Rene Girard died on November 4, 2015. A short blog about him here.
Rene Girard, R.I.P.
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Category Archives: Militarism and Christianity
Catholic Men Take Heed
The Military slavers will come for your wives, girlfriends, daughters and granddaughters if and when they feel it is necessary. And since the U.S. is now in a state of permanent, low level war, which can escalate at any time into a major conflagration, it can happen sooner than you think. Here’s the link:
“Violations can be considered felonies.”
Hey guys, are we Catholics or are we cowards? When are we gonna get our act together and organize some resistance to the violent, pagan Evil Empire which threatens everything we hold sacred? It has been done before and can happen again.
Double Jeopardy
Abu Omar al-Shishani
The U.S. paved the way for the rise of ISIS and the destruction of Christianity in the Middle East by its multiple interventions and especially the 2003 Iraq invasion. And now the evidence is building that the current situation was considered desirable by some. Here is a link to an excellent article from Brad Hoff at the Levant Report. (I find their work very informative and compelling).
But of course, the Middle East is not the only place that the U.S. intervenes. In 2006, American special forces were training Georgian troops who later got into a short but disastrous little war with Putin’s Russia ( a precursor to the more serious Ukrainian crisis ) and included among their trainees was the man who went on to become “Omar the Chechen.”
Another story by Brad Hoff details the rise of Abu Omar to be one of the top ISIS commanders.
In effect U.S. policy was ironically successful in killing two birds with one stone. Provoking the Russians on the one hand and training one of the most formidable terrorist leaders of ISIS on the other. Are the people who do this profoundly stupid or are they profoundly evil? Living in a city that has twice been involved in terrorist attacks which were clear incidents of “blowback,” I’d like to know the answer to that question.
Now President Putin and the Russians have apparently had enough and are beginning to push back. Regardess of what one thinks of Mr. Putin, what he said recently at the United Nations is a scathing and thoughtful critique of US policy.
Here is an excerpt from Putin’s speech:
“In fact, the Islamic State itself did not come out of nowhere. It was initially developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes. Having established control over parts of Syria and Iraq, Islamic State now aggressively expands into other regions. It seeks dominance in the Muslim world and beyond. Their plans go further.
The situation is extremely dangerous. In these circumstances, it is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade.
It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you’ll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them.
I’d like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it’s a big question: who’s playing who here?” [my emphasis]
What should Catholics say or do about this catastrophic situation? Come home America, come home.
Feast of Our Mother of Sorrows
Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy writes:
Gandhi once said, “to the extent that the Gospel is made universally applicable, we will make it universally acceptable.”That is what this little 9 minute video tries to do. It reveals the universal unity of Mary and Jesus in the Gospel with all mothers and their children and how their love—at every moment of time and at every longitude and latitude of space is turned into hell on earth by the local political, economic military and religious power-seekers. Please do think, pray and ponder what is presented here—and what the Gospel response to it is.Finally, this is probably the last time you will see this video because it is now continuously being removed from Google and YouTube, which is why you are receiving this late on this Feast Day of The Mother of Sorrows. It has been on Google and YouTube for about five years with no problem. Make a copy, if you wish or can. Put it in your Facebook as a video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB7ZPVWLTpU
Decorative Faith
“The true strength of the Christian is the power of truth and love, which leads to the renunciation of all violence. Faith and violence are incompatible.” — Pope Francis
Click on the quote to read more of the Pope’s thoughts on decorative faith.
Sign the Petition!
The Friends of Franz Jagerstatter are sponsoring a letter to Pope Francis, asking him to denounce U.S. war-making during his visit in September. They are asking individuals and organizations to sign on.
Here’s the letter. Here’s the petition.
What are you waiting for?
Snubbed
I guess I’m on a Pope Benedict XV kick. Check out this interesting article, “Snubbed: Pope Benedict XV and Cardinal James Gibbons.”
“Cardinal Gibbons never made it for the papal conclave in which Giacomo della Chiesa became Pope Benedict XV. Arriving just hours late, he did become the first to have an audience with the new pope. Yet on his return from the trip, he began immediately a course of politics that, while publicly deferential to Benedict, was in opposition to the pope.”
Get this!
“As April of 1917 and the U.S. entrance into the war drew near, Gibbons stepped up his campaign to be a public voice on behalf of President Wilson. Despite criticism, he endorsed a plan for universal military service. (It is significant here that in September of 1917 Benedict lobbied for a ‘general boycott in sanction against any nation that might attempt to reestablish obligatory military service.’) Gibbons also publicly backed, in the New York Times, Wilson’s ‘preparedness campaign”’of military build-up. And so, even a day before the formal declaration of war on Germany came, Gibbons was ready with a prepared statement. The statement, of course, made no mention of Benedict’s condemnation of the proliferation of the war. Yet he didn’t need to make mention of this; it was clear how Gibbons expected Catholics of American stripe to proceed during this time of national crisis. Far from obedience to the words of the pontiff, who had taught in Ad beatissimi that “[t]here is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism,” Gibbons had other instructions for U.S. Catholics. “The primary duty of a citizen,” Gibbons taught, “is loyalty to country. It is exhibited by an absolute and unreserved obedience to his country’s call.”
Alright, Gibbons, sorry but reading about your militaristic antics has just landed you on my new “Catholics For Militarism” Pinterest board (alongside Gemelli)!
Il nostro soldato (Our Soldier)
This article talks about the role of religions during the First World War in Italy. It devotes specific attention to Catholicism and the attitude to the war of the Catholic Church and the Holy See. Here is an excerpt about the “usefulness” of religion and military chaplains:
Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959)
“In 1917, Agostino Gemelli (1878-1959), a Franciscan military chaplain, doctor and psychologist, published a book entitled Il nostro soldato (Our Soldier), in which he demonstrated (on the basis of personal observations and data collected from other military chaplains) that the religion of the soldiers at the front was not the expression of an authentic faith, but the result of psychological mechanisms that could be directed to reinforcing their strength and commitment in battle.”
I have not been able to located this book online, but from what I can glean from online sources, this lack of authentic faith was, to Gemelli, not a bad thing, necessarily! It could be exploited.
“Gemelli also had an apologetic objective: to show the army and the Italian state the importance of religion in the psychology of the soldier, in order to achieve victory, and in the “national education” of the Italian people after the war.
…The Italian authorities, for their part, were well aware of the usefulness of religion to maintain soldiers’ morale, and optimize their commitment to the war effort. As early as 12 April 1915, before Italy’s entry into the war, one of Luigi Cadorna’s (1850-1928) circulars reintroduced the role of the military chaplain – gradually suppressed between 1865 and 1878 and partially readmitted to the health services in the war in Libya – by establishing the allocation of Catholic chaplains to each regiment….
According to official estimates, 24,446 clergy were mobilized during the war, of which 15,000 were soldiers and 2,400 military chaplains. The latter carried out many functions, ranging from giving spiritual comfort to education. The most strictly religious tasks were celebrating mass in the field, the functions for the repose of the dead, the administration of the sacraments (including general absolution and communion before the fighting), and preaching. The sermons intertwined explanations of the Gospel with reminders of the values of order, discipline, and patriotism. Except in the case of a minority of nationalist chaplains, the preaching was not usually aligned with war-time propaganda, but tried to mould behaviour in the listeners which would be not only patriotic, but also Christian. Therefore, there was an insistence on the necessity of faith and religious practice, the purity of morals and language, and a sense of duty and obedience. The performance of duties by the soldiers was not presented as a constraint imposed from above, but as a spontaneous adhesion, arising from love of the country, which was presented as a Christian virtue.
…The religion proposed by the Catholic chaplains was different from the religion “experienced” by the soldiers. This was expressed in devotional and superstitious practices whose objective was safety and personal salvation and a peace that did not depend upon victory. It resorted to materials from various sources, linked to the most ancient beliefs (such as stones, nails, human remains) and the landscape of war (copper crowns from grenades, bullets extracted from the wounds of comrades) or the Catholic tradition itself (scapulars, blessed laces, medals, alleged relics, rosaries, crucifixes, vials of holy water, medals, holy cards, prayers and votive offerings).
Hm. This Agonstino Gemelli is an interesting figure. According to this article: “Scholars tend to judge him solely in light of the Fascist regime and mark him as the archetypical clerical fascist.” He was known for his accommodations to the State. It seems Agostino Gemelli was also an outspoken critic of Saint Padre Pio, stating that Padre Pio was “an ignorant and self-mutilating psychopath who exploited people’s credulity” with his stigmata. Yikes! I have not seen any evidence that Gemelli has been considered for sainthood, though I do think the American government might be taking a few pages from his playbook when it comes to how religion can be “useful” to reinforcing commitment to war.
Podcast on Pope Benedict XV
Planned Parenthood and the US Government — Partners in Crime
[this article by Ron Paul contains important lessons for Catholics and all pro-life folks. I made a couple of paragraphs bold because they are particularly relevant to both the anti-abortion and the anti-militarism cause — Doug]
Politics Is Not the Path to Pro-Life Victory
by Ron Paul
During my time in Congress, I regularly introduced legislation forbidding organizations that perform abortions from receiving federal funding. The US Government should not force taxpayers to subsidize an activity they believe is murder. Thus, while I was horrified by the recently released videos showing Planned Parenthood officials casually discussing selling the organs of aborted babies, I am glad that the reaction to these videos has renewed efforts to end federal funding of abortion.
My experience in Congress does not leave me optimistic that federal funding of Planned Parenthood will be ended this year, however. This is not just because the current US president is pro-abortion. When I started my efforts to end taxpayer support of abortion, I was shocked to find out how many Republicans, including some self-described “pro-life” leaders, were unsupportive of, and sometimes hostile to, my efforts.
Most pro-life politicians preferred to add language to funding bills prohibiting federal funds from being used for abortions, rather than denying federal funds to abortion providers. This approach does not stop US taxpayers from subsidizing abortions. The reason is that money is fungible. Giving Planned Parenthood $100 to use for non-abortion activities allows it to spend an additional $100 of its non-government funds on abortion.
Foreign interventionists in both parties were particularly hostile to my efforts to eliminate federal funding for international organizations that performed or promoted abortions. This is a foolish policy that gives people around the globe another reason to resent the US government.
Planned Parenthood may have abandoned the explicitly racist and eugenic views of its founder Margaret Sanger, but the majority of its abortion “services” are still provided to lower-income and minority women. Every day nearly 2,000 African-American babies lose their lives to abortion, a rate five times higher than the Caucasian abortion rates.
I support the black lives matter movement. I have long advocated an end to the drug war, police militarization, and other threats to liberty that disproportionately victimize African-Americans. However, I wish some of the black lives matter movement’s passion and energy was directed to ending abortion. Unborn black lives also matter.
The federal government has no constitutional authority to permit, fund, or even outlaw abortion. Therefore, efforts to make abortion a federal crime are just as unconstitutional as efforts to prohibit states from outlawing abortion. A Congress that truly cared about the Constitution would end all federal funding for abortion and pass legislation restricting federal jurisdiction over abortion, thus returning the issue to the states.
While passing legislation may help limit abortion, the pro-life movement will never succeed unless it changes people’s attitudes toward the unborn. This is why crisis pregnancy centers, which provide care and compassion to women facing unplanned pregnancies, have done more to advance the pro-life cause then any politician. By showing women they have viable alternatives to abortion, these centers have saved many lives.
One factor hindering the anti-abortion movement’s ability to change people’s minds is that too many abortion opponents also support a militaristic foreign policy. These pro-lifers undercut their moral credibility as advocates for unborn American lives when they display a callous indifference to the lives of Iraqi, Iranian, and Afghan children.
Libertarians who support abortion should ask themselves how they can expect a government that does not respect the unborn’s right to life to respect their property rights. Therefore, all those who wish to create a society of liberty, peace, and prosperity should join me in advocating for a consistent ethic of life and liberty that respects the rights of all persons, born and unborn.
Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Here is the link to the original article: