When Catholics Become a Peace Church

In October, Pax Christi will buy a full-page ad in the National Catholic Reporter prior to the annual meeting of the U.S. bishops. The ad will advocate abandoning the idea of a "just war," something the Catholic church, including in recent statements by the current Pope, shows signs of possibly being willing to do. James Rauner's article below reports how the Catholic church outside of the United States has opposed past wars, and suggests how little it would take to move the church in the U.S. to the same position. But opposing particular wars as "unjust," and suggesting that there might be just ones, leaves the war industry in place, making new wars inevitable. Pax Christi is to be applauded for urging the church to drop that outdated way of thinking, as the current Pope's statements suggest he already has. —DCNS

When Catholics Become a Peace Church
By Deacon James Rauner, Pax Christi Michigan         

From Just War to Just Peace: The Time Is Now!

The Ides of War, March, 2003 …

In 2003, weeks before the attack, Pope John Paul II warned President Bush that his “preemptive war” on Iraq would throw the Middle East into chaos, that this war would be a “defeat for humanity which could not be morally or legally justified.”

On March 5, 2003, Pope John Paul II sent the Italian Cardinal, Pio Laghi, to intervene with President George W. Bush and ask him not to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, but the US leader rejected the appeal claiming he was “convinced it was God’s will”.  

The pope had already referred to this planned military intervention as an “adventure” and had warned that war would have serious consequences for both nations and the world. The pope had chosen Laghi for this delicate mission, because he was a friend of the Bush family and might have stood a better chance of being listened to.

The day before the scheduled meeting with the President, the cardinal was asked to meet with officials from the US State Department, as the President wanted to know the agenda of the meeting in advance.   Cardinal Laghi was “interrogated” by the National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice.

When the Cardinal arrived at the meeting with the President the next day, he handed Pope John Paul II’s letter to the President, “who
immediately put it on a side table without opening or reading it.”

The President then launched into an argument for war,. He told the cardinal that he, the president, “was convinced it was God’s will”, and sought to convince the papal envoy that it was the right thing to do.

“After a few minutes of what the Cardinal termed ‘a sermon’”,  Laghi interrupted President Bush and said, “Mr. President, I came here in order to speak to you and to give you a message from the Holy Father and I would like you to listen to me.”

Cardinal Laghi told Bush that three things would happen if the United States went to war.  First, it would cause many deaths and injuries on both sides. Secondly, it would result in civil war. And, thirdly, the United States might know how to get into a war, but it would have great difficulty getting out of one.

Cardinal Laghi realized from this exchange that the President had already made up his mind. This was confirmed shortly afterwards by General Pace, as he accompanied the Cardinal to his car. He shook hands with the Cardinal and told him, “Your Eminence, don’t be afraid. We’ll do it quickly and we will do it in the best way.”

Laghi knew his mission had failed, but he also realized that the Bush administration was very naïve about the consequences of war.

The press corps was waiting outside the White House after the meeting to interview the cardinal, but administration officials did not allow him to speak to them at the White House.

In the weeks and months before the U.S. attacked Iraq, not only the Holy Father, but also many in the Vatican spoke out against a “preemptive” or “preventative” strike. They declared that the just war theory could not justify such a war.

The Vatican also spoke out against war in Iraq. Archbishop Renato Raffaele Martino, a former U.N. envoy and current prefect of the Council for Justice and Peace, told reporters that war against Iraq was a preventive war and constituted a "war of aggression", and thus did not constitute a just war. The foreign minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, said that such a war of aggression is a crime against peace.

On September 13, 2002, US Catholic bishops had signed a letter to President Bush stating that any "preemptive, unilateral use of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq" could not be justified at the time. They came to this position by evaluating whether an attack against Iraq would satisfy the criteria for a just war as defined by Catholic  theology.

On 15 February 2003, a month before the invasion, there were worldwide protests against the Iraq War, including  a rally of three million people in Rome, which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever anti-war rally. According to the French academic Dominique Reynié, between 3 January and 12 April 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war.

Americans, and of course American Catholics, were largely unaware of the depth and importance of the opposition of Church leaders everywhere to an attack on Iraq, since for the most part the mainstream American media did not carry these stories. In the same way, many Americans were unaware that Pope John Paul II had spoken out against the first Gulf War at least 56 times. Media in the United States, controlled by corporate, government biased owners, omitted this from news commentaries on these wars.

We go to war ...

The invasion was preceded by an air strike on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad on 19 March 2003. The following day, coalition forces launched an incursion into Basra Province from their massing point close to the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border.

While the Special Forces launched an amphibious assault from the Persian Gulf to secure Basra and the surrounding petroleum fields, the main invasion army moved into southern Iraq, occupying the region and engaging in the Battle of Nasiriyah on 23 March. Massive air strikes across the country and against Iraqi command and control threw the defending army into chaos and prevented an effective resistance. On 26 March, the 173rd Airborne Brigade was airdropped near the northern city of Kirkuk, where they joined forces with Kurdish rebels and fought several actions against the Iraqi army to secure the northern part of the country.

As the Bombs fell, …  American Opposition became Silent…

“Son of man, Can these Bones Come to Life ?” Ezekiel 37:1-14

But, what if…

Following the solitary example of Bishop John Michael Botean, who had, on March 7^th, just twelve days before the Iraq invasion,   issued a Pastoral Letter to his U.S. diocese morally denouncing the War on Iraq as gravely evil,… 

….  Bishop Wilton Gregory, President of the USCCB, decides to call an emergency meeting of the entire American Catholic Hierarchy.

He had been powerfully moved by the strong words of Bishop Botean’s Pastoral Letter:

“When a moral conflict arises between Church teaching and secular morality, when contradictory moral demands are made upon a Catholic’s conscience, he or she, ‘must obey God rather than man’ (Acts 5:29).”

“A moment of moral crisis has arisen for us, I must now speak to you as your bishop… with the authority and responsibility I, though a sinner, have been given as a successor to the apostles on your behalf…. It is a moral imperative that I not allow you, by my silence, to fall into grave evil.”

“I must declare to you my people, for the sake of your salvation as well as my own, that any direct participation and support of this war against the people of Iraq is objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin. Beyond a reasonable doubt this war is morally incompatible with the Person and the Way of Jesus Christ. With moral certainty I say to you it does not meet even the minimal standards of the catholic just war theory.”

Noticing that Botean was the first and only Bishop to yet speak out against the war, in support of the Pope’s urgent message, Bishop Gregory, as president, began calling all American bishops to a special session of the USCCB, to start the evening of Sunday, March 16^th .

In doing so, Bishop Gregory believes it is necessary for the American Catholic church to reinforce the message sent to President Bush by Pope John Paul II….

When he consults with Bishop Skylstad, vice-president of the USCCB, Skylstad becomes very alarmed at the possibility of confronting the government. He tells Gregory that he has too much on his plate, that he has just had some real success with issuing “The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” in his efforts to gain control of the scandal of the Roman Catholic sex abuse cases. Now wasn’t the time to anger both the public and the government.

Bishop Gregory knew there was great danger, and he saw that he had two obstacles to overcome. First, the conference itself would have to unite the bishops in support of the papal initiative, and in giving up their usual strategy of always proving Catholics were faithful and patriotic citizens no matter what. But then that would create the second difficulty. They would have to explain to American Catholics why there had been no teaching preparing them for something like this beforehand.

Gregory thought of the passage he had read recently from Richard Rohr:

"We are saddled and bridled with a religion that is not sure if it wants to become church.  It’s adherent’s expectations are very set. … It is a comfortable and very materialistic religion, which tests it’s people’s commitment on the level of doctrine but is afraid to test that commitment on issues of lifestyle or mature conscience.” —Near Occasions of Grace, page 52.

Tensions and grumbling mounts within the church as its bishops prepare to travel to the emergency  meeting.  The Archbishop of the Military Vicarate,  Edwin O’Brien, starts objecting loudly to the possibility of confronting his Commander-in-Chief.

 … Speculation abounds…..

Some are estimating that if the church were to confront the government over this war, as many as 20% of Catholics might leave the church, and certainly the church, in  parishes, dioceses, and organizations, would lose at least half of its income from collections and rich donors. One smart-alec suggested that it might solve the priest shortage,… if not too many of them left !

On Sunday evening, March 16^th …  the USCCB gathered in closed session.  The question being put before the bishops was this:  Should we, the Catholic Hierarchy of the United States, support the teaching of Pope John Paul II that a preventative war against Iraq is immoral, illegal and unjust, and should we teach our Catholic people to resist this war and refuse to serve in it?  Or, should we simply be silent and do nothing, as we have always done during wartime? While the meeting is ‘completely closeted’, word does leak out in dribbles here and there. There seems to be a terrible argument going on, back and forth. Some want to be faithful to the pope, many are reluctant.  Some are angry, many are scared.

Bishop Botean had said: “the Gospels reveal our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ to be nonviolent.  In them, Jesus teaches a Way of life that his disciples are to follow, a Way of nonviolent love of friends and enemies”…. “All well and good, but it’s not practical!”...  “All the recent popes have said the same thing!” … “But It doesn’t work. We’ll lose everything.”

“It’s our sacred and patriotic duty to sacrifice our children to defend our American life styles.”

“Any killing associated with this war is unjustified and, in consequence, unequivocally murder. Direct participation in this war is the moral equivalent of direct participation in  abortion”……”We have a moral obligation to overthrow the vicious and evil regime of Saddam,  the tyrant”…Time passes,… Monday …and then …Tuesday, … the arguments go back and forth until finally on Wednesday morning, the feeling is they can’t move any further …

It’s time to take a vote:… 79 % of the bishops vote in support of the Papal teaching, …14 % of the bishops dissociate themselves from the USCCB and walk out in protest…  The holy Spirit has spoken through the majority,… we Catholics are now a church of Peace, and will try to dissuade President Bush from going to war. 

Efforts are made all day long to get through to President Bush in the White House, but he is taking no calls from the American bishops, as he took no heed of the Pope himself.

By now, it’s the evening of March 19, 2003, President Bush is in the White House enjoying the evening with Rev Billy Graham, who prays that our American bombs may find their targets and destroy our enemies.

Before the USCCB meeting ends…

Special Peace and Justice committees are set up to determine what steps to take to implement the decision taken. It will be a multiple step process. It is a difficult time for the church in the United States.  They begin listing what steps are needed and what organizing will be useful.

*****

(1) A committee of reconciliation sets to work with the 14% of bishops who walked out.

(2) A committee is set up to review and update the  Pastoral letter on War: 1983 -“The Challenge of Peace”  originally planned to be ambiguous, and now outdated by advances in catholic  thinking  and Papal teaching about war since that time.

(3) The Gospel teaching of nonviolence, and how “just war” theories are like “just abortion” theories will be taught in all parishes and pulpits in the country.

(4) Conscientious Objector counseling is set up in all dioceses and support offered for all Catholics confronted with situations of legal jeopardy due to their need to be C.O.s to this war.

(5) State Catholic Conferences  begin lobbying Senators and Representatives explaining  why the church will no longer support war…  We begin to feel a chill in Church-State relationships!

(6) Homilists are beginning to explain to our congregations what it was like during the primitive church’s ‘communities of resistance’ to the Roman Empire, and how this is now similar to our Catholic parishes within the American Empire.

(7) We begin prayer and study groups in parishes to teach contemplation and help live in intimate union with Jesus, and follow his teachings to love one another, friends and enemies, learning forgiveness as we have been forgiven.

(8) Our efforts to support justice for immigrants and refugees is radicalized, we begin offering sanctuary for them and other minority group- victims in our society, opening our churches and communities across the country.

(9) Our jail/prison ministries protest inhumane conditions and practices, demand closing of ICE prisons, and release of millions of people, especially racial minorities, held for minor drug and non-violent crimes

(10) Most catholic parishes stop flying American flags as a counter cultural practice. Jesus is our commander-in-chief, not the president.

(11) 4^th degree Knights of Columbus  decide to no longer use their swords during church services, and hide them away in closets. A big revue and reorganization is going on with the 4^th degree political/ patriotic level.

(12) Bishops' meetings begin discussing the ways of “critical collaboration” in working with the government – supporting efforts that benefit the common good, opposing legislation that harms the common good.

(13) Training in techniques of nonviolent Protest, Resistance, and Alternative  Structures are offered in all dioceses, and these actions are used to enforce critical collaboration, and to offer a new means of nonviolent national defense.

(14) Movements are supported by the church, working with other religious, and non-religious groups, with Occupy citizen groups, and even international organizations to bring about the Kingdom of God, “on earth as it is in heaven”: Justice and Peace for all.

(15) Movements that would:

A. Create a just foreign policy. Cessation of all foreign military aid, outlaw all arms trade. Increase foreign peaceful aid and sharing by 10% each following year.. Strengthen the United Nations, and the World Court.

B. Dismantle the military-industrial complex, converting our industry to alternative energy and peaceful purposes.  Start reducing our “Defense” spending by 20% for each following year. Invest this money in the Department of Peace. Close down the CIA, and department of Homeland Security

C. Take all private money out of the political election system,  let all primary elections be open to everyone. Redraw all one party districts.

D. Corporations are not people – take away all rights of free speech or religious liberty. Severely limit corporations’ size and  power, make them subject to the cost of their use of public commons and their damage to the environment.

E. Diocesan and parish action committees begin supporting citizen organizing to protest economic injustice, class warfare by the rich against workers, and to promote labor unions for everyone, and public banks.

F. These committees encourage the creation of a New Economic Bill of Rights.

a.  Set Taxation of the rich back to the 1950’s. No one needs more than ‘enough’ to live well. Confiscatory inheritance tax of all but modest amount – a year’s average wage.

b.  Free education for all capable students through college  and professional universities / with social responsibilities afterwards.

c.   Free and complete, single payer, Health Care for every person in the country, even visitors.

d.  Minimum wages of $15 / hour indexed for inflation.

e.  Guaranteed Job for every person able to work.

f.   Guaranteed Income for every person unable to work.

(16) The church throws itself into supporting the Franciscan efforts to protect God’s creation, to save the environment and prevent catastrophic climate change.

... Well, you can see how easily I can go on, and on … I’d like to stop now …..And turn it over to you……   Why don’t you play with these ideas for awhile, and see what good things the Spirit leads you to….. Please let me know what you do come up with…. thank you,

Today, back in October, of the year 2014,

We members of Pax Christi are calling on  “the US Catholic church to embrace nonviolence as the only stance consistent with Christian discipleship and to reject the just war tradition, as expressed, among other places, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2309). The just war theory is unChristian and obsolete… We urge our Church  to return to its roots, as a power for peace, before it allied itself with the power of empire in the time of Constantine….”

“Clearly,  it is time to embrace and reaffirm our primary tradition of just peace. Our Catholic Church, with 1.2 billion adherents worldwide and 22% of the US population, is ideally positioned to support peacebuilding, and avert what Pope Francis calls ‘the suicide of humanity.’”

“Do we expect it to be easy? No indeed. But we are a people of hope. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’  We invite our Church to lend its prophetic voice to the abolition of war and the promotion of the way of just peace.”

CONTACT THE AUTHOR:

Deacon James Rauner,

Pax Christi Michigan, state council

jimrauner@gmail.com

www.PeaceIStheWay.US