EXCERPT:
This time my intention is to focus on a long-term tendency in US foreign affairs. Here, the very parties who are gridlocked on so many domestic issues show little if any disagreement on what strikes me as the central and abiding feature of US foreign policy.
That feature is what I call “Endless War.”
My analysis built on two key facts: (1) The Roman Catholic Church has in the last 50 years transformed itself into a “Peace Church” opposed to nearly all modern warfare; (2) during those same 50 years the US (under both parties) has been incapable of conducting its foreign affairs without nearly continual recourse to war.
The “Peace Church.” Over the centuries Catholic Social Teaching acknowledged three approaches to the morality of war. There was pacifism, rooted in the teaching and practice of Jesus and his early followers. There was the just war theory, elaborated first in the 5th century by St. Augustine and developed further by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, the Spanish Jesuits in the 15th century, and a number of prominent 20th century theologians. And, beginning in the 11th century, there was crusade (or holy war).
Pacifism committed to nonviolence in all cases, and rejected all armed conflict as a morally unacceptable option. The just war theory laid out key criteria that must be met in order for any recourse to arms to be “just” -- that is, morally lawful. Crusades depended on believing that war for a “great and noble” cause (such as recovering the Holy Land from the infidel, or eliminating heresy) could not only be justified, but could reap spiritual and material rewards (for example, indulgences and property) for the warrior.
By the mid 20th century, crusade was largely discredited, and for Vatican Council II (1962-1965) the just war theory was the dominant approach, with pacifism still an option but crusade rejected.
Thus, during the Vietnam War, the US Bishops made it clear that Catholics could claim conscientious objection against the war, or judge it by the criteria of the just war theory, but could not approve it as a crusade against communism to be won by any means necessary. Since Vatican II, Catholicism rejects the holy war notion that anything goes as long as one’s cause is just.
Moreover even the “just war” criteria are now more difficult to meet given the conditions of modern warfare, with its “total war” strategies and its weapons of mass destruction. Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, the most conservative bishop of Vatican II, stated that the conditions of modern warfare made a “just war” impossible.
Vatican II reserved its sole outright condemnation for the manufacture, sale, stockpiling, threat, and use of nuclear weapons. And Pope Paul VI clearly put Catholicism on the peace platform in 1965 when, addressing the United Nations, he cried his famous plea “No more war! War never again!”
Friday, March 23, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
#352: For God and Country?
EXCERPT:
It’s a little too early to tell, but I will not be surprised if the elections of 2012 end up featuring more controversy over religion than in any time since John Kennedy fought to break the Catholic barrier in 1960 (witness the inflammatory remarks by former senator Santorum regarding JFK’s Houston speech on church and state).
If so, it will be for many converging reasons: the continuing national divide over Roe v Wade, the divide among Republicans between social conservatives and traditional business-oriented Republicans, the presence of a Mormon and two Catholics in the Republican race, the determination of the Obama Administration to push against legal exemptions for church-based institutions, and the equally determined resistance of evangelical leaders and the US Catholic bishops.
I have no quarrel with introducing religious beliefs and values into our public life, and even into our political campaigns. But I object when anyone exploits faith as a political tool.
Too often I find that people’s first allegiance is to their own party--and then they selectively invoke whatever religious beliefs and teachings reinforce their own politics. To my mind, politics should be the vehicle for promoting our religious values and beliefs--not the other way around.
Too often, I fear, even bishops and other Catholics have embraced the Republican Party (perhaps in the wake of Roe v. Wade) and then strained very hard to push the Republican camel (oops--I mean elephant) through the eye of the Catholic social values needle. It’s a very tight squeeze, and does violence to both the elephant and the needle.
…
A personal disclaimer: I have never registered with a party. I’ve voted for Republicans, Democrats, independents, write-in candidates, and “none of the above.”
I begin by presuming that Catholic social values constitute a well-rounded vision that cannot be fit into the square left-or-right pigeonholes of American politics. In my view, it is impossible to side with Democrats or Republican all the time.
…
I never expect to find candidates who reflect Catholic views on all these questions, even when the candidates are themselves Catholics! Instead, most candidates bring their personal political preconceptions to any discussion of public principles, and then invoke “Christian values” only when it is convenient. But it pains me when Catholic church officials do the same thing.
And it saddens me that too few Catholics are trained to employ their faith as a lens to spy whatever bits of wisdom might be imbedded within the vast silliness of today’s political rhetoric.
It’s a little too early to tell, but I will not be surprised if the elections of 2012 end up featuring more controversy over religion than in any time since John Kennedy fought to break the Catholic barrier in 1960 (witness the inflammatory remarks by former senator Santorum regarding JFK’s Houston speech on church and state).
If so, it will be for many converging reasons: the continuing national divide over Roe v Wade, the divide among Republicans between social conservatives and traditional business-oriented Republicans, the presence of a Mormon and two Catholics in the Republican race, the determination of the Obama Administration to push against legal exemptions for church-based institutions, and the equally determined resistance of evangelical leaders and the US Catholic bishops.
I have no quarrel with introducing religious beliefs and values into our public life, and even into our political campaigns. But I object when anyone exploits faith as a political tool.
Too often I find that people’s first allegiance is to their own party--and then they selectively invoke whatever religious beliefs and teachings reinforce their own politics. To my mind, politics should be the vehicle for promoting our religious values and beliefs--not the other way around.
Too often, I fear, even bishops and other Catholics have embraced the Republican Party (perhaps in the wake of Roe v. Wade) and then strained very hard to push the Republican camel (oops--I mean elephant) through the eye of the Catholic social values needle. It’s a very tight squeeze, and does violence to both the elephant and the needle.
…
A personal disclaimer: I have never registered with a party. I’ve voted for Republicans, Democrats, independents, write-in candidates, and “none of the above.”
I begin by presuming that Catholic social values constitute a well-rounded vision that cannot be fit into the square left-or-right pigeonholes of American politics. In my view, it is impossible to side with Democrats or Republican all the time.
…
I never expect to find candidates who reflect Catholic views on all these questions, even when the candidates are themselves Catholics! Instead, most candidates bring their personal political preconceptions to any discussion of public principles, and then invoke “Christian values” only when it is convenient. But it pains me when Catholic church officials do the same thing.
And it saddens me that too few Catholics are trained to employ their faith as a lens to spy whatever bits of wisdom might be imbedded within the vast silliness of today’s political rhetoric.
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