Pope Francis to the International Meeting For Peace | ZENIT

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In a special way we all say forcefully, continually, that there can be no religious justification for violence, in whatever way it manifests itself. As Pope Benedict XVI stressed two years ago, on the 25th anniversary of the Assisi meeting, we must do away with every form of religiously motivated violence, and watch together so that the world will not fall prey to that violence contained in every project of civilization that is based on “no” to God.

Pope Francis’ Address to the Participants International Meeting For Peace by the Sant’Egidio Community | ZENIT – The World Seen From Rome.

Civilians, “Militants”, Collateral Damage — whatever

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This is a quick throwback to a very important article Glenn Greenwald wrote a few years ago about Obama’s policy to call every person killed by drones a “militant” and the media’s willingness to go along. I haven’t been able to see the original article at Salon, perhaps because I need a subscription, but this blog gives a good rundown of the content.

Virtually every time the U.S. fires a missile from a drone and ends the lives of Muslims, American media outlets dutifully trumpet in headlines that the dead were ”militants” – even though those media outlets literally do not have the slightest idea of who was actually killed. They simply cite always-unnamed “officials” claiming that the dead were “militants.” It’s the most obvious and inexcusable form of rank propaganda: media outlets continuously propagating a vital claim without having the slightest idea if it’s true.

U.S. Labels ALL Young Men In Battle Zones As “Militants” … And American Soil Is Now Considered a Battle Zone | Washington’s Blog.

 

Alliance with military training contradictory

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This is an excellent article by Daniel C. McGuire, professor of moral theology at Marquette University:

At Marquette University, there are two contradictory schools of thought on war and both are — confusingly — taught to our students. One is based on the Judeo-Christian, Catholic, Jesuit moral tradition, and it is encapsulated in what is called “the Catholic just war theory.” That theory puts the burden of proof on the warrior, not on the conscientious objector…The other school of thought taught at Marquette is called the ROTC. ROTC does not accept or include in its independent curriculum the “Catholic just war theory,” which defends the right of “selective conscientious objection to particular wars” for soldiers. Neither does its curriculum require course work on the biblical teaching of peace-making.

via Marquette and ROTC: Alliance with military training is contradictory, July 23, 2013

St. Nicetius Called Out Public Officials

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October 1 is the Feast Day of St. Nicetius (513-566). According to Catholic.org, Nicetius was known for calling out public officials, which is why I’m combining this post with one about the protests happening at CUNY against David Patraeus. This is the kind of thing Nicetius would do:

While journeying to Trier to be consecrated, Nicetius did not hesitate to condemn the royal officials accompanying him when one evening these men released their horses into the wheat fields of the local peasants, ruining their crops. In response to Nicetius’ threat to excommunicate the perpetrators, the officers laughed at him, but he continued: “The king has drawn me, a poor abbot, from my quiet cloister, to set me over this people, and by God’s grace I will do my duty by them and protect them from wrong and robbery.” Nicetius then went after the horses himself to drive them out of the peasants’ fields. As bishop of Trier, Nicetius manifested great apostolic courage…in denouncing from the pulpit public officials guilty of grave evils. For a time he suffered banishment for condemning the crimes of King Clotaire I.

Wow. So I stumbled upon some information today about the protests happening against David Petraeus, who was originally going to be paid $200,000 to teach a three-hour seminar there once a week. Turns out he is not very welcome.

…a great many CUNY students’ families come from countries directly targeted by the death squads, military coups, drones, spying and mass bombing organized by the likes of Petraeus, “his man Steele,” and the U.S. military as a whole, now under the command of Obama who is pushing to open a new war front, this time in Syria.

via Interview: Students, Faculty Protest Presence of David Petraeus at CUNY Honors College | The Dissenter.

Here is a video of Petraeus walking away from CUNY, followed by angry protesters. What would St. Nicetius say?

Padre Pio Stopped American Bombers

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Padre Pio and American Servicemen

Padre Pio and American Servicemen

General Bernardo Rosini of the United Air Command reported that:

“Each time that the pilots returned from their missions, they spoke of this Friar that appeared in the sky and diverted their airplanes, making them turn back. Everyone was talking about these incredible stories. But since the episodes kept recurring, the Commanding General of USAF General Nathan F. Twining, who happened to be in Bari, decided to pilot himself a squadron of bombers to destroy a target near San Giovanni Rotondo. When he and his pilots were in the vicinity of the target, they saw the figure of a monk with upraised hands appear in the sky. The bombs got loose from the plains falling in open areas, and the planes made a sharp turn to return to base without the pilots intervening. Back on the ground, everybody asked everybody else about the happening and wanted to know who was that friar. The General was told about Padre Pio and decided to visit him with the pilots in that squadron. The pilots immediately recognized Padre Pio, and he told the general: ‘So you are the one that wanted to destroy everything.'” The general became a friend of Padre Pio.

Infallible Catholic, Padre Pio on Bilocation, April 23, 2012

The Feast Day of St. Pio of Pietrelcina is September 23. You can read more about the incident of the “flying monk” here:

Research provided by author Frank Rega about Padre Pio, The Examiner, May 9, 2011

 

 

St. Cadoc Refused Military Service

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In adulthood Cadoc refused to take charge of his father’s army, “preferring to fight for Christ”. He founded his first monastery at Llancarfan in the Vale of Glamorgan, and from there he went to Ireland to study for three years. Returning to Wales, he studied with Bachan, a teacher of rhetoric from Italy. He then travelled to Scotland where he founded a monastery at Cambuslang. Back at Llancarfan, his influence helped it to grow into one of the chief monasteries in South Wales.

Catholic.Org

His Feast Day is September 25.

St. Vincent Strambi said “no” to Napoleon

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St. Vincent Strambi

St. Vincent Strambi, 1745 – 1824

In 1809, Napoleon issued a decree annexing Macerata as part of the French Empire. Despite orders from the French to have this decree read in all churches, Vincent refused. In a similar action, he also refused to provide the French with a list of all the men in his diocese who would be suitable for military service. In September 1808, Vincent was placed under arrest for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the French invaders and was then exiled to Mantua.

His Feast Day is September 25.

St. Theodota Corrupted the Troops

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TOWARDS the end of the reign of Licinius, on a Friday, in September, in the year 642 from the death of Alexander the Great, that is, of Christ 318, a persecution was raised at Philippi, not the city so called in Macedon, which was at that time comprised in the empire of Constantine, but that called Philippopolis, anciently Eumolpias, in Thrace. Agrippa, the prefect, on a certain festival of Apollo, had commanded that the whole city should offer a great sacrifice with him. Theodota, who had been formerly a harlot, was accused of refusing to conform, and being called upon by the president, answered him, that she had indeed been a grievous sinner, but could not add sin to sin, nor defile herself with a sacrilegious sacrifice. Her constancy encouraged seven hundred and fifty men (who were, perhaps, some troop of soldiers) to step forth, and professing themselves Christians, to refuse to join in the sacrifice.

The Lives of the Saints, Alban Butler Her Feast Day is September 29.

Saint Paul on CrossFit?

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 …the faithful must also be encouraged to do outward acts of penance, both to keep their bodies under the strict control of reason and faith and to make amends for their own and other people’s sins. …It is right, too, to seek example and inspiration from the great Saints of the Church. Pure as they were, they inflicted such mortifications upon themselves as to leave us almost aghast with admiration. And as we contemplate their saintly heroism, shall not we be moved by God’s grace to impose on ourselves some voluntary sufferings and deprivations, we whose consciences are perhaps weighed down by so heavy a burden of guilt?

 –Blessed Pope John XXIII, Paenitentiam Agere, promulgated on July 1, 1962

He described it as “agony coupled with laughter,” and that’s often the vibe in the gym.  Of course, the workouts themselves have an obvious likeness to boot camp.  And, some of them are designated as “Hero Wods,” workouts that take their name from firefighters, cops and those in the military who had a connection to CrossFit and died in service….

When I started CrossFit, I was troubled by the hero wods.  The prospect of doing pull-ups and push-ups to honor a dead American soldier struck me as suspect, if not morally bizarre.  I got the idea: the intensity of the workout is meant as a sign of respect, and the small sacrifice you undergo in the workout is meant to venerate the ultimate sacrifice paid by the honoree.  …our public rituals for reckoning with our dead, especially those who die in service to us, are insufficient. As our coach once put it, “During this workout, think about the fact that you’re not dead.”  I got it and still I found doing a workout a strange way to memorialize a soldier.

CrossFit Mirrors American Militarism, Salon, September 7, 2013

“We are debtors, then, my brother—but not to the flesh, so that we should live according to the flesh. If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the evil deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom.8:12-13).