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Against the Politics of Violence
By Joseph E. Vallely, Washington Green
Finally the American Roman Catholic bishops have issued a specific moral theological instruction. The Catholic prelates have declared that a U.S.-led war against Iraq is not morally justified under the Christian principles of a war based on just cause.
The Christian principles of a just war demand that the safety of a nation must be imminently threatened by another nation. The Catholic bishops believe and teach that Iraq, a former ally, does not pose an imminent threat to the security of America. Therefore, the utilization of military violence, as approved by the U.S. Congress and Senate, is declared unjust and immoral by the American Catholic bishops. Pope John Paul II, vicar of Christ, has also condemned the proposed war that was recently approved by Connecticut's three Republican members of the House of Representatives and both of our Senators. Lovely!
This Roman Catholic is encouraged by the bishops' anti-war statement. Unfortunately, President Bush—a friend of the pro-life bishops—will reject the counsel of the Catholic hierarchy because he is accountable to another secular hierarchy: the bishops of the Republican party, including his father. Many of them—like George W. Bush and his father and grandfather before him—are members of the Yale University secret club called Skull and Bones. What are they up to? Aren't the members of this private undergraduate club young Masons who worship the god represented on the back of the one dollar bill, i.e. the seeing eye on the top of the stone block pyramid? George Washington was himself a Mason; might there thus be an association between the front and the back of the dollar bill?
President Bush will deliberately ignore the moral instruction pertaining to Gulf War II as provided by the Catholic bishops. Could the cause of Mr. Bush's rejection be that he is a Mason? Papists are not acceptable to the English Masons.
The Catholic bishops do not control the American military, but they are shepherds of immortal souls. It is the primary responsibility of the bishops to provide moral guidance to Christian souls. All souls possess a conscience. It is the grave responsibility of the bishops to ensure that the consciences of their flocks, including those in the U.S. military, are not darkened by misinformation and half-truths. Patriotism has been used as an excuse both to permit and to justify barbarically killing one's opponents. Is a Christian (including a Christian serving in the military) who opposes Persian Gulf War II unpatriotic? Of course not! The counsels of the undarkened conscience take precedence over pseudo-patriotic cries to patriotism employed by immoral politicians.
Patriotism has been used as a manipulative ploy by America's politicians for several centuries beginning with the American revolt in 1776 against King George III, a good Christian. King George owned and read many Bibles. George Washington may not have owned any Bibles; he never mentioned Jesus Christ and reportedly departed from the Church of England service before the consecration of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus, an infallible doctrine of the faith. Obviously, Mr. Washington accepted violence as a means to an end. Washington's morality of war has been sanctified by the legions of politicians who came after him, as symbolized by the towns, cities, states and lakes that have been named in his militaristic honor. A Catholic bishop has never had anything named in his honor. Nada. Nothing.
The politicians don't really want to hear the moral counsels of the Catholic bishops. The Sunday morning news shows will not be interviewing the bishops who are condemning Persian Gulf War II. One of them is Bishop Peter Rosazza of the Archdiocese of Hartford, a native of Torrington and a graduate of Torrington High School. Bishop Rosazza visited Senator Dodd's office in Hartford to "protest" Gulf War II. Nevertheless, the Catholic senator voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. As I have already stated, the politicians ignore the Catholic shepherds in moral matters.
It is time that Bishop Rosazza and the benevolent Catholic bishops reconsidered their permissive, fatherly ways and take the step of excommunicating those Catholics who oppose the Church's teachings in matter of faith and morals. The bishops are teaching that a war against Iraq is unjust and immoral, so the Catholic bishops should either put up or shut up. They have a pastoral obligation to excommunicate the political advocates of violence. The American Catholic bishops have lost credibility because of their lack of courage.
It is interesting for this psychotherapist who worked as a psychologist in the New York psychiatric system to observe that President Bush refuses to hold live, nationally televised news conferences regarding his obsessive compulsion to attack Iraq. He is afraid of an inquisition by the news media. Mr. Bush doesn't want to be interrogated, because couldn't answer the moral implication of Gulf War II. Bush would rather kill another 200,000 Iraqis, as his father did in 1991. The Bush amoral premise is that Iraqis are not worth as much as Americans.
The politicians advocating war with Iraq are moral derelicts. They have darkened their own consciences with eloquent rationalizations learned at the best schools of reason. The reason they are using cannot make moral distinctions between right and wrong. Pray for peace using the Holy Rosary. Pray that God will purge the land of the politicians of violence.
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