Just War, or Just Another War?

One of the dangers in publishing a summary of faith in any tradition is that the summary itself becomes the substitute for the faith.  Summaries are intended to be outlines on basic ideas in the faith tradition; they are not intended to serve as an exhaustive treatment of every topic in the faith tradition.  Within the Catholic tradition this problem exists with respect to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on many topics, but most often in the areas of Catholic social doctrine where the issues are complex and the teaching on these topics is enormous.  Let us look at one example to prove the point:  the just war theory.  Here is the text of the Catechism on the just war theory:

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.  The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

Leaving aside the language herein that highlights the reluctance of going to war that are often overlooked, the passage on just war is preceded by a number of paragraphs that oblige all Catholics to peace making and the path of non-violence in overcoming conflicts.  The recourse to war is seen as an exception to the rule of non-violence, not the rule itself.  The Church in no place commands her children to acts of physical violence against another person. In fact, a more thorough presentation of the topic is found in the magisterial text The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which prefaces the just war theory with numerous references to the papal magisterium, including this paragraph:

 496. Violence is never a proper response. With the conviction of her faith in Christ and with the awareness of her mission, the Church proclaims “that violence is evil, that violence is unacceptable as a solution to problems, that violence is unworthy of man. Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings”.[1029]
The contemporary world too needs the witness of unarmed prophets, who are often the objects of ridicule.[1030] “Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defence available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risk of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death”.[1031]

The recourse to violence is further cautioned by recognizing the horrors of modern warfare that the Compendium recalls with great reluctance.  At the same time both the Catechism and the Compendium repeat the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that it is entirely just and proper to allow the right of citizens for conscientious objection to war and allowing for other forms of community service (cf. Gaudium et Spes #79).  This recognition further highlights the fact that resorting to the violence of war is not a moral obligation, but an exception to the moral obligation to work for peace and to employ non-violent means. 

Both the teaching on war found in the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes and in Blessed Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris radically change the Church’s posture on the position of warfare.  As Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) noted in 1966,

It (the Council) moved away from the static morality of the just war toward a dynamic morality of emergency.  It recognized the intricacies of the present situation, in which what ought to be is often impossible.  Here the alternative ‘all or nothing at all’, for all its seeming rectitude, turns out to be ultimately destructive of all moral effort.  Therefore, the attempt must be made to approach as closely as possible what is morally desirable.  Thus we can at least assert moral demands, even though we cannot achieve our ultimate moral objectives.  (Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, p. 241)

How are we to achieve the ultimate moral objective, which is a world without war and violence?  Certainly a great deal of effort must be made in the area of international diplomacy as an immediate response to present dangers.  Education in the ways of non-violence and conflict resolution are also essential in order for violence to be averted.  The future holy father also noticed another pedagogical approach at work in the magisterium of the Church in this regard:

The Council does not presume to set timeless norms for questions so complex in their technological, political, and historical ramifications.  Rather, it stirs up a feeling of inadequacy about the merely licit.  It sees the licit as no more than a very temporary concession in a history that finds man still in progress and still very far from doing what he ought to do, very far from doing what is genuinely right….The whole of human action is shown to be abysmally deficient when we begin to confess our moral attitude in this matter, and actually in all other matters as well, is far from what it should be.  We recognize that the small righteousness we manage to build up in ourselves is nothing but an emergency morality in the midst of our radical unrighteousness.  (ibid., p. 243)

The recourse to violence, then, is not the norm of human action, but also it represents a great deficiency in what is actually expected of humankind, i.e. the path of non-violence.  However, we find very many Christian moralists who spend a great deal of time justifying the use of violence and very little time upholding the principle of non-violence to which we are called. 

Granted, there is a concession made to the idea of a just war, but the criteria for being a just war is quite rigorous, and yet it seems that every war that comes around manages to meet the criteria of just war according to many Christian moralists.  As Erasmus noted centuries ago:

Some princes deceive themselves as follows:  ‘Some wars are entirely just, and I have just cause for starting one.’  First, I will suspend judgment on whether any war is entirely just; but who is there who does not think his cause just?  Amid so many shifts and changes in human affairs, amid the making and breaking of so many agreements and treaties, how could anyone not find a pretext, if any sort of pretext is enough to start a war?  (Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, p. 104)

No doubt we have seen the pretext for war in everyone’s lifetime, and how quickly we fall into the trance of the drumbeats of war, forgetting our obligation to work for peace at all costs.  Erasmus noted with painful detail the horrors and abominations of war in his own day, and that was the 16^th century!  How greater is the carnage, damage, and evils that modern warfare brings to the world that could be added to this description:

Add to this the fact that usually the greatest wars develop out of the smallest, and many wars from one.  For it has never proved possible to terminate a single war.  One war is linked to another, and drags along with it an interminable and inextricable chain of ills.  These ills are so many that their number can barely be comprehended, they are so atrocious that even an utterly wicked man cannot make right of them.  Yet these are the natural consequences of any war, however just.  Furthermore, the grounds for starting a war are sometimes false, not infrequently contrived, and for the most part doubtful.  Then the outcome of any battle is always uncertain, and finally, no victory is bloodless, and the fighting is always at the expense of the man who had least to gain by winning.  So that I am led to declare boldly that the god-fearing prince will be far more astute to maintain peace, however, unfair, than to embark on even the most advantageous war; for such a war will be preceded, accompanied, and followed by such an ocean of ills, so vast a swamp of wickedness, and so black a plague of immorality.  (ibid., p. 139) 

May all Christians say in unison by our words and actions the words Pope Paul VI proclaimed to the United Nations and that Pope John Paul II re-echoed in 2003:  “No more war.  Never again!”

Worthy of the Call

Growing up in an Italian family we always worried about having enough food for the family celebration, which is why we habitually make food for far more people than we could ever imagine.  We never ran out of food, but we always worried about that possibility lest we find ourselves in an embarrassing social situation.  No doubt everyone worries about this possibility at least once in their lifetime.  Today’s readings provide us with two different scenarios in the biblical text where the fear was palpable.

The first reading from the second book of Samuel presents us with the ministry of the prophet Elisha.  The prophet is presented with the first fruits of a man’s farm at a time when the area was suffering from a mild famine.  First fruits offerings were a typical way for farmers to offer thanks to God for providing for their needs.  In accepting this offering, Elisha does something new:  he asks the man to feed one hundred people with the first fruits offering.  What is more, it will be the poor who will receive this bounteous feast, an event that would never have occurred in their lives.  The mission of the prophet, then, is to provide for the poor.

In the Gospel text today we find Jesus performing a similar work as that of Elisha.  Huge crowds followed Jesus to a deserted place because they saw the signs he performed.  Recognizing the necessity of feeding the crowd, a group who would have been composed mainly of the poor, Jesus challenges the disciples to provide food for them.  When they provide all they have, Jesus provides the miracle necessary to feed the people, thus fulfilling his prophetic role in the tradition of Elisha.  However, the people forgot about the Elisha miracle and they misunderstood the mission of the long awaited Messiah.  They sought to carry Jesus off in order to make him king.  The Lord Jesus, however, remained faithful to his mission and returned to the mountain to be with the Father.

Remaining faithful to our call, as the Lord Jesus was faithful to His call, is the challenge Paul presents to us in the second reading.  God calls us to preserve unity through the bond of peace.  The unity of our lives can only be maintained through a deep prayer life that daily reflects on the call of Christian discipleship.  As a Church community, we find that the source of our unity can be discerned in the sacramental life we share.  Paul speaks of the one baptism we share, the one God who is Father of us all.  In the celebration of the Eucharist that we share we come to recognize our shared baptismal call and our radical unity as creatures before the one God. 

This year we celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council.  In his address opening the great council, Blessed Pope John XXIII announced to the world that the Church wants to be the Church for all and the Church of the poor.  In the ministry of Elisha and Jesus we see that fundamental call to serve the poor not merely in pious words, but more importantly in concrete deeds.  We are often tempted to become swept away and made king as Jesus in the Gospel text.  The example of Jesus reminds us that our fundamental posture is one of the poor and for the poor.  For when we are poor ourselves we have no attachments to material possessions, titles, and the like.  Only in our poverty can we find true peace, for what need would we have to fight over anything when we have nothing in the first place?  And in serving the poor we find the fulfillment of our calling as Christians:  for as often as you did it to one of these least ones, you did it to me.  Radical Christian love is found in serving the poor because they cannot pay us back in any way, and so we rid ourselves of selfish attachments of pride that can compromise our charity at times.

As we seek to remain worthy of the call we have received, we pray together as we gather around the altar of the Lord:  “Let us pray for the faith to recognize God’s presence in our world.  God our Father, open our eyes to see your hand at work in the splendor of creation, in the beauty of human life.  Touched by your hand our world is holy.  Help us to cherish the gifts that surround us, to share your blessings with our brothers and sisters, and to experience the joy of life in your presence.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

The Violence Inherent in the System

A soldier in command must be told not to kill people; if he is ordered to do so, he shall not carry it out.  Nor shall he take the oath.  If he will not agree, he should be rejected from the catechumenate...If a catechumen or a believer wishes to become a soldier they should be rejected, for they have despised God.  (Hippolytus of Rome, Apostolic Tradition, #9, 11)

We are educated not for war, but for peace.  In war there is need for much equipment, just as self indulgence craves an abundance.  But peace and love, simple and plain blood sisters, do not need arms nor abundant supplies.  Their nourishment is the Word, the Word whose leadership enlightens and educates, from whom we learn poverty and humility and all that goes with love of freedom and of mankind and of the good.  In a word, through Him, we become like God by a likeness of virtue.  (Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator, 1.12)

God prohibits killing...and so it will not be lawful for a just man to serve as a soldier - for justice itself is his military service - not to accuse anyone of capital offense, because it makes no difference whether you kill with a sword or with a word, since killing itself is forbidden.  And so...no exception ought to be made to the rule that it is always wrong to kill a man, whom God has willed to be a sacrosanct creature.  (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, VI.20.15)

In the early church the community followed the example of Christ, the Prince of Peace, and the Apostles in living a complete life of non-violence.  They rejected abortion, war, capital punishment, and all other threats to human life.  The Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of all that came before him, the authentic interpreter in word and deed of the Law.  In what Jesus taught and in how he lived, he rejected the use of violence and chose to suffer and die rather than shed blood himself.  The early church grew because they represented an entirely new way of living - different from the violence that kept the Roman Empire in existence, different from the violence that marks the great stories of antiquity, different from the violence encouraged at every turn. 

Sadly, the ideal of non-violence for the entire Christian community came to an end when the Constantinian era began.  Monks and clergy were forbidden from shedding blood in any way, but the laity were exempt from this ideal.  The just war theory and the theory of the diseased limb to justify capital punishment come to dominate the Christian world.  Yes, the church grew during this time as it became socially acceptable to belong to her.  However, the seeds of decay were sown through the use of violence.

The violence of the Crusades cemented the Great Schism between eastern and western Christianity.  The violence of the inquisition led to the rupture of the western Church during the Reformation.  And the violence of the religious wars created the secularism and loss of faith that has persisted in the western world ever since.  As the Church aligned itself with monarchies and violent regimes throughout the centuries, her credibility became more and more compromised up to the present day. 

Today we continue to see Christians justifying violence in the name of Christ, and yet how irrational these voices are.  Priests and bishops of one nation bless the arms and soldiers of one regime while in the opposite camp clergy do the very same.  That same irrationality can be seen in the wake of a terrible tragedy of a mass shooting in Colorado when people assert that to prevent such occurences we need more guns and more violence, not less. 

We also see this irrationality when Christians endorse one candidate or political party over another:  a group of nuns declare one candidate exemplary of Catholic values, while another group blesses the platform of the other party.  The violence of words in these campaigns is just as reprobate as the violence we have come to justify on the battlefield and prison.

This violence is the direct result of our fundamental failure to follow the poverty of Christ, as Clement noted above.  When we become attached to our power, our possessions, and our own lives we cannot give them up and so we justify violence in order to preserve what does not belong to us in the first place.  Like an addition, we cannot seem to overcome its hold upon us.  As Thomas Merton noted:

The most obvious fact about war today is that while everyone claims to hate it, and all are unanimously agreed that it is our greatest single evil, thre is little significant resistance to it except on the part of small minorities who, by the very fact of their protest, are dismissed as eccentric....War represents a vice that mankind would like to get rid of but which it cannot do without.  Man is like an alcoholic who knows that drink will destroy him but who always has a reason for drinking....The only possible conclusion is that man is so addicted to war that he cannot possibly deal with his addiction.  And yet if he does not learn to cope with it, the addiction will ruin him altogether.  (Merton, Love and Living, p. 128-129)

The teaching Church herself has come to recognize the folly of war and violence.  Blessed Pope John XXIII noted in 1963, "Therefore in an age such as ours which prides itself on its atomic energy it is contrary to reason to hold that war is now a suitable way to restore rights which have been violated."  (Pacem in Terris, #127)  This teaching was echoed by the Second Vatican Council when it stated, "Divine Providence urgently demands of us that we free ourselves from the age old slavery of war...It is our clear duty therefore to strain every muscle in working for the time when all war can be completely outlawed by international consent."  (Gaudium et Spes, #82)

Peace is not achieved by preparing for war.  A society free from violence is not created by making guns more accessible to its populace.  Peace and non-violence are like any virtue:  we only achieve them when we practice them diligently. 

A young theologian named Joseph Ratzinger announced in 1966 that the Constantinian era has come to an end in the Church. 

Being an Authentic Person

Anyone who remembers reading Shakespeare in high school knows the cast of characters in every play was called the "Dramatis Personae".  The word "person" comes from the Latin meaning a mask or a character in a play.  It was only in the Christian era when the term "persona" came to mean a person in our modern understanding of a human being.  This evolution came from the attempt to understand Jesus and the various members of the Trinity. 

In our own times, the idea of being a person is also intimately linked to the modern idea of authenticity.  This term, unfortunately, has been devalued to refer to a subjectivistic and relativistic understanding of being a human being.  An authentic person is often identified as someone who is true to themselves, free, autonomous, and individual.  Modern thinkers believe that to be authentic means to be free of ouside demands and restrictions placed upon the individual.  However, as Charles Taylor has pointed out, "Authenticity is not the enemy of demands that emanate from beyond the self; it supposes such demands."  (The Ethics of Authenticity, p. 41)  To be an authentic human being is to be true to the nature that we are given and the vocation to which we are called as a human person. 

The authentic person recognizes that he or she has obligations to other persons, obligations that flow from belonging to something larger than oneself.  These obligations are not to be understood as imposed laws external to our nature, but rather as part of the very fabric of being human.  It is the recognition that we need one another and that we belong to a community.  As Taylor puts it, "If authenticity is being true to ourselves, is recovering our own 'sentiment de l'existence,' then perhaps we can only achieve it integrally if we recognize that this sentiment connects us to a wider whole."  (The Ethics of Authenticity, p. 91)

Rather than condemning the modern era, however, and its notion of authenticity, we should seek to recover its real meaning by engaging in dialogue to recover the kernel of truth found in the idea and demonstrate to the world how rich is the meaning of authenticity.  As Taylor states:

It suggest that we undertake a work of retrieval, that we identify and articulate the higher ideal behind the more or less debased practices, and then criticize these practices from the standpoint of their own motivating ideal.  In other words, instead of dismissing the culture altogether, or just endorsing it as it is, we ought to attempt to raise its practice by making more palpable to its participants what the ethic they subscribe to really involves...What we ought to be doing is fighting over the meaning of authenticity, and from the standpoint developed here, we ought to be trying to persuade people that self-fulfillment, so far from excluding unconditional relationships and moral demands beyond the self, actually requires these in some form.  The struggle ought not to be over authenticity, for or against, but about it, defining its proper meaning.  We ought to be trying to lift the culture back up, closer to its motivating ideal.  (The Ethics of Authenticity, p. 72-73)

This task first of all begins with a radical conversion in our own selves.  Each of us create masks behind which we hide and perform for others.  Ultimately we hide from ourselves what we do not want to acknowledge about ourselves and the wider reality of the world.  We discover our path to authenticity first and foremost in the depths of our conscience.  As Thomas Merton states:

It is in the depths of conscience that God speaks, and if we refuse to open up inside and look into those depths, we also refuse to confront the invisible God who is present within us.  This refusal is a practical admission that we do not want God to be God any more than we want ourselves to be our true selves.  Just as we have a superficial, external mask which we put together with words and actions that do not fully represent all that is in us, so we believers deal with a God who is made up of words, feelings, reassuring slogans, and this is less the God of faith than the product of religious and social routine.  (Love and Living, p. 41-42)

Francis Thompson's poem "The Hound of Heaven" captures well the person's attempt to escape from God and his own true self.  At the end of the day, such an escape is a futile attempt.  We cannot run away from God, and we cannot run away from our true natures.  In the Christian tradition we overcome our masks and escapes by dying to self and surrendering completely to God in imitation of Jesus the Lord.  As Thomas Merton again points out, "The death by which we enter into life is not an escape from reality but a complete gift of ourselves which involves a total commitment to reality.  It begins by renouncing the illusory reality which created things acquire when they are seen only in their relation to our own selfish interests."  (Thoughts in Solitude, p. 17)

At the end of the day, the masks we create for ourselves that are designed to fool others, fool ourselves, and fool God must all be left behind in order to achieve our authentic selves.  To be authentic also means to be connected to a greater whole, recognizing the responsibilities we have for one another that exist not by external command but by our very nature.  Finally, as Karl Rahner so often said, to be an authentic person is to fulfill the vocation that each person has in relation to God and one another in following the loving way of the Lord Jesus.  Let Merton's prayer be our own as we seek our authentic selves:  "For the sinful self is not my real self, it is not the self You have wanted for me, only the self I wanted for myself.  And I no longer want this false self."  (Thoughts in Solitude, p. 72)

Qualifying the Called - 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

If we were to develop a list of requisite abilities and requirements to be a follower of Jesus, what might be included?  Fidelity, love, care and concern for the poor, a prayerful spirit, and a host of other qualities might be part of such a list.  If we were to develop a similar list to be a minister in the Christian community, no doubt academic requirements would be added to the list, most of which would only look to the intellectual formation of a person while ignoring the human, moral, psychological, and spiritual formation.  Nevertheless, the readings for today challenge our preconceived ideas on discipleship and ministry.

In the first reading, we find the calling of Amos to the ministry of prophet.  Amos himself objects to the calling as he did not belong to a company of prophets, as was common at that time.  Instead, Amos was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores, not exactly what we might consider formation for the prophetic ministry.  However, God continually called shepherds to lead his people throughout the history of Israel.  A shepherd must have a care for his flock, a great deal of patience, and the ability to endure the weather as his job would entail a great deal of time outside.  These experiences can be important in developing a spirit to serve God in other ways.  Yet, Amos had other qualities that only God knew, a lesson those of us in the Church should heed carefully as we seek others to minister in the Church.

Paul develops this point about the mystery of God’s calling us and bestowing his blessings upon us.  At the end of the day, there is no quality or experience to which we can point that would entitle us to discipleship or a position of ministry in the Church.  Paul himself possessed a great many qualities beneficial to ministry:  a solid education in the Law, Roman citizenship, oratorical skills, and knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.  And yet Paul recognized that none of these traits matter to God.  We have been adopted by God – freely chosen by God without qualification.  Discipleship and service in ministry, then, are our responses to gifts and calling God has bestowed freely upon us.  Jesus is then the example we follow in seeking to serve others in discipleship and ministry.

The Gospel text introduces us to the calling of the twelve and sending them forth to perform ministry.  Recall that the twelve had no training, education, or otherwise that would make them qualified to perform the tasks to which Jesus called them.  Fishermen, a tax collector, and a zealot are a collection of people not likely we might choose for ministry.  Yet, the point of the text is the qualifications to ministry after we are called:  take nothing with you, accept the hospitality of others, and if you are rejected just move on.  More positively these men were to preach repentance and have authority over unclean spirits – a ministry not dissimilar to that of Amos from the first reading and akin to Paul’s ministry throughout his life.

God is the great equalizer:  before God we are all in the same place.  God is infinite; we are finite.  In this respect none of us will ever know God fully, and what we know of God is so miniscule compared to the true reality of God’s being.  Hence, the person with advanced theological degrees is no better than the unlettered child who says his prayers with sincerity each day.  All are called to the same task, to the same demands of discipleship, and to the same tasks of ministry just as Amos, Paul and the twelve were so called.  It is only in our response to God’s invitation and gifts that determine our fidelity and success in the work entrusted to us.  The call and the gifts, however, are given freely to all.

As we seek to remain ever faithful to the call and gifts that God has entrusted to us, we pray together for the grace to persevere in that call:  “Let us pray to be faithful to the light we have received, to the name we bear.  Father, let the light of your truth guide us to your kingdom through a world filled with lights contrary to your own.  Christian is the name and the gospel we glory in.  May your love make us what you have called us to be.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.”   

The Beginnings of Reform

"'I acknowledge my transgression', says David.  If I admit my fault, then you will pardon it.  Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon.  But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others.  They seek to criticize, not to correct.  Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others. This was not the way that David showed us how to pray and make amends to God, when he said:  'I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me.'  He did not concentrate on others' sins; he turned his thoughts upon himself.  He did not merely stroke the surface, but he plunged inside and went deep down within himself.  He did not spare himself, and therefore was not impudent in asking to be spared."  (St. Augustine, Serm. 19, 2-3:  CCL 41, 252)

When Pope John XXIII announced his intention to convene the Second Vatican Council, he sought a thorough reform of the Church in its very core.  The passage from Augustine above describes well the difference between the Church of the 19th Century and the vision of John XXIII.  The ecclesiology of the 19th Century saw the Church as a perfect society, the spotless bride of Christ, holy and indefectable.  The posture of the Church at that time was to criticize all the evils of its time, condemning all propositions that did not emanate from scholasticism.  While such actions are necessary at times, it cannot become the sole means of proclaiming the Good News of Jesus the Lord. 

What is more, the Church prior to John XXIII never acknowledged its own faults that contributed to the crises of particular ages.  The inflexibility of liturgical law inhibited the growth of the Church in Asia and Africa.  The scandal of the inquisition and the wars of religion led to secularism and the loss of faith in so many souls.  The excessive wealth and pomp of the Church led to a church for the powerful and rich, not a church of the poor.  Some would argue that such wealth was befitting of the worship of God, forgetting that God himself was content to dwell in the poor tent in the desert more than the opulence of the Temple in Jerusalem, that Jesus was content to be born in the poor stable of Bethlehem rather than in the palace of the emperor. 

The just war theory and the idea of the diseased limb was the justification used to inflict war and capital punishment on the populace.  And yet reform voices in the late Medieval period saw the inherent contradition in the Church's use of violence.  As Erasmus noted:

says he; O hardened wretch! can you call him Father, when you are just going to cut your brother's throat? 'Hallowed be thy name:' how can the name of God be more impiously unhallowed, than by mutual bloody murder among you, his sons? 'Thy kingdom come:' do you pray for the coming of his kingdom, while you are endeavoring to establish an earthly despotism, by spilling the blood of God's sons and subjects? 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven:'his will in heaven, is for peace, but you are now meditating war. Dare you to say to your Father in heaven 'Give us this day our daily bread;' when you are going, in the next minute perhaps, to burn up your brother's corn-fields; and had rather lose the benefit of them yourself, than suffer him to enjoy them unmolested? With what face can you say, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,' when, so far from forgiving your own brother, you are going, with all the haste you can, to murder him in cold blood, for an alleged trespass that, after all, is but imaginary. Do you presume to deprecate the danger of temptation, who, not without great danger to yourself, are doing all you can to force your brother into danger? Do you deserve to be delivered from evil, that is, from the evil being, to whose impulse you submit yourself, and by whose spirit you are now guided, in contriving the greatest possible evil to your brother?"

"That the clergy cover over this most irreligious conduct [war] with the cloak of religion renders the evil less capable of remedy. The colors in the regiments, (consecrated by ministers of peace!) bear the figure of the cross painted upon them. The unfeeling mercenary soldier, hired for a few pieces of paltry coin, to do the work of a man-butcher, carries before him the standard of the cross; and that very figure of the cross becomes the symbol of war, which alone ought to teach every one that looks at it, that war ought to be utterly abolished. What hast thou to do with the cross of Christ on thy banners, thou blood-stained soldier? With such a disposition as thine; with deeds like thine, of robbery and murder, thy proper standard would be a dragon, a tiger, or a wolf!

I see you, while the standard of salvation is in one hand, rushing on with a sword in the other, to the murder of your brother; and, under the banner of the cross, destroying the life of one who owes his salvation to the cross. Even from the Holy Sacrament itself, (for it is sometimes, at the same hour, administered in opposite camps) in which is signified the complete union of all Christians, the warriors, who have just received it, run instantly to arms, and endeavor to plunge the dreadful steel into each other's vitals. Of a scene thus infernal, and fit only for the eyes of accursed spirits, who delight in mischief and misery, the pious warriors would make Christ the spectator.

The most absurd circumstance of all those respecting the use of the cross as a standard to support the war and warrior, is, that you see it glittering and waving high in air in both the contending armies at once. Divine service is also performed to the same Christ in both armies at the same time. What a shocking sight? Lo! crosses dashing against crosses, and Christ on this side firing bullets at Christ on the other; cross against cross, and Christ against Christ. The banner of the cross, significant of the Christian profession, is used on each side, to strike terror into the opposite enemy. How dare they, on this occasion, to attack what, on all others, they adore? Let us now imagine we hear a soldier, among these fighting Christians, [or one of his civilian supporters] saying the Lord's prayer. 'Our Father,' 

John XXIII sought to heal the Church from these faults, to remind us that the Church is ever on the way, always in need of reform as we seek to be more faithful to the teaching and example of the Lord Jesus.  The teaching of the pontiff on war in his encyclical "Pacem in Terris" and the teaching of the Council on war in Gaudium et Spes has led the Church to a greater understanding of the non-violence of Jesus the Lord, the Prince of Peace.  As we continue to reflect on the call of the Council and its message to us, we seek to be more Christ-like in our own personal lives and in the communal life of the Church.

Upcoming Posts - A Vatican II Theme

Beginning on August 19th, Deacon Mike Lewis and I will begin a series at St. Patrick's Parish in the Northland on the Second Vatican Council.  Each Sunday from 9:30am to 10:45am we will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the opening of Vatican II by exploring the council documents and seeing how the Church changed from the days before the Council and the days following the Council.  I will post our session notes and reflections each week as we explore the most monumental event in religion in the 20th century.

The American contribution to Vatican II was the Declaration on Religious Liberty, known by its Latin name "Dignitatis Humanae".  On Saturday October 6th I will present a workshop at the Missouri Catholic Conference Annual Assembly on the Vatican II teaching on this topic and how it was a significant departure from the Church's previous positions on the religious liberty.  We will then discuss the global dimensions of religious liberty to see how the teachings of the Council can have great impact on various events around the world.  I will post the notes and discussion from that day as well.

On Saturday October 27th Community of Christ in Independence, MO will have a major Peace Conference that will be an interfaith conversation on issues of peace and justice.  Brad Martell, the Social Justice Director for Community of Christ, has put together an outstanding program for the day, the link for which I will post in the coming days.  Brad has asked me to present a workshop on the Catholic tradition on peace, another area that has seen major developments in the past fifty years.  I'll post the notes and discussion we have from that workshop as well.

In the past few years there has been a conversation about the Second Vatican Council regarding its legacy and impact in the Church.  Very often the dividing line has been those who see the Council from the perspective of a hermaneutic of continuity and those who see the Council in terms of a hermaneutic of rupture.  As is the case in so many areas of Church life, the reality is more complex than these two choices.  Certainly there are many aspects of the Council that shows a great continuity with the long Catholic tradition in terms of faith and practice.  However, there are elements of the Council that represent a departure from Catholic practice, although this departure is more a return to a more ancient tradition and understanding of the Church that had been lost for many generations due to a number of historical factors.  Consequently, the Council's legacy is not one of an either/or position of continuity versus rupture, but rather one of and/both where some of the continuity is more evident in Catholic faith and life while other elements of continuity are ruptures from historical departures from the more ancient tradition and understanding of Catholic life and practice.

As we will see, the concepts of religious liberty and the Catholic position on war and peace have both returned to a more ancient tradition and hence the continuity of our rediscovered understanding is found in a continuity with the early Church.  At the same time, these rediscoveries represent a rupture with a historical departure from the early Church's understanding of these concepts that came to dominate the Church's life and practice up until the time of the Second Vatican Council. 

The anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council will be celebrated within the context of the celebration of the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI.  As we explore the great treasures of Vatican II we hope to grow in our faith and come to appreciate the great tradition we have as the People of God.