved. Nothing in the public record suggests that Catholics in the military would lose access to the sacraments or pastoral care without this collection.

3) Military personnel receive a salary, free health care, free food, free or subsidized housing, family pay, education benefits, enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses, a noncontributory retirement plan, tax-free and hazardous duty pay if deployed to a combat zone, and a lifetime of benefits if they get seriously injured in the line of duty. These people are professionals, not charity cases. The Archdiocese of the Military has to raise about $5.5 million in private donations annually; the U.S. military has about 360,000 Catholics on active-duty; that’s about $15-$20 per year per Catholic. They should be able to pay for their own Archdiocese.

4) Furthermore, these funds pay for more than sacraments and pastoral care for men on the front lines of combat. Much of yesterday’s collection will be used to pay for the $1.8 million mortgage on the archdiocesan headquarters in Washington’s expensive Brookland neighborhood. There also seems to be a lot of money that goes toward AMS’s educational and formation materials, which is kind of scary. (What do their materials say? “Love your enemies,” with an asterisk and a footnote at the bottom: unless a government tells you to kill their enemies, but only if it’s the American government, because if another government tells you to kill their enemies, especially if their enemies are Americans, then killing is evil. Sheesh. We haven’t even gone there yet.)

5) Reality check: Only 4 to 10 percent of military personnel are trained combat troops; the rest have normal jobs in logistics, training, administration, and so forth. If you join the military, you have a 0.02 percent chance of dying in combat. We have over 900 bases around the world! On AMS’s slick marketing poster, however, some soldiers in fatigues are, of course, attending Mass in a desert rather than in a quiet suburb of Munich. I suppose it’s more emotionally resonant that way. We wonder who their ad agency is.

One definition of militarism is “the tendency to subordinate all interests to those of the military.” We are in the worst economic times since the Great Depression. America has a record number of people out work, a health care crisis, and record amounts of consumer, household, and government debt. All kinds of Catholic organizations are desperate for funds. On top of the taxpayer-funded compensation, Americans donate tens of millions of dollars to veteran’s charities every year. Soldiers and veterans also benefit from special discounts at many stores, preferential hiring from some companies, and never-ending public displays of appreciation and gratitude from a supportive and sympathetic public. Since every Catholic has a limited amount of money to give to various groups and causes, the Archdiocese of the Military should be low on the priority list, especially for any Catholic who opposes America’s wars and militarism inside the Church.

If you want to help people negatively affected by war, we suggest making a donation to War Child International or some other organization that helps the innocent victims of war. Civilian casualties in Iraq outnumbered U.S. military casualties by at least 30-to-1. Unlike U.S. military personnel, these civilians lack access to top-notch medical care and never chose war as a career path. The U.S. government invaded Iraq under false pretenses, completely destroyed its infrastructure, and unleashed mass chaos that killed 600,000 people (including more than 1,000 Christians). Violence continues to rise Iraq, with 1,370 people killed in October, the most in any month since 2007. Perhaps Americans owe more to the innocent victims of America’s wars than the people who wage them. Another possibility is donating to the Christian community of Iraq, which has been decimated by the war.

This campaign was not about attacking or destroying the Archdiocese of the Military. We didn’t expect anyone to refuse to donate because of us. Our initiative was for the people who wouldn’t have given to the collection anyway, the people who have been sitting in the pews biting their tongues for the past ten years while their churches get turned into houses of military worship, not saying a peep about any of it because they didn’t want to cause scandal or offend somebody or seem insensitive, but feeling less and less, and less, at ease with it. At some point, you feel you have to do something, to speak out. It was for them.

We’re trying to start a dialogue about militarism in the Catholic Church. Protesting the collection was simply an opportunity to make our voices heard, to start a conversation that is long overdue, and to get people thinking. It’s very unlikely that our campaign negatively impacted yesterday’s collection. Some of our critics probably donated extra just to stick it to us. Military personnel will continue receiving the sacraments and pastoral care from military chaplains—and that’s a good thing…though we do have many questions about the kind and quality of “pastoral care” military personnel receive from the military chaplaincy. Somebody somewhere needs to look into that. Seriously.

Invisibility and St. Martin

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We received a wonderful, encouraging email from someone at Missourians Against Militarism (MAM). He wrote in part:

“While MAM is non-sectarian by design, it has a strong Catholic presence. In the years of our existence, we have experienced far less opposition than apathy and denigration, both within and outside the Christian community. It remains hard to dialogue when the other party is determined to have you remain invisible.”

I was thinking about this comment today when I was searching for a good video for the blog post on St. Martin of Tours. I came across this video by Fr. James Kubicki, SJ, of “Apostleship of Prayer.” In the video, Fr. Kubicki talks about Armistice Day and then he says: “And men and women have faithfully followed their civic responsibility to serve and moral obligation to serve and defend our country. We honor them today, on a day when the Church honors Martin of Tours, a soldier in the Roman army. The story goes…”

Now, one would think the story he would talk about would be Martin’s refusal to “serve” any longer, since that seems to be the most relevant and applicable story on Veterans Day. Nope. Instead he tells the story about Martin giving half his cloak to a beggar.

“Now there’s an example,” he continues, “of how the saints are living witnesses to the Gospel, for Jesus said that whatever is done for the least of his brothers or sisters is done for him. Thus did Martin win the war, the only war that will end all wars, the war against self-concern, self-centeredness, selfishness. Ultimately, it’s only in following God’s law, to love God above all, to love neighbor as ourselves that peace will come. “

Maybe it’s just me, but that seems pretty twisted, and like a pretty blatant attempt to render the real truth of St. Martin’s witness invisible. Surely Fr. Kubicki was not unaware of St. Martin’s turn against military service. Why the half truth? What’s going on here? How can we make a saint that turned against military service a poster boy for military service? I’m going to send this link to Fr. Kubicki and see if he has an answer for us. (I’m not trying to be confrontational, but seriously, if I don’t send a link, then I feel like I’m talking about people behind their backs.)

Along the same lines, when you read about the weird Order of Saint Martin, an award given “to those who have rendered conspicuous, long-term service” in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, there is no mention of the fact that St. Martin eventually turned away from military service because he saw it as incompatible with his duty to follow Christ. Nothing to see here, folks! Nothing to see here. Please take your medal and keep moving.

No wonder Catholics freak out when you question militarism: It seems like a completely subversive and foreign concept! They have never considered, I guess, that the civic responsibility and moral obligation to serve and defend the country could ever come in conflict with God’s law, maybe because no one has ever told them about the tradition of nonviolence, or the many instances of resistance and refusal to do the state’s bidding, in the long, glorious history of the Church. It’s all very bizarre if you ask me. This is something we should be proud of! I don’t understand why the need to be so hush-hush.

Second Response to Fr. Z

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Fr. Z had another diatribe on his blog on Saturday regarding the National Catholic Reporter’s article, “Military archdiocese collection muddies nonviolence message, detractors say.” Catholics Against Militarism was interviewed for the article.

He referred to us as Liberals and Leftists, writing: “Liberals are the experts at division. This is a Leftist idea and tactic.” Again, he labeled our initiative as an “attack.”

Fr. Z, in case you venture over to our neck of the woods here, we must point out: We do not consider ourselves to be “Leftists.” Both of us are libertarian-leaning and agree with you on many theological issues. One of us is a regular follower of your blog, and not even in a “What’s this loon going to say next?” kind of way. One of us follows your blog out of general respect for your views and sincere interest in your commentary. (The other of us never heard of you until this weekend.)

Fr. Z has a very 1960s mentality. The Left/Right mentality no longer applies to people, at least not in our generation. You can’t simply attribute antiwar and noninterventionist sentiment to the Left anymore. Things have changed since Vietnam.

“diablo” means “division”

Also, classifying people as “Right” or “Left,” based on one opinion or idea, as a way to dismiss that opinion or idea, is an example of argumentum ad hominem (attacking the traits of an opponent as a means to invalidate their arguments). In our opinion, that kind of attack is responsible for far more division in the Catholic Church than what we’re doing! How can Catholics have any kind of dialogue about important issues, if Catholics are making snap judgments about other Catholics and engaging in abusive ad hominem?

We don’t want to be derided and dismissed as “Leftists,” “liberals,” “pacifists,” “traitors,” “isolationists,” “anti-American,” or “unpatriotic,” just as we believe Fr. Z and his readers do not want to be derided and dismissed by being labeled “fascists,” “neocons,” “chickenhawks,” “warmongers,” “Constantinian Christians,” “baby killers,” or “bloodthirsty heathen idolaters.”

As Christopher Dawson wrote in his famous “Essay on War”:

“There is no subject on which rational discussion is more difficult than war and peace. In time of war, of course, rational thought is practically suspended and passion becomes a virtue, as we saw during the last war (World War I, 1914-18). Then the remotest suggestion that there was anything to be said on the other side, or that the enemy was capable of the smallest degree of human behavior, was regarded as a kind of immoral madness. Nor is this unreasonableness confined to the war-mongers. In time of peace, at any rate, the pacifist is often passionate and more irrational than the militarist, and it is usually easier to carry on rational discussion with a staff officer than with a professional pacifist. Moreover, the pacifists are far from agreed among themselves, and it is useless to argue about pacifism in the abstract when we are ignorant of the particular school of pacifism to which our opponent happens to belong.”

Believe it or not, we happen to be much more interested in dialogue and rational discussion than creating controversy and inciting comments threads wars on the Internet. To this end, we think that doing a series of podcasts with people who both do and do not agree with us might be a better way of fostering dialogue and minimizing divisiveness than almost anything else. To that end, Fr. Z, we would like to invite you to be a guest. We see eye to eye on a lot of things, but we disagree on just enough to make it interesting. If you read this and if you’re interested, let us know.

Here is our first response to Fr. Z.

Sneak home and pray

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Suicide in the Trenches, by Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon (1915)

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, Siegfried Sassoon was a WWI war hero nicknamed “Mad Jack” for his astonishing feats of bravery. He eventually became an outspoken critic of the war with his letter Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration. He was a poet and wrote a memoir called Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. His poetry described the horrors of the trenches and satirized the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon’s view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. Late in life he converted to Catholicism. (So, you know, I think we can claim him! What a fascinating person…)

St. Martin of Tours, Nov. 11

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Saint Martin of Tours

Saint Martin of Tours is patron saint of soldiers. He was a conscientious objector and the first unmartyred saint of the Catholic Church. In addition to his sudden proclamation, during war, that he was a soldier of Christ and therefore could not fight, he is known for, upon spotting a beggar, using his sword to cut his cloak in half and giving one half to the beggar. In a dream, Jesus appeared to him wearing the half of the cloak that he had given away.

The following is an excerpt from Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, by Mark Kurlansky, who has a somewhat cynical take on veneration of this saint:

“Some Christians continued to refuse military service. In 336 another son of a soldier suddenly put down his arms before a battle and refused to fight. The young man, Martin, had served in the military for two years after his conversion to Christianity. One day Martin said, ‘I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.’ He was accused of cowardice, to which he responded by offering to go unarmed in front of the troops onto the battlefield. The emperor decided a fitting end to Martin would be take him up on his offer, but before this could happen peace was negotiated with the Gauls. The battle never took place, leaving Martin to die a natural death sixty-one years later at the age of eighty-one.

But others refused service, too, including Martin’s friend Victricius. The Church addressed this Christian urge toward conscientious objection later in the century, declaring that a Christian who had shed blood was not eligible for communion for three years. Thus did the Church acknowledge an objection to warfare, but not an insurmountable one. Then in the fifth century an Algerian biship, Augustine of Hippo, wrote the enduring apologia for murder on the battlefield, the concept of ‘just war.’ Augustine, considered one of the fathers of the Catholic Church, declared that the validity of war was a question of inner motive. If a pious man believed in a just cause and truly loved his enemies, it was permissible to go war and to kill the enemies he loved because he was doing it in a high-minded way…

Martin, who refused to go into battle against the Gauls, is now Saint Martin of Tours. Martin did not really qualify for sainthood, since, according to the original rules of the Catholic Church, one of the requirements was martyrdom. Martin would have been a fine saint if it weren’t for the last-minute peace with the Gauls. He would have marched unarmed across the field, been cut down and chopped up for sainthood. The later Church, not the one Martin knew, needed martyrs, because extolling martyrdom is a way of promoting warfare – the glory of being slaughtered. Needing Martin safely as a saint on their side and not as an unclaimed rebel conscientious objector, the Church turned Martin of Tours into the first unmartryed saint.

Saint Martin has become a kind of military figure, usually portrayed in armor. The U.S. Army Quartermasters Corps awards a medal named after him, ‘The military order of Saint Martin. Saint Martin is supposed to have died on November 11, 387. Historians say that the day is uncertain, but the date has taken on absolute certainty as the Feast of Saint Martin, because it coincides with the date of the armistice ending World War I. It is difficult to know what to do with rebels, but saints have a thousand uses.”

Freedom

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Imagine you are standing outside your house, and it’s on fire.

There are some firefighters across the street shooting (mostly innocent) people in a field. There are people dying left and right. When you ask the firefighters why they are killing people, they tell you that they are doing it for you, to protect your house from being set on fire.

You scream: “But I don’t want you to do that! I don’t want that!”

They look back and say, “Nobody wants this. We don’t want this either. But it has to happen, to protect your house.”

You look at your house. The fire is spreading.

You find out the mayor was the one who set your house on fire. The firefighters work for the mayor. It’s not their fault. The mayor told them to do it. So you decide to take it up with the mayor. When you object to your house being set on fire, the mayor says that in a time of crisis such as the one we’re in, with people being killed left and right in that field over there, the government gets special permission to do things that they wouldn’t normally be able to do, like set people’s houses on fire, in order to protect people’s houses from being set on fire.

I look at the house. It is now engulfed in flames. All of my neighbors’ houses are burning too.

That’s how I feel when I am told that the military is there to defend, preserve and protect my freedoms.

Firefighters (in theory used only to defend something) = military
Mayor = federal government
House = Bill of Rights

It’s patently absurd.

I scream into the night, “How can my house be protected and preserved while being on fire?”

The mayor says, “Well, see those people across the street, the ones that look different from you, the ones that are being killed left and right in that field over there? They would have set fire to your house if we’d given them the chance. Trust us. Aren’t you happy they didn’t set fire to your house?”

I say, “But my house is on fire!”

He says, “Who would you rather have set fire to your house, us or them?”

So I say to the firefighters: “Well, if my house is going to burn down either way, would you at least stop killing people in that field? Can we at least stop that?”

Then all hell breaks loose. My neighbors become apoplectic at the mere suggestion. They surround me, a pack of wild dogs wearing yellow ribbons. I am reminded by my neighbors (whose houses are also on fire), that killing and violence is a part of life, and that it is necessary to prevent my house from being set on fire, and that I should be thankful for the firefighters who are willing to do “the dirty work” because without them, I wouldn’t even have a house in the first place. Then they appeal to my compassion, telling me how the firefighters are putting their lives on the line for my house, and they remind me how hard it is on the firefighters, and what a rough go of it they’ve had, and how they need my support. Meanwhile, screams of terror.

But if the firefighters hadn’t agreed to start killing people in that field on command, then the mayor would have never had license to set fire to my house. I care about the people in the field and I also care about my house.

So I go back to the firefighters and say: “Please, just stop doing what you’re doing! Can’t you see what’s happening?” And I feel like they stop for just a second, and look at me with sadness in their eyes, and say, “We would love nothing more, but the mayor told us that we have to do this or these people would set fire to your house.” I point to the charred rubble that was my house. They shrug and go back to doing what they’re doing.

Happy Veterans Day.

Nice Veterans Day Mass

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A nice Mass today. Our local church included one special prayer for veterans in the prayers of the faithful. Okay, I don’t mind that a couple times a year. Everyone deserves prayers. What gets me is when we pray for soldiers every week, especially when we fail to mention civilian deaths or acknowledge the work of peacemakers. That, I believe, sends the wrong message. On Veterans Day weekend, okay, sure, pray for veterans.

The homily was not about soldiers or war or “service”, it was something about marriage? I don’t know. I wasn’t really listening. (Just kidding.) In the end, the whole Veterans Day thing was very played down. In his closing remarks, our priest briefly thanked the veterans for their service and we gave them a round of applause. Yes, I clapped, not because I believe soldiers’ actions overseas for the past 50 years has anything to do with preserving our freedoms, but because I believe soldiers and their families believe that what the soldiers are doing is preserving our freedoms. I clapped because, I don’t know, goodwill toward men, I guess. And because my grandfather was a cook in the Korean War, and I was thinking of him. And because I have family members who went to Iraq. I don’t know. Maybe I gave into sentimentality for a second there, but, well, the essence of idolatry is taking a good thing and making it an ultimate thing, right? The duty to country, the desire to protect and defend — these things shouldn’t, in my opinion, be made into ultimate things, as they are in the military, but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing good there, and that certainly doesn’t mean there is nothing good — good intentions — in the people we were applauding.

Anyway, it was all respectful, but subdued, as it should be, nothing ostentatious or over-the-top, nobody wearing military uniforms in church. The third song at the closing was America the Beautiful. Thankfully it wasn’t the Star-Spangled Banner. I even sang. Couldn’t help it. I have always liked that one.

I think as a general rule, maybe a good measure of appropriateness would be that the brouhaha over Veterans Day and Memorial Day should not outdo the brouhaha over, say, Mother’s Day. The American Catholic Church has a long way to go in terms of educating Catholics on issues of war and peace, but if we can at least subdue the military worship, that’s a start. This year I think my church managed to hit the right balance, acknowledging the holiday, which surely brings some comfort to people who mourn the loss of loved ones to war, without glorifying war or elevating the soldier to the level of savior. Well done, Saint Joseph’s. Still, don’t forget your CAM statements for the collection! Happy day of rest.

Bullsh*t Train to Jingotown

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amorem bello

There is no immediate “Catholic tie-in” here, but we must post a photo of the uniforms that Northeastern will wear to play Michigan on November 16, just for anyone who balks when we mention creeping militarism in our society. It’s just getting plain sick. As for the philanthropic motive and PR spin about how the uniforms were not made to resemble blood but a “distressed flag” (whatever), here is some great (non-Catholic) commentary by Matt Ufford, a Northwestern graduate and a veteran, who says that he “hates” these uniforms and “would like to debark the bullsh*t train to Jingotown.” Right there with you, Matt. We think that train is headed straight to hell, and that’s no figure of speech.

Catholic economist (there’s a tie-in!) Thomas DiLorenzo provided some commentary on the LRC blog and linked to these BBC films about how the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco used sports to glorify the state and statism. Maybe we’re stealing from their playbook.

▶ BBC Fascism and Football – YouTube

Actually Ufford’s train comment brings to mind Franz Jagerstatter’s train dream:

“I saw [in a dream] a wonderful train as it came around a mountain. With little regard for the adults, children flowed to this train and were not held back. There were present a few adults who did not go into the area. I do not want to give their names or describe them. Then a voice said to me, ‘This train is going to hell.’ Immediately it happened that someone took my hand, and the same voice said to me: ‘Now we are going to purgatory.’ What I glimpsed and perceived was fearful. If this voice had not told me that we were going to purgatory, I would have judged that I had found myself in hell.”

He said that the train represented National Socialism. Prior to having the dream, he had read that 150,000 Austrian young people had joined Hitler. In a meditation on Jagerstatter’s life, Father Daniel Berrigan urged that we not become complacent in these “post-Hitler” times:

“To speak of today; it is no longer Hitler’s death train we ride, the train of the living dead. Or is it? It is. The same train. Only, if possible (it is possible) longer, faster, cheaper. On schedule, every hour on the hour, speedy and cheap and unimaginably lethal. An image of life in the world. A ghost train still bound, mad as March weather, for hell… Despite all fantasies and homilies and ‘states of the union’,’ urging the contrary. Today, a world of normalized violence, a world of standoff, of bunkers and missiles nose to nose, a world of subhuman superpowers and the easy riders. The train beats its way across the world, crowded with contented passenger-citizen-Christians.”

Scary. And look, plenty of tie-ins in this post…

In one the of close to two-hundred brief reflections composed between May and August of 1943, Jagerstatter writes, “Love as the outer-wear is the ‘uniform’ of Jesus’ disciples. His disciples are known by their love.”

Wow. That kind of came full circle, didn’t it? These excerpts are from an article called Love’s Justice: The Witness of Franz Jagerstatter, by Anna Brown over at WagingNonviolence.org. The writings she is referring to are from Franz Jagerstatter: Letters and Writings from Prison, edited by Erna Putz, Orbis Books, 2009.

Roger Allen LaPorte

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Roger Allen LaPorte (1943-1965)

On November 9, 1965, at the age of 22, Roger Allen LaPorte set himself on fire in front of the United Nations building in New York City to protest the Vietnam War. He was a former seminarian and a member of the Catholic Worker Movement. Despite his burns, he remained conscious and able to speak at the hospital. When asked why he set himself on fire, La Porte replied, “I’m a Catholic Worker. I’m against war, all wars. I did this as a religious action.” La Porte died the next day.

At least eight Americans set themselves on fire in public places to protest the war. Rhode Island College Students for a Democratic Society created and displayed a memorial of their acts in the RIC quad in 2006 as part of Diversity Week:

“to remind the audience of the extent to which people from all cultures and religious backgrounds have gone when committed to resistance to war and repression. The message of our display is in no way an endorsement for self-immolation. In a healthy democratic society, it should not be necessary for people to be driven to this extremism in order to have their pleas heard. It is nonetheless inspiring to consider what these actions reveal about human nature and its yearnings. They bear witness and are a testament to the extent to which the emotion known as compassion can move people. The majority of these people were devoutly pacifistic and religious Americans, who, feeling utterly frustrated with their efforts to halt escalations of the Vietnam conflict, decided on this action as their last plea for peace.”

“In memory of Roger Allen LaPorte.” Photo credit: Rhode Island Students for a Democratic Society

Photo credit Rhode Island Students for a Democratic Society

Radical Organization 4 Action @ Rhode Island College (ROAR)

Sex, er, Militarism Sells

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A poster used to promote an opportunity for Eucharistic Adoration by The Catholic Campus Ministry at Kean College in the Archdiocese of Newark. Thank you to a reader for sending it to us.

“Advertising reflects the mores of society.” –David Oglivy

So are the mores of society the mores of the Catholic Church?

According to Wikipedia: Aviator sunglasses were originally developed in 1936 by Ray-Ban for pilots to protect their eyes while flying. They became popular after newspaper photographers snapped pictures of General Douglas MacArthur wearing them on a beach in the Philippines during World War II. They became popular again in the 1960s (hm, during Vietnam) and then again with films like Top Gun. In the 1990s, their popularity waned, but they became very fashionable again in the early 2000s. (I wonder why.)

Aviator sunglasses are also characterized by dark, often reflective lenses; their opacity lend an air of mystery or secrecy, which works well with the “C.I.A.” theme.

Obviously this is an attempt to make the Eucharist look cool and exciting, and what’s cooler than fighter pilots and stealth C.I.A. operatives, right?

“You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality.” David Ogilvy

General Douglas MacArthur

Jesus Christ