Catholics Against Militarism (CAM) is an informal, grassroots, Internet-based movement founded to challenge militaristic attitudes in the U.S. Catholic Church in small but concrete and meaningful ways. Our focus in fall 2013 was on discouraging donations to the first-ever nationwide collection for the Archdiocese of Military Services in November (in most churches on Nov. 10), and moreover encouraging Catholics to voice their objection to this collection by placing statements of protest in the collection plate on that day.
Catholics Against Militarism is a lay Catholic movement that aims to expel militarism from the American Catholic Church by 1) registering dissent at the parish level, 2) raising awareness of the dangers of militarism through dialogue with fellow believers, and 3) spurring deeper, more honest reflection on the role of violence in our world.
Who We Are
“Cammy,” a co-founder of CAM, is a believer in the Gospel message of nonviolence. The other co-founder is a former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq from 2002-2003. While he believes that “Just War” sounds good in theory, he believes it is pretty much impossible in practice, kind of like Communism. They are borderline Generation Y / Millennials.
Doug Fuda was raised as a Catholic, but left the Church as a young man in the late sixties. He returned to the Faith nearly 40 years later, largely as a result of reading Catholic blogs and websites, particularly those which featured writers who condemned the unjust U.S. war on Iraq that began in 2003. Doug is a member of Come Home America, the Boston New Oxford Review Club, and he runs the Boston Catholics Against Militarism Meet-Up group. He lives in Roslindale, MA, and has been blogging with us since February 2014.
Paul Nyklicek is a Catholic husband, father, psychotherapist, and reader of CAM. We recruited him to join our merry band of dissenters in December 2015 after he submitted some thoughtful writing to the blog.
Eric Morris was born and raised Catholic, but didn’t see the light on the sinfulness of American militarism and foreign policy until he was an active participant in it, while wearing a US Army uniform in Kuwait in 2009 and being told the Kuwaitis no longer thank us for our service. He is happily married with three young daughters in Carmel, Indiana.
CAM is non-partisan, non-political. CAM welcomes conservatives, moderates, liberals, libertarians, anarchists, socialists, hawks, doves, pacifists, realists, idealists, laypeople, priests, religious, devout Catholics, nominal Catholics, military members, veterans, and civilians. We don’t solicit donations or require official membership. What we need from you, more than your money, is your voice and participation.
Join us. Offer your dissent.