Category Archives: Militarism and Christianity

A Priest’s Letter to His Bishop

Leave a reply
November 6, 2013
The Most Reverend Robert J. Cunningham
The Chancery
240 E. Onondaga Street,
Syracuse, New York 13201 
Dear Bishop,
Hope this letter finds you well.  My purpose in writing you is to share with you my feelings and thoughts about this weekend’s second collection for the Archdiocese Military Services. Those who have experienced the trauma of war certainly do need our assistance for their full recovery, as so many do suffer with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  I have had the opportunity to both read as well as attend a workshop by Edward Tick, a Clinical Psychotherapist, who has done extensive work with veterans and PTSD.  The violence of war, as Tick notes, is a major trauma to the soul that no drug can effectively heal.  As so many veterans say “War is Hell”, raises the question, “Why as a faith community, by our silence and lack of conscience formation regarding war and the military, send our sons and daughters to hell/war?”
It is very apparent why this weekend has been selected for the collection as to coincide with Veterans’ Day.  For us, in our Catholic faith, the day also is the feast of St. Martin of Tours.  His story of conversion centuries ago is still a challenge for us today as Catholics.  Two themes stand out:  the encounter with Christ in the form of the poor, and the conviction that the way of Christ is the way of nonviolence.  Upon his conversion, he saw his military life as totally being incompatible with the Gospel and with life in Christ.  This insight prompted Martin to present himself to his military commander to request a discharge from the army.  “I am a soldier of Christ, and it is not lawful for me to fight,” he said.
St. Martin of Tours’ life and words seem to resemble very closely a talk this past summer by Pope Francis.  He said, “The true force of the Christian is the force of truth and of love, which means rejecting all violence.  Faith and violence are incompatible!  Faith and violence are incompatible! The Christian is not violent, but (s) he is strong.  And, with what strength?  That of meekness, the force of meekness, the force of love.”  
It seems as though two competing allegiances are crying for our attention.  To which do we honor – the one that upholds militarism or the one that proclaims the Gospel of Life? 
The Eucharist is the celebration of Christ’s non-violent and unconditional love.  It was on the night of the First Eucharist that Jesus said to put away the sword.  And then the following day, the Non-violent One, did not succumb to violence, revenge or retribution  but showed the power of non-violent love over hate.
These are challenging times for us as a nation and Church, as we confront issues that put the lives of so many people at risk.  We have to ask ourselves as Church leaders, “How are we to preach the Gospel of peace in a time of endless wars?  How are we to preach the Gospel of non-violence in a country immersed in rampant militarism?”  These questions challenge us as a Church to the spiritual and moral leadership we need to give our people and nation. 
For these reasons of conscience, I will be withholding the materials related to the AMS Collection for this coming weekend. I pray that we can authentically become a Church of non-violent love, that by our witness we will help lessen war and violence in our world.
Fraternally in Christ, 
Fr. Timothy J. Taugher,
Pastor
Saint Francis of Assisi Parish
Binghampton, New York 13901

Essay on War by Christopher Dawson

Leave a reply

An interesting essay by Christopher Dawson (1889-1970), one of the great historians of the 20th century. His Essay on War, published around 1937, comes out of the turbulent decade when Hitler was beating the drums of war and many in England, still in shock from WWI, wanted peace at any price. It gives a broad overview of the history of Catholic attitudes towards war. He writes:

“This heroic conception of war, as the condition of man’s highest achievement, is one which the modern pacifist finds it hard to consider seriously…But however unreal and unfashionable that conception may be today, we must not forget that it has been held with complete honesty and conviction in the past, and not only by the Greeks…It is, in fact, the normal or classical attitude, and it is the unheroic or comic attitude to life and death which is exceptional, since it is found as a rule only in highly sophisticated literary circles or in a rich and self-confident commercial society.

The Fury of Achilles, Painting by Charles-Antoine Coypel

And if we turn to the Catholic tradition and consider the Christian attitude to life and the Christian view and peace and war, we shall, I think, find that there has been a much greater affinity with the heroic ideal of the ancients than with the liberal idealism of moderns…”

 

He concludes:

“What we want are not pacifists but peacemakers. Peace is made not by denouncing war but by ‘agreeing with your adversary quickly while you are in the way with him,’ and by doing one’s best to understand the mind and traditions of other peoples.”

“Red, White and Blue” Mass

Leave a reply

On Nov. 3, All Saints Parish, in Mesa, AZ, will hold a “Red, White, and Blue Mass.”

“’We’re having the Mass to celebrate our veterans, those who have served and those who are serving,’ Deacon Scott said. ‘It’s also to pray for the deceased veterans, those who have given their lives or have been wounded so we can enjoy these freedoms that we have today.’‘Red, White and Blue’ Mass to honor veterans | The Catholic Sun

A display of uniforms worn by various members of the American military greeted guests who attended a reception following the first Red, White and Blue Mass in 2011. Photo credit: Ambria Hammel, Catholic Sun

How has invading countries on the other side of the world for the past ten years helped protect our freedoms here at home? It hasn’t. A quick read through the Bill of Rights would tell anyone with a modicum of awareness of current affairs that our freedoms are being steadily, if not aggressively, eroded. Take the First Amendment for example:

1. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

Archbishop William Lori, Chairman of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, said of the Fortnight for Freedom: “We must stand firm and be emboldened by the strength of our religiously-held convictions not just two weeks a year, but always, for the threats continue to come.” I don’t think he was talking about threats from Islamic jihadists. Our own government poses a far bigger threat to our freedoms than people living in Iraq and Afghanistan. If there is an actual terrorist threat, it is only exacerbated by our military presence overseas. Moral issues of war aside, even on a practical level and even if you accept the reason for the wars at face value, the soldiers are doing more harm than good, as their actions create more terrorists. What they are doing overseas is making all of us more unsafe.

Bl. Maria Restituta, Oct. 29

Leave a reply

When the Nazis took over Austria, Sister Maria Restituta (1894-1943) was very vocal in her opposition.  “A Viennese cannot keep her mouth shut,” she said.

Blessed Maria Restituta

Blessed Maria Restituta

Sister Restituta was a nurse. She hung a crucifix in every room in the  hospital where she worked. The Nazis demanded the crosses be taken down. She refused. She also spread “A Soldier’s Song,” which spoke of democracy, peace, and a free Austria. (I cannot find the lyrics to this song in English. Please send if you have them!)

She was eventually arrested and sentenced to death by the guillotine for “favoring the enemy and conspiracy to commit high treason.” The Nazis thought her execution would provide effective intimidation for others who might want to resist. She was beheaded on 30 March 1943 at the age of 48.

On June 21, 1998, she was beatified in Vienna. Pope John Paul II said: “Many things can be taken from us Christians. But we will not let the Cross as a sign of salvation be taken from us. We will not let it be removed from public life! We will listen to the voice of our conscience, which says: ‘We must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29).”

Bl. Maria Restituta – Saints & Angels – Catholic Online

Military Mass of Appreciation

Leave a reply

At the Mass, on Saturday, Nov. 9, at 4:30 p.m. at St. Pius X in Flint, MI, soldiers’ photos will be displayed in a PowerPoint slideshow, their names read aloud and candles lit by family members. The candles are in the shape of a flag with red, white and blue stars and stripes. There is nothing wrong with praying for any Catholic or any non-Catholic at a Mass. But this is another example of militaristic jingoism being dragged into the Church.

Military Mass of Appreciation at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Flint to honor those serving overseas | MLive.com

Photo from past Military Mass of Appreciation, photographed by The Flint Journal.

Photos from past Military Mass of Appreciation masses courtesy Cindee McColley of St. Pius X and photographed by The Flint Journal.

Photos from past Military Mass of Appreciation masses courtesy Cindee McColley of St. Pius X and photographed by The Flint Journal.

 

Orwellian Christian symbolism

Leave a reply

**** The following was written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy and distributed on July 6, 2013. ***

This picture of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God, appeared last week on the front page of The Tablet, the paper of the Diocese of Brooklyn. It was also sent as a poster to every parish in Brooklyn and Queens, New York.

This picture of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God, appeared in Summer 2013 on the front page of The Tablet, the paper of the Diocese of Brooklyn. It was also sent as a poster to every parish in Brooklyn and Queens, New York.

The flag of a nation is a symbol of a nation. A national flag is not and can never be a Christian symbol. The reason for this is that no nation-state is built on or teaches or lives according to the truths and values proclaimed by Jesus Christ as the Way and Will of God unto eternal salvation for each and all. The means and ends of a state are not now and never have been the means and ends of Jesus. Within any state a person can be a faithful Christian until the day he or she dies. But, no state is Christian just because it has Baptized Christians on the payroll or running the show.

For a Church or a Christian to wrap a Christian symbol in the symbol of a nation-state, e.g. a flag, is to generate spiritual cacophony in the souls of people and in the Church. It is to make unclear what is clear, namely, the empirical verifiability that the state does not live by the truths and values, the means and ends of Jesus. As the late Carl J. Friedrich, one of the world’s leading political scientists, friend and confidant of Henry Kissinger and former Eaton Professor of Government at Harvard University, wrote on the concluding page of his four hundred page book, The Pathology of Power: “Our analysis has, I hope, shown that politics needs all these dubious practices; it cannot be managed without violence, deceit, betrayal, corruption and propaganda.” To interlace a symbol of the reign of violence, deceit, betrayal, corruption with a symbol of the reign of God as proclaimed by the Jesus in the Gospels is to propagate untruth as truth. It is to breed evil under the auspices of good.    

Whether this fusing of state symbols with Christian symbols is done out of ignorance, religious zeal or base motives, e.g., the lust for power and prestige, greed, cavalier indifference to truth, etc., the consequence is the same. Human beings are led toward the abyss of agony and destruction rather than the fullness of life in eternal communion with the Holy One. It is a terrible price that ordinary people pay—Christians and non-Christians— when the “Keepers of the Symbols” in the Church, the bishops and their clergy, merge contradictory symbols. Such an anschluss breeds evil under the canopy of the holy.

In large part, today in the U.S. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is just another propaganda gimmick in the arsenal of deception at the disposal of American civil and ecclesiastical politicos. She has been equivalently misused before, e.g. in capitalist’s Church-State joint operations to attack communism and socialism. But, to the best my knowledge, never before has the Mother of Jesus been so audaciously exploited at this level of  “Bush-Obama in-your-face, might-makes-right and there-is-nothing-you-can-do-about-it,” brazenness. I do not think that even the Orthodox Churches, for whom the idolatry of nationalism has been a long abiding evil and scandal have ever put a national flag around the Mother of God in an icon.

To pray with Mary to Jesus on behalf of people or on behalf of a group of people is fine. To pray for a cause is most appropriate, providing it is not in contradiction of the will of God as revealed by Jesus. But, to clothe the Blessed Mother of Jesus in the American flag, or any national flag, is evil because it communicates untruth as truth concerning the will of God for the salvation of the world as revealed by Jesus.

Would this have been an acceptable image of the Blessed Mother to have displayed in every parish of a diocese? If so, why so? If not, why not?

Would this have been an acceptable image of the Blessed Mother to have displayed in every parish of a diocese? If so, why so? If not, why not?

Today in the U.S. 25% of the adult population identifies itself as Catholic. 76% of the population says it is Christian. In the 1938 German census 40% of the adults identified themselves as Catholic and 58% identified themselves as Lutheran. Lutherans, like Catholics, have a theology and a spirituality that sees Mary as having a special place in the economy of salvation. Luther wrote a hundred and fifty tracts on the Blessed Mother of Jesus and supposedly died holding a rosary. So, I ask you, my reader, in 1938 when this was the official national flag of Germany, would this have been an acceptable image of Mary for a bishop to place on the front page of his diocesan German Catholic newspaper? Would this have been an acceptable image of the Blessed Mother to have displayed in every parish of a diocese? If so, why so? If not, why not?

Beware of the Orwellian Christian symbolism that is snaking its way—with the help of some very wealthy and politically powerful people and their chosen hierarchical puppets—into the increasingly militaristic and nationalistic U.S. Christian Churches. These ever more prevalent doublespeak symbols must not be taken lightly. They can be choice determining and “energy directing.” They are a real danger, indeed, an extreme personal, social and spiritual danger, to the Christian, for they point him or her or the Christian community in the wrong way on a one-Way highway.

St. John Houghton and Oaths

Leave a reply
John_Houghton

St. John Houghton, O.Cart., by Francisco Zurbarán, (Spanish), (17th century)

This week in the news it is being reported that saying “So help me God” as part of their enlistment oaths may become optional for men and women enlisting in certain branches of the military. Christians are upset. It would be wise at this time to consider the dilemma and example of St. John Houghton.

Saint John Houghton (1486-1535) was a Carthusian hermit and the first English Catholic martyr. In 1534, he asked that he and his community be exempted from the oaths required by King Henry VIII of England under the new Act of Succession. Eventually, they were persuaded that the oath was consistent with their Catholicism, with the clause “as far as the law of Christ allows” and they returned to the Charterhouse, where (in the presence of a large armed force) the whole community made the required professions.

The next year the community was called upon to make the new oath. Again, Houghton pleaded for an exemption, but this time he and a few others were arrested, called before a special commission, and sentenced to death. John Houghton was the first to be executed. After he was hung, he was taken down alive, and the process of quartering him began. After his death, his body was chopped to pieces and hung in different parts of London. His feast day is October 25.

Federal law requires everyone who enlists or re-enlists in the Armed Forces of the United States to take the enlistment oath. Here is the oath:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Why do Christians not refuse to take this oath unless the following words are added? 

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so far as the law of Christ allows. So help me God.

 

Heart-Tugging, Fog of War Rhetoric

Leave a reply
National AMS Collection Poster

National AMS Collection Poster

**********The following was written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.**********

Here is the poster that has been sent out for every Catholic diocese and parish in the U.S. to display on behalf of the coming first-time-ever National Collection for the Catholic Military Archdiocese. The buzz phrase to entice people to contribute to the collection is “Serving those who Serve.”

“Serving those who Serve.” This is a heart-grabbing, marketing-speak sound byte that purports to say everything that needs to be said, but in fact communicates nothing except, “Open your wallet.” It is well chosen for a culture that has been labeled the “sound bite society.”

The problem with the sound byte, the ideograph, the one-liner, the catchphrase is that its catchiness overshadows the broader context in which it is spoken or written and thereby misleads people about the truth of the matter being presented. Senator James DeMint once said, “There is a reason why most politicians speak in sound bytes: Once they get out of that they open themselves up to questions.”

“Serving those who Serve” is similar to Notre Dame’s PR fund raising campaign sound byte strategy, “We teach values.” Of course Notre Dame teaches values, what educational institution doesn’t? There is no such thing as a value-free education. But what values does it teach by word and by example as genuinely worthwhile? Whose values does it teach by word and example? The values taught by Jesus? Or, are there values contrary to the explicit teaching of Jesus in the Gospels that are being taught? Or, both? One would have thought that a University that designates itself as Catholic and hence is utterly dependent on Jesus for its very existence and meaning would have no problem saying in a fund raising campaign, “We teach Gospel values,” or “We teach Jesus’ values.”

The Catholic Military Archdiocese is about the same process as was Notre Dame except with a different modus operandi geared to a different audience. The poster for its national collection accurately states, “Serving those who serve,” as Notre Dame’s fundraising program aimed at national television audiences and secular corporations accurately stated, “We teach values.” Who can be against teaching values? Who can be against serving those who are serving others? But, what values are being taught?  How are the Catholic military chaplains serving those who serve?

Since men and women in the military are engaged in the violence of killing and maiming other human beings, does the Catholic Military Archdiocese serve those who serve by making sure that each and every young Catholic recruit that comes into the U.S. military is thoroughly informed of the two, the only two, moral positions in relations to war that a Catholic may employ in order to evaluate whether the killing he or she is ordered to do is murder? How often do Catholic military chaplains give sermons or deliver platoon or company wide catechetical presentations on these two ethical options, i.e., the nonviolence and love of enemies tradition proclaimed by Jesus and the Catholic just war tradition initiated by Ambrose and Augustine in the late fourth century? Would not human reasonableness, spiritual honesty and moral rectitude in regard to those in one’s spiritual care demand, that since Catholics in the military are to be engaged in killing and maiming human beings, they should be well aware of what Jesus and their Church teach on the subject of killing and maiming other human beings? Is presenting this information accurately, coherently, intelligibly and in a pedagogically sound manner to those immortal souls in its spiritual care, the way the Catholic military chaplaincy “Serves those who Serve?”  

And, those whom the Catholic Military Archdiocese is serving, the Catholic military personnel, who are they serving? Jesus? If it is not Jesus, is the Catholic Military Archdiocese serving them spiritually by making it clear to them, as Catholics, that they cannot serve two masters—and what the logical network of moral obligations that derive from this truth is for a Baptized person who has irrevocably committed his or her life to Jesus as Lord, God and Savior, the Way, the Truth and the Life? Or, are the Catholics in the military being served by being led to believe, implicitly and/or explicitly by the Archdiocese of Military Services and/or its military chaplains, that killing and maiming other human beings on orders from the rulers of a kingdom of this world is serving Jesus?

When the above poster was sent to every Catholic parish in every Catholic diocese in the U.S., a letter accompanied it from the Military Ordinary, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, which reads in part:

Dear Fathers,

How can we, as witnesses to the Gospel, be there for those who put so much on the line to defend our nation?

Here again we encounter the heart-tugging, fog of war rhetoric calculated to elicit an unreserved, emotionally laden, positive response to a question that camouflages the truth of what the priest is being asked to religiously support?

So, I will restate the question so that it is unambiguously forthright about what the parish priests in the U.S. are being asked to support by the Military Ordinariate’s Archbishop:

“How can we, as witnesses to the Gospel, be there for those who put so much on the line to defend our nation and empire by killing and maiming other sons and daughters of the ‘Father of all’ and even killing and maiming fellow Baptized members of the Body of Christ, whom they have never met but whom they have been told are their enemies?”

By just this small addition to the Military Archbishop’s sentence to the priests, an addition that is 100% factually accurate, Catholic parish priests—and their Bishops—around the country would have clarity of mind about how much they, “as witnesses to the Gospel,” are being asked to put on the line in order to support in conscience before Christ-God this collection.

Kreeft’s “The Pillars of Unbelief”

Leave a reply

Peter Kreeft discusses six modern thinkers who have had an enormous impact on everyday life, with great harm to the Christian mind in The Pillars of Unbelief. You have to wonder how much their ideas, especially Machiavelli’s, have influenced/corrupted Catholics and led to a wholehearted embrace of militarism as an American way of life.

[Machiavelli] saw his life as a spiritual warfare against the Church and its propaganda. He believed that every religion was a piece of propaganda whose influence lasted between 1,666 and 3,000 years. And he thought Christianity would end long before the world did, probably around the year 1666, destroyed either by barbarian invasions from the East (what is now Russia) or by a softening and weakening of the Christian West from within, or both. His allies were all lukewarm Christians who loved their earthly fatherland more than heaven, Caesar more than Christ, social success more than virtue. To them he addressed his propaganda. Total candor about his ends would have been unworkable, and confessed atheism fatal, so he was careful to avoid explicit heresy. But his was the destruction of “the Catholic fake” and his means was aggressive secularist propaganda. (One might argue, perhaps peevishly, that he was the father of the modern media establishment.)

He discovered that two tools were needed to command men’s behavior and thus to control human history: the pen and the sword, propaganda and arms. Thus both minds and bodies could be dominated, and domination was his goal. He saw all of human life and history as determined by only two forces: virtu (force) and fortuna (chance). The simple formula for success was the maximization of virtu and the minimization of fortuna. He ends “The Prince” with this shocking image: ‘Fortune is a woman, and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her’ (ch. 25). In other words, the secret of success is a kind of rape.

For the goal of control, arms are needed as well as propaganda, and Machiavelli is a hawk. He believed that ‘you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow’ (ch. 12). In other words justice ‘comes out of a barrel of a gun,’ to adapt Mao Tse-tung’s phrase. Machiavelli believed that ‘all armed prophets have conquered and unarmed prophets have come to grief’ (ch. 6). Moses, then, must have used arms which, the Bible failed to report; Jesus, the supreme unarmed prophet, came to grief; He was crucified and not resurrected. But His message conquered the world through propaganda, through intellectual arms. This was the war Machiavelli set out to fight.

 

CIA and Truth

Leave a reply

“If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32

CIA truth

Wall at CIA Headquarters

Etched into the wall in marble at CIA headquarters:

“And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32.

Something is missing.

As he was dying from lung cancer, the legendary Machiavellian CIA head of Counterintelligence, James Jesus Angelton, provided author Joseph J. Trento this confession:

“You know how I got to be in charge of counterintelligence? I agreed not to polygraph or require detailed background checks on Allen Dulles and 60 of his closest friends . . . They were afraid that their own business dealings with Hitler’s pals would come out. They were too arrogant to believe that the Russians would discover it all . . .

Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars. The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you would be promoted. These people attracted and promoted each other. Outside of their duplicity, the only thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. I did things that, in looking back on my life, I regret. But I was part of it and loved being in it . . . Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Carmel Offiie, and Frank Wisner were the grand masters. If you were in a room with them you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell. I guess I will see them there soon.“

Joseph J. Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, pages 478-479. (Thanks to Charles Burris for this quote.)