Category Archives: Militarism and Christianity

Invisibility and St. Martin

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.

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.”

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.

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

NCR: Asking the right questions

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The National Catholic Reporter ran an editorial today called “Questioning our assent to militarism.” In it they write: “No one is suggesting that Catholics anywhere should go without spiritual guidance and support.” Exactly.

The question is: What kind of spiritual guidance and support are soldiers receiving from Catholic military chaplains? Chaplains are essentially federal government workers…might that not compromise them a little? We saw recently how the the furlough situation presented Catholic chaplains with challenges, in terms of their allegiances and autonomy, due to their being ultimately agents of the state. So it’s not out of line to suggest that they might be compromised in other ways, too, as a result of this. It would be silly to think that Church and State rarely, if ever, have conflicts of interest, and I think we saw during the furlough who is really in charge here (not the Catholic Church). If the government can prevent chaplains from saying Mass, the government can probably prevent them, or “strongly discourage them,” from saying or doing other things that the government doesn’t want them to say or do because of those conflicts of interest.

Just one example: When we called AMS to ask them how many Catholics had become Conscientious Objectors since 2002, they said they didn’t know. When we asked them what the process is to become one, they said they didn’t know, weren’t involved in that process, and advised us to go ask a military recruiter. Daniel Baker also said that, “No one knew about it on base, neither did the chaplains, because when I went to talk to one chaplain, he just talked about the Just War theory.” That seems to be a huge gap in the pastoral counseling provided, especially in wars such as these, does it not?

The NCR article goes on to state: “One of the more tragic elements in [Joshua] Casteel‘s journey from warrior to pacifist was his failure to find a Catholic chaplain with whom he could discuss his growing reluctance to participate in war. He said he found commanding officers more sympathetic to his point of view and more willing to smooth the way to conscientious objector status than he encountered in any of the priests he consulted.”

I know that if I worked for Apple, I wouldn’t go around my workplace criticizing Apple. Everyone who has ever had a job knows that you have to be a “team player.” Maybe that’s why AMS is recruiting, more and more, from within the military. After ten years of this “war” on “terror,” it’s probably getting harder and harder to recruit from the outside. Maybe they have better luck with people who have already been drinking the Kool-Aid for a while. Maybe at some point you stop seeing any conflicts of interest at all.

Editorial: Questioning our assent to militarism | National Catholic Reporter

Quick Question

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Imagine if a parishioner at your Church shot and killed an intruder in
his home. Should this man be honored as a “hero” at Mass? Should we
give him a standing ovation after partaking in the body and blood of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace? Of course not!
A person was killed. It was probably a traumatic experience.
Impressionable youths are present. It would be entirely inappropriate
to celebrate or glorify this act of violence in the House of God.

Now imagine if a parishioner didn’t kill one person with a gun.
Imagine he killed about 10 people with a rocket launcher (nine
innocent civilians, including four children, and one enemy combatant).
Furthermore, this “enemy combatant” was not in the parishioner’s home
but rather in his own home on the other side of the world. This
“combatant” or “militant” never posed a direct threat to the parishioner’s family,
property, or way of life; rather, he posed an indirect threat to some
vague abstraction called the “national interest.”

Should we honor this person at Mass? Does it send the right message?
It’s generally wrong to kill people. Does one of the worst sins become
an act of “heroism” simply because the killer was wearing a government
uniform?

If it’s inappropriate to celebrate or honor an individual act of justifiable homicide in the House of God, why is it appropriate to celebrate and honor those who kill on a larger scale for more dubious reasons?

It seems odd to me. Does it seem odd to anyone else?

Way Out of Hand

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When reading about Veterans Day ceremonies that will be sponsored by the Air Force and ROTC, and those that will be sponsored by Catholic Churches, there is virtually no difference.

On Veterans Day weekend, it also becomes painfully obvious (and depressing) that the message we will hear at church on war is also in absolute lockstep with the “messaging” created by the Ad Council (formerly known as the War Advertising Council) on behalf of the federal government back in 2002 for the Campaign for Freedom:

Peggy Conlon, president and chief executive of the Ad Council, said, ”According to research, Americans are looking for messages that will inform, involve and inspire them during the war on terrorism.” And freedom was a theme that resonated. ”Freedom embodies the principles upon which this nation was founded,” Ms. Conlon said. ”Freedom is our strength. However, freedom is also at risk. The ‘Campaign for Freedom‘ recognizes that it is every American’s responsibility to protect the foundation of our nation, and this is the heart of the strategy.

The only difference is that the federal government had to pay the Ad Council a lot of money to produce and distribute certain messages to United States citizens to “involve and inspire” them, and the Christian Churches have distributed those same exact messages, unqualified, for the past decade for free.

Photo credit: The Beverly Review

At a Veterans Day Mass at St. Barnabas Roman Catholic Church “members of the community who have served or are currently serving to participate in the liturgy, which will begin with a procession that includes veterans carrying the respective flags of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. Veterans from various wars, including World War II, Vietnam and Korea, will serve as gift bearers for the liturgy. The Mass will also feature the official songs and hymns of each U.S. military branch sung by the St. Barnabas adult and children’s choirs.”

A Veterans Day Mass will be scheduled to take place on Friday, Nov. 8, at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Colorado County where veterans will be introduced after mass. Fifth and sixth grade students from St. Anthony School will then host a presentation for the veterans, performing a variety of military service songs. At least this one is happening after Mass, not during.

Also a tradition in Colorado County: Members of VFW Post 6113 and American Legion Post 383 participate in programs that take place at the Columbus Junior High School-Riverside Campus, Columbus Elementary School and St. Anthony School. Of course they send two guys to talk to the kids who “did not regret having to go” there. They are probably the only two Vietnam War veterans who feel that way. We wouldn’t want to send any veterans to go talk to the children who saw that war as a horrible waste of life. We wouldn’t want to send anyone to talk to the children who might be less that “proud” of what they did in Vietnam, or regret it, or see it as utterly pointless, or utterly evil. We wouldn’t want that. (See approved messaging above.)

A University of Portland photo. The praying hands memorial on UP campus is site of Veterans Day ceremony.

At the University of Portland, a Veterans Day ceremony will take place after a 24-hour candlelight vigil with Air Force and Army cadets standing guard beginning at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 10. (This is the one sponsored by the Air Force and ROTC.) At least this one will only involve adults.

Saint Barnabus Catholic Church claims that the message of the Veterans Day ceremony will be “Peace on Earth.”

“The Mass will focus on peace, not violence or war,” said Kitty Ryan, pastoral associate at St. Barnabas. That’s a bold bit of lip service and Orwellian doublespeak as Kitty Ryan then goes on to say: “Since humanity has not yet discovered how to resolve conflicts in a peaceful way, war and violence remain a reality in our lives. No matter how much we are against war and violence, however, we cannot ignore the service these men and women have provided to us in defending our freedom.”

Ah! You knew it was coming. To Kitty Ryan I would say: Though violence is a reality in human experience, we, as Catholics, cannot ignore the example of Jesus Christ, who renounced it. True, Jesus did not reprimand soldiers for their chosen line of work, just as he did not reprimand tax collectors or prostitutes, but he also did not say that the soldiers will set you free; he said the truth will set you free. Then some soldiers brutally murdered Him. We tend to ignore these overly Jesus-y facts, though, on Veterans Day, because it’s not consistent with the dominant messaging approved by our sponsors.

How can we marvel that war remains a part of our lives as humans when, every time a child hears about how horrible war is, that child also has to be reminded how exciting, important, necessary, and noble it is? “Freedom is not free” and this example from the Statesman.com:

The main guest speaker of the event was Dick Jacobs, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force …During the years of 1967 and 1968, he flew over 100 missions over North Vietnam. Jacobs gave vivid descriptions of two reconnaissance missions in particular, one in which the plane took three hits from enemy fire and made an emergency landing in which a barrier luckily stopped the plane. His stories were filled with harrowing detail and suspense and he promised to come back to share more next year.

There are plenty of examples of humans resolving conflicts in peaceful ways! John Kennedy, our first Catholic President, managed to avoid a nuclear war by responding to his enemy, at great personal risk, when his enemy reached out and tried to start a personal conversation with him. By doing so, he basically saved the world. Kennedy, too, “paid the ultimate price,” (Nov. 22 marks the 50th anniversary of his death, by the way) but I don’t suspect we’ll be hearing about his bravery and courage at Mass anytime soon. Kennedy didn’t do what the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted him to do and what they surely told him it was necessary to do to preserve Americans’ freedom. He went rogue and acted in accordance with his conscience, doing what he felt was necessary to preserve mankind. He had to keep his dialogue with the enemy a secret, as his actions would have been seen as treasonous. Is he a hero? No. You are only a hero if you dutifully carry out the will of the State/Pentagon. Future Presidents take note: You don’t become President of the United States to save the world. Your job is to advance your country’s “interests.” (Know your place, or else…)

Not to mention, Kitty, let’s face it: stories that involve resolving conflicts in peaceful ways are simply not as glamorous and titillating as stories of war, which is why we don’t hear about them as much, or ever. But just because there is no cable channel dedicated to peacemaking (we have the Military and History channels dedicated to war making) doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened or that it can’t happen or that it doesn’t happen! As Pope John Paul II said, to reach peace, teach peace. The Church has totally dropped the ball on that. All of this “honoring” of veterans has gotten way out of hand and it sends the exact opposite message, especially to kids who are so impressionable. It sends, instead, the message of the pagan Roman adage: Si vis pacem para bellum—”If you want peace prepare for war.”

To “glorify” means to “magnify.” We go to church to glorify god and worship Him. This over-the-top Veterans Day pomp during the liturgy magnifies not God but the aims, means, priorities, and values of the state. It is a form of brainwashing, and it is disturbing to see children roped into it. It is completely unbalanced by other perspectives on war and peace, which local Catholic leadership should be there to provide. Kitty Ryan is right that war and violence remain a reality in our lives:

If pastoral associates want a Mass with a message of “Peace on Earth” on Veterans Day, she may want to start by resisting the inclination to dismiss entirely the very idea of peace and its possibilities in Christ. If JFK had believed that it was impossible for humans to resolve conflicts in peaceful ways, well, we’d be living, or not living, on a very different planet.

Our Response to Father Z

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Today the National Catholic Reporter published an article on the upcoming collection for AMS called “Bishops’ support for war underpins collection for military archdiocese.” Father Z criticized the article on his blog, calling the article an “attack” on military chaplains. It is unfortunate that any form of criticism is labeled an “attack.”

Father Z believes that the collection to support the Archdiocese for Military Services is important. We believe, along with the author of the editorial, Mark Scibilia-Carver, that the comingling of militarism and Christianity raises certain questions that, after a decade of war, must be asked and addressed. We believe this is important. We see the collection for AMS as being representative of a bigger problem, one that demands an honest conversation. Some dialogue would be healthy for our Church and for our country.

We respect Fr. Z’s view, but we found his commentary to be defensive and reactionary. We wish he would have addressed the actual points Mark Scibilia-Carver brought up, in order to foster some dialogue so desperately needed, instead of characterizing negatively any Catholic who has concerns that are related to the military. If you depict someone with an opposing point of view as silly, irrational, and out-of-touch, then I guess you don’t have to address his argument.

Note: If you express concerns about violence and war, then you must be on drugs.

Note: Then the three popes quoted in Mark Scibilia-Carver’s article must have been on drugs. The always seem to be, in the words of Fr. Z, in “virulent tree-hugging reason free flower power mode.”

Not that anyone asked us, but this is our response to Father Z, which we wrote in the comments of his blog.

The hippies have a point here: Militarism inside the Church discourages serious reflection on the moral gravity of war. Militaristic sermons reinforce the assumption that the U.S. military is a force for good. That assumption is debatable! When priests replace serious reflection about mass violence with unchecked glorification of all things military, they fail in their duties as priests. That’s not an “attack.” It’s legitimate criticism. We need to have a dialogue about the appropriateness of militarism inside the Catholic Church. Toward that end, check out our manifesto at Catholics Against Militarism.

Father Z seems to think that anyone who criticizes the military, militarism, or U.S. foreign policy is a troop-spitting, drugged-up, hippie-flowerchild. That is not true! The Founding Fathers viewed a standing army as one of the biggest threats to liberty. James Madison wrote, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war, is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.” Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler wrote, “War is a racket…It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.” In 1961, Dwight Eisenhower warned that the military-industrial complex created the potential for “the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” Michael Scheuer, a CIA veteran who ran the Counterterrorist Center’s bin Laden station from 1996 to 1999, wrote, “The fundamental flaw in our thinking about Bin Laden is that ‘Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than what we do’…It’s American foreign policy that enrages Osama and al-Qaeda, not American culture and society.” I am a former Marine, a veteran of the Iraq War, and a conservative/libertarian who agrees Father Z and his readers about most theological and political issues. When conservatives accuse war critics of “attacking” the troops, they’re no different than liberals who accuse welfare critics of “attacking” the poor.

P.S. There is not a single verifiable instance of antiwar protestors “spitting” on troops returning from Vietnam. That’s an urban myth used to silence war critics. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2000/05/drooling_on_the_vietnam_vets.html

For the record, Father Z, neither of us here at CAM smokes hash or owns a bong. We do, however, like the guitar. You have to admit these are awesome. Let’s get coffee sometime.

Irrelevant Social Clubs

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“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some Background

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Here is an essay I wrote about how and why CAM started, published on November 1. The impetus is even more fully explained in my essay “Innocence and Sorrow” which was published in Issue 7.1 of Relief, a journal of Christian literary expression.