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PDF versionAfter 65 years, retire the bomb!
by John Dear SJ on Jul. 27, 2010
We believe that we face two futures and one choice: a world without nuclear weapons or a world ruined by them. We support concrete and practical steps to reduce nuclear dangers immediately, while pursuing the multilateral, global, irreversible, and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons, as a biblically-grounded mandate and as a contemporary security imperative. Our change strategy is based around the creation of a nonpartisan, conscience-driven, enduring majority of Americans who are committed to a nuclear weapons-free world. By joining together with one voice of Christian conscience, we seek to encourage and enable our national leaders to make the complete elimination of nuclear weapons the organizing principle of American nuclear weapons policy. We join in this work to the glory of God.
The year has turned again, and friends and I are busy completing plans for our annual Hiroshima Day events in Santa Fe and Los Alamos. Our theme this time around: “Sixty Five Years Is Enough! Retire the Bomb! We Want a Nuclear Free World!”
It has been seven years now since Pax Christi New Mexico began somberly marking the occasion. There have been vigils, lectures, retreats and, on as close to Hiroshima Day as possible, in a communal gesture of repentance, sackcloth and ashes. Many prominent leaders have joined us over the years -- Kathy Kelly, Sr. Helen Prejean, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and Nobel Laureates Mariead Maguire and Jody Williams.
This year, on July 30, Bishop Gabino Zavala will join us, president of Pax Christi USA and auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. Friday night he will address us, and on Saturday, July 31, we will gather in Los Alamos, birthplace of the bomb. From the town’s Ashley Pond, we’ll process in silence through the town, sit in sackcloth and ashes, and spend thirty minutes in contemplative prayer. It will be a time dedicated to summoning our sorrow for the mortal sin of nuclear weapons and war, a time of petitioning the God of peace. Grant us, dear God, a nuclear-free world.
Our gesture, modest though it is, will be infused with Gandhi’s creative nonviolence, plus the biblical allusion to Jonah and the Ninevehites. By the tone we set we hope to dissolve the polarizing sense of “us” versus “them.” We will take responsibility for our own complicity; we’ll acknowledge our own stake in the violence that breeds nuclear weapons. Ours is not primarily an accusatory gesture. We come to grieve, repent and pray.
At the same time we have a message to bring. Seven years now and it hasn’t much changed. What it boils down to is this: nuclear weapons are ruinous for the economy, the environment, our health. They’re pernicious for children and creation. The security they lure us with is counterfeit. Nuclear weapons corrupt our souls.
Together with Bishop Zavala we’ll proclaim that designing, building, maintaining them flouts the will of the God of peace. Ordering our culture around them is impractical. Threatening their use is sinful and immoral. The turpitude of using them goes off the map.
The added tragedy is that it could have been averted. In 1945 Americans were duped. The government insisted the bomb was necessary. They said it ended the war, it saved lives. No debate, no public comment. No discerning the rat race that lay ahead. Or the looming squandering of national treasures. The planes were unleashed, the horror was done.
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We know now we were lied to. It was the dark obsession to dominate that impelled us to vaporize 200,000 thousand sisters and brothers. According to leading historians, the Japanese were preparing to surrender already. The war was already coming to an end.
If you’ve never read this assessment of the times, you’ve got homework to do. The best place to start is with the writings of historian Gar Alperovitz, particularly his book, Atomic Diplomacy. (Visit his website at www.garalperovitz.com. For a primer, google his name and download some articles.) Alperovitz has well documented how the war would have ended without our dropping atomic bombs.
But Truman was in a belligerent mood. And he looked askance at the Soviets. He wasn’t about to let them get the upper hand; here was his chance to humble them with displays of American might. This serves as no justification, of course, for murdering civilians on an incalculable scale -- a formidable problem for those in power. So the U.S. stoked its propaganda machine. And out came its nonsense: the vast killing saved lives.
Alperovitz was the first to document that Truman postponed the Potsdam meeting until July 17, 1945. The day before, July 16, the infamous test was scheduled -- scientists gathered in New Mexico to detonate a prototype. Would it work as advertized? Would it fizzle out? Truman waited to know; he wanted to size up what kind of bargaining power he would have. (Scientists later confessed they didn’t know what to expect. The atomic fission might be contained. Or it might spread across the atmosphere and set the sky permanently on fire.)
Truman got the results he was hoping for. And by mid-August, atomic fission had consumed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For weeks smoke rose from the rubble. Afterwards the U.S. Strategic Bombing survey concluded: “Certainly prior to December 31, 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
A 1946 War Department study concluded that “the Japanese leaders had decided to surrender ...”
And later, Samuel Walker, a leading historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, wrote: “The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan. ... It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it.”
Alperovitz adds that there is “little contemporaneous evidence that top World War II military leaders believed the atomic bomb was the only way to avoid an invasion.”
Eisenhower, for example, wrote his in memoirs that “Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.”
Admiral Leahy later wrote, “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”
The implied “if’s” break the heart. If Russia had declared war on Japan, says Alperovitz, and if we had guaranteed the safety of the Japanese emperor, the war would have ended and no one else would have died.
So why did we drop atomic bombs? The debate continues, a debate in most cases a result of the guilt at having to gaze at our horrific complicity. Easier to stop our ears and, under the guise of jingoistic scholarship, find refuge in denial.
But American rationale for the attacks remains weak, and our cognitive dissonance remains wide. Some by various means have tried to close the gap. Some suggest that huge sums for research had been spent, and Truman considered not deploying the bomb now a huge waste.
Others suggest that Truman feared being seen (that bugbear of all presidents) as “soft” on the enemy. And yet others suggest that the byzantine federal bureaucracies and their inscrutable decision-making put the attack on a course that just couldn’t be stopped.
But Alperovitz, to my mind -- and to the mind of many scholars -- cuts to the bone of the matter. The U.S. wanted to strengthen its position in relation to the Soviet Union. And that is why 200,000 Japanese died. What I know of subsequent U.S. history does nothing to refute Alperovitz’s thesis. Truman’s own diaries corroborate it.
Sixty-five years have passed. And we’re mired in a warlike culture of our own making. Under the leadership of the Obama administration, we continue to squander a king’s ransom for weapons of hell. Official minds are transfixed by their own propaganda. Which is to say, the rationalizing drivel America once told its people has defiled all thought. At the highest levels, like the blind leading the blind, they cling to the party line: nuclear weapons make us secure, stable, safe. Which is why we go. At the home of the bomb we proclaim, “It just ain’t so.”
We don’t proclaim it by our own authority. We go in prayer and repentance. We place our cause in the hands of the God of peace. And the God of peace gives us signs of hope.
You can see and hear Gar Alperovitz for yourself in the excellent forthcoming documentary film, "The Forgotten Bomb," about the history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the need to abolish nuclear weapons. It was made by Pax Christi New Mexico’s co-coordinator Bud Ryan along with Stuart Overbey. Featuring interviews with George Schultz, Jonathan Schell, Joni Arends and Jim Douglass, this will be a great resource to show in churches and schools. (See: www.forgottenbomb.com)
A group of young evangelicals has started a movement to abolish nuclear weapons. They call themselves the Two Futures Project (see www.twofuturesproject.org), and write:
Finally, I’m heartened by a loose network of young people traveling the country recruiting folks to come to Los Alamos next week. (See: www.thinkoutsidethebomb.org.) We expect over three hundred young people to camp out on nearby Pueblo land and vigil each day through the sixty fifth anniversaries.
“We can do nothing today about Hiroshima,” Alperovitz writes in the foreword to the 1985 edition of Atomic Diplomacy. “We can ... look to ourselves, to our actions or our inactions, to whether we contribute by deed or by silence to fostering an environment that restrains or allows or promotes the next Hiroshima.”
And that’s why we’ll climb the mesa to Los Alamos. To foster an environment in which it dawns on us all. Nuclear weapons are unthinkable. Thus our message: Sixty five years is enough. Retire the bomb.
***
John Dear will introduce Bishop Zavala at this week’s annual Hiroshima day events in Santa Fe and Los Alamos, N.M. See: www.paxchristinewmexico.org. Next week, John will teach a weeklong course, “Gandhi, King, Day and Merton,” Aug. 2-6, at Ghost Ranch Center, Abiquiu, N.M., (see www.ghostranch.org.) His latest book, Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings (Orbis), along with other recent books, A Persistent Peace and Put Down Your Sword, as well as Patricia Normile’s John Dear On Peace, are available from www.amazon.com. To contribute to Catholic Relief Services’ “Fr. John Dear Haiti Fund,” go to: http://donate.crs.org/goto/fatherjohn. For further information, or to schedule a lecture or retreat on Gospel Nonviolence, go to www.johndear.org.
And not just the "bomb"! All
And not just the "bomb"! All ABC weapons (atomic, biological & chemical) should really be retired. Now that Marxism is pretty much dead why do we really need these weapons of mass destruction? If we ever really "needed" them in the first place. I think the USA had the capability to blow up the world many times over. Excuse me but wouldn't once be enough?
I, as a conservative, don't see the rationale for the continued existence of ABC weapons. Since the abolition or prohibition of all these weapons is in the self interest of all people should it not be possible? It seems to me that this is not a pollyanna type of venture but that it is possible. The only problem is getting all nations on board in this initiative. So long as one nation can opt out, this enterprise is not possible.
I don't know how useful the UN would be in this endeavour but an attempt could be made to revise the Geneva Conventions to rule out the use of these weapons. That would be a start.
Marxism dead? This is as
Marxism dead?
This is as absurd as saying God is dead.
Now the entire corporate capitalist enterprise has crashed and burned itself, from the ashes must arise apostolic (not stalinist) Marxism
From each by their gifts, to each by their needs
peaceful cooperation
out of compassion
not capitalism unsustainable anymore
no more hungry child while the wealthy release their indigestible gas
no more sick elderly left out in the streets of New Orleans while the wealthy get liposuction to cure their over eating fries.
no more families declared illegal and sleeping under cardboard, Jose, Maria and Jesus, while the wealthy have food fights in their gated mansion complexes.
Matthew 25, for starters
Father Dear claims, "nuclear
Father Dear claims, "nuclear weapons are ruinous for the economy, the environment, our health. They’re pernicious for children and creation. The security they lure us with is counterfeit. Nuclear weapons corrupt our souls". Of course, there is no evidence for these claims.
He says that nuclear weapons are "ruinous for the economy". In what way? Are they "ruinous" because they guarantee that individuals in a variety of nations can engage in trade and in the markets without fear of attack by other nations? Are they "ruinous" because they provide jobs for those who design, develop, construct and maintain them? In what way are they "ruinous" to the economy?
He claims that they are "ruinous" to the environment? In what way? With the exception of two small weapons used 65 years ago, and a few tests of little consequence, they do nothing but sit in silos or onboard submarines. Is it the waste he is describing? Well, where is the absolute scientific evidence, the objective proof, that demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that nuclear waste is damaging, or "ruinous" to the environment? There isn't any.
He claims that they are "ruinous" to our health. Again, objective scientific evidence to prove that nuclear weapons that are just sitting in a silo or aboard a sub are more damaging to the health of individuals or groups than would be the violent wars and invasions that would certainly occur as a result of there being no nuclear weapons.
"They're pernicious to children and to creation". Uh, huh. In what way? The word "pernicious" implies corruption in some form, but in what way do nuclear weapons corrupt kids or creation, an amazingly broad concept, by the way?
Father claims that they lure us into a "couterfeit" security. Really? Is not the Soviet Union dead? Did they ever attack the US or her allies directly? Did the US attack them directly? Does Israel still exist? What about Taiwan? Does it still exist, are its citizens still free from the oppression of the Communist Chinese? Sounds pretty secure to me.
Finally, Father Dear concludes his assertions by saying "nuclear weapons corrupt our souls". Again, I see no evidence of this. Our soldiers still fight for the cause of freedom and liberty, and they do so, with few exceptions, honorably and justly. Our leaders still look at war only as the last option, not the first. Our people still are the most generous, the most compassionate people on the face of the earth. And all of this, despite the "corruption of our souls" by nuclear weapons.
Father Dear dislikes nuclear weapons, that much is clear. He is certainly entitled to his opinion, an opinion guaranteed, ironically, by the same weapons he purports to dislike so much.
J-Mac, Well, since you need
J-Mac,
Well, since you need another opinion besides Father John's - I invite you to check out "Nuclear Tipping Point", a new documentary, that focuses on four former U.S. officials -- secretaries of state George Pratt Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Senator Sam Nunn. Maybe their moral opinions will be more palatable to you. But be careful...you might have to change your mind, each of these overly-qualified individuals are calling for a world free of nuclear weapons.
The idea of nuclear disarmament is gaining support internationally, with the United States leading the charge and China and Russia expressing interest. Supporting de-nuclearization efforts includes forcefully countering a nuclear proliferation tipping point. Of course Iran has to be confronted. Of course North Korea has to be confronted. Of course the nuclear fuel cycle has to be confronted.
The President is a strong advocate of eliminating nuclear weapons. He gave a major policy speech in Prague last year. There was a Nuclear Security Summit conference in April in Washington, attended by forty nations. In May there was a Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in New York.
It's also very important to take note of the fact that Senator John McCain, who supported the idea of a nuclear free world during the election campaign, made a powerful speech on the floor of the Senate last June.
You can find that speech here: http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.Speeche...
I hope you take up the invitation to view "Nuclear Tipping Point" - the DVD is free - just go to: http://www.kintera.org/site/c.uwL1KeNZLtH/b.5717595/k.A050/Order_a_free_...
Peace and Every Good,
Frederick
Thank you, Mr. Pratt, for
Thank you, Mr. Pratt, for your follow-up comments. The references to Senator Nunn and the former secretaries of state are helpful, since they actually know what they are talking about. However, all, save Secretary Schultz, are Democrats and hardly objective on this particular issue. In addition, the President is hardly an honest interlocutor on this or any other issue, and so his support for a particular position only goes to reinforce the wisdom of opposing that position. Finally, Senator McCain, while a genuine war hero, has not been a shining light in the Senate and often takes positions that are contrary to common sense.
Secretary Schultz, whose service to the great President Ronald Reagan lends him immense credibility on this issue, is worth listening to. In addition, his service in helping to craft the Bush Administration's doctrine of preemptive war was also a great service to the nation and bears out his bona fides. However, his position in support of legalization of recreational drugs does raise some questions.
All that being said, the question that remains is, even if we foolishly proceed with nuclear disarmament, how do we verify that other nations are cooperating? Do we simply trust that the Russians and Chinese and others are disarming? Who will act as monitor of the disarmament? The United Nations, that morass of anti-Americanism?
You both might like to know
You both might like to know that these sources are neither Catholic nor Christian and in fact are in direct opposition to Roman Catholic moral theology.
Why then do you trouble yourselves reading this Roman Catholic publication?
I pray it is for our slow conversion to the true Faith in Jesus Christ, as announced so courageously and clearly by the Reverend Father John Dear SJ.
Where did I disagree with
Where did I disagree with John Dear? Where in the body of Catholic Moral Theology does it say that I cannot offer to someone a viewpoint to investigate albeit different from John's yet with similar goals? Please read and understand before you post.
apparently this is the same
apparently this is the same as Doctor of Divinity JM Grondolski, and as worthy of, what did Sen. Moynihan call it in defining Nixon's policy towards the poor: benign neglect.
You, JM, are out of agreement
You, JM, are out of agreement with the learned and careful conclusions of the USCCB, from whom you dissent, as our bishops declared nuclear weapons intrinsically immoral and their production, possession and use indefensible.
Clear up your cognitive dissonance.
Read The Challenge of Peace and convert to Catholicism.
Great article, Fr. John. Let
Great article, Fr. John. Let me second your recommendation: Gar Alperovitz's books are important to read. (I've read "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.") The main point of his argument is that the atomic bombing of Japan, rather than being the end of World War II, was the first posturing move of the new Cold War.
You would think that the testimony of President Eisenhower himself about the unnecessary atomic bombing of Japan would be persuasive to the people who uncritically defend U.S. actions, aggressions, and weapon stockpiling. But no. We still hear about how bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was "necessary," and the implication of killing or damaging thousands of innocent people including many, many children is conveniently overlooked, because, apparently, war is God to the hawks.
It is time to disarm. To be effective, the holder of the most atomic (and biological and chemical) weapons should disarm first: to provide a good example, to teach, and to model what trust in God looks like. Unfortunately, the U.S.A. has not shown such fiber in a long time if ever.
Gods love transforms our
Gods love transforms our anger, realising love, fulfilling the intended.
J-Mac, you ask a series of
J-Mac, you ask a series of questions of Father Dear that are fair, but you conclude with an assertion that is unfounded. You state:
"Father Dear dislikes nuclear weapons, that much is clear. He is certainly entitled to his opinion, an opinion guaranteed, ironically, by the same weapons he purports to dislike so much."
Is that right? Are American Christians, and Western Christians on the whole, able to have faith and express opinions only because of nuclear weapons, and by extention, because of the US military's power to protect? I run into this attitude all the time. "The use of force protects are freedom to worship." But what about the first Christians? What military guaranteed their right to believe in a resurrected Lord? Or Christians anywhere and in any time for that matter? Is our faith simply a product of an empire's ability to guarantee it? If that's the case, then I think we should forget Jesus and run with the big boys. Why pretend that God has anything to do with it at all?
"Some take pride in chariots and some in horses,
but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God."
Psalm 20:7
While I have some sympathy
While I have some sympathy for Father's goals that does not give him the right to plays fast and loose with the facts. I remember vividly driving down an Indiana freeway in 1985 listening to a interview with Japanese General from WWII who said, "if we had known you only had two bombs we would have kept fighting"
Many of us are alive today, perhap even the good father, because our fathers weren't slaughtered in the bloodbath that would have been the invasion of Japan.
Dear J-Mac, you too are clear
Dear J-Mac, you too are clear about your opinion. You ask many questions but these come from a differing worldview as Fr. Dear and others of us. To just point out a few that appear to me. It seems that to you violence and the threat of violence assure security. Honestly, do you really feel that secure in today's world? You state "Our soldiers still fight for the cause of freedom and liberty...." Is that really the case? Individual enlistees may have succumbed to the marketing of what we're about in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia & other African nations as freedom and liberty (the Bush administration labeled these actions as democracy; but where have liberty, freedom, democracy revealed themselves in these places? You seem to assume that nuclear weapons are neutral with regard to the environment. In addition you demand absolute proof without a doubt that nuclear waste is or will be ruinous to the enviroment. In this challenge segment you mention that only two "small" weapons have ever been used and the rest sit in silos and submarines (ready for use, I remind you). Here I think you're mistaken. Nuclear weapons have been used many times; they just don't happen to be the big bombs you assume. In the Shock & Awe campaign in Iraq many bombs were fitted with what's called "nuclear half-life" of many years. In keeping Israel alive with our nuclear capabilities, the same type of technology was used in recent offensives against Palestinians, in Lebanon. Also have you never heard of Chernobyl, its present and future situations? As to denying that continued reliance on ever-increasing numbers/types of nuclear weapons (of many kinds I remind you) corrupts our souls, I'm astounded that you can simply ignore the stupendous immediate and long-standing consequences of using even "a small bomb". In addition to the hundreds of thousands of human beings immediately incinerated 65 years ago other hundred of thousands of human beings have either died or are sill affected by genetics or diseases directly related to those 2 "small bombs". Human beings! While reflecting on that please also add that a gigantic part of two large urban areas were also incinerated. I don't know the continuing environmental effect but I know the effect of Chernobyl on its surrounding area. Of course, however, rebuilding these cities provided jobs and therefore "contributed to the economy." I beg you to reread the parts of Fr. Dear's article in which he substantiates the situation of Japan at that time of the war. Because you seem to appreciate facts and evidence, it'd be worth your while to really dig into the terrible state Japan was in at that time. Please note the evidence provided above via Admirals, President Eisenhower and several others that not only was there duplicity in motive for the "small" bombs, their use was absolutely unnecessary for security and ending the war.
http://ncronline.org/node/188
http://ncronline.org/node/18839
Thank you Father for your
Thank you Father for your wonderful article.
Here's some trivia from a fellow history buff. This month, legal abortion in abortion will kill 5 times more innocent children than Truman's atomic bombs did.
Dear Fr. John Dear
Dear Fr. John Dear SJ:
Please, don't take me as one who would critize you for your beautiful and rightful article. I 100% agree with you that nuclear weapons should be destroyied immediately from all over the world.
But, please, listen to a my personal opinion: the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaghi were a bleesing - a bleessing!!! Before the unconditional surrrender of Japan at the end of the 2nd World war, for decades and decades, approfitting the Chinese goverment's incapacity, weaknees, mind closeness to the monder day sceince of that time,etc..... Japan had invaded China taking Chinese territories at will, exercising inhuman atrocitis,cruerties,forcing war biotechical testes and deadful gases on living human bodies, rapes and robings and taking all the minerals and foods for their own use, etc...... That time China was powerless and could not do anything to stop what the imperial Japan was doing to Chinese citizens and millions and millions Chinese lost their lives for no reason. Only the two miraclous bomms did stop the foraign impeiral Japan .
I am a Chinese and US Naturalized Citizen now. At those times at Shanghai I was a young student and lived through all these inhuman conditions. Some of my brothers and sisters died because of malnutrition and unavailable most common medicines. The pains and meomories are still very alive in my mind and heart.
I don't know how to forget them.
I don't know what is your age, Father John. Neverthelees, if you have time and interests, you mihgt search the histoty boods to undestand how God in His Infinite Wisdom exercised His Power and His Mercy to China.
Father Dear, please, do keep propagating the Peace and Love anf the immediate destruction of present nuchlear weapons at once and everywgere in the world. I am one with you.
In prayers.
Dear and his fellow
Dear and his fellow revisionists are interested only in their own dishonest version of history, not in the Chinese who suffered from Japanese depredations for many years before the war, nor in the million casualties that would have resulted from an invasion of the home islands.
They dishonor the memories of the brave men who fought and died to end the war Japan started. They trample on the truth. Shameful. Disgusting.
shameful is the bombing of
shameful is the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and firebombing of Tokyo.
shameful is the continued and accelerated production of nuclear weapons, and the new plutonium plant in Los Alamos.
shameful.
and disgusting.
while our unemployable, unhoused, unhealthy, uneducated nation implodes.
Dear Palomas: I beg you to
Dear Palomas:
I beg you to fully undersatnd why the two bombs were droped on Japan and read the whole stories what Japan did to others before it had unconditionally surrendered.
I have a bit of a problem
I have a bit of a problem with a person's pro life position if it is restricted to abortion. Seems a little hypocritical to me. Father John Dear and Father Daniel Berrigan (I hope he is with us for at least a while longer--I want to meet him very badly) are here to remind us of that hypocrisy.
Pax Christi
Yes, Fathers Dear and
Yes, Fathers Dear and Berrigan are here to remind us of that. But so are many, many more who do not have the high profile as these two prophets.
Dear and his fellow
Dear and his fellow revisionists should stop lying about Truman, who never regretted using the bomb to end the war Japan started.
The revisionists never explain why the Japanese who died in the bombing were more valuable than the million allied casualties that would have resulted from an invasion of the home islands.
Dear tells those who disagree with his false version of history to do "homework". He's the one who should do homework. Start here:
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=japanese+atrocities&...
http://www.lindavdahl.com/
Do the editors of NCR support the revisionist history presented by Dear?
Does the Society of Jesus support Dear's revisionist history?
I do
I do
The new START treaty is now
The new START treaty is now before the Senate. It will not get the 2/3 vote for ratification. President Obama is for it, so the Republicans, per the strategy of obstructionism they adopted in late January, 2009, are against it. They are looking forward to November and the voters' vindication of their opposition. I hope Fr. Dear and company enjoy their summer trek to Los Alamos. It will confirm their righteousness. It will mean zero re any change of policy.
No More Time to Waste:
No More Time to Waste: Challenges for the Church
By Kathy Coffey
Where would I like to see the Catholic church move next? In a radical direction, meaning "back to its roots." (that is all what Vatican II is all about and the vision of John XXIII)
Over time, any institution becomes self-protective, guarding itself. Anyone who doubts this should remember the transition from being childless to becoming a parent. For most people, the drinking tapers off, the parties end earlier, and the driving becomes more cautious. While this may also be due to growing older, it's clearly motivated by the small, vulnerable person who's now in our care.
Extrapolate that to a large, international institution like the Catholic Church, and it becomes clear how customs can become entrenched. For efficient operation, rules are necessary -- but they aren't all that we're about. (JESUS SAYS THAT MAN OR WOMAN WERE NOT MADE FOR RULES, BUT RULES WERE MADE FOR MAN OR WOMAN)
Unfortunately, many now know Catholics only by what they oppose: same-sex marriage, women's ordination, abortion, etc. In the future, let's be known by what we advocate. ( or WHAT we believe or HOW we LIVE - as true witness to our FAITH) Let's focus on the positive. At the very beginning gushed forth a wellspring of compassionate (LOVE) life so dramatic that centuries haven't quenched it. Let's hear that call of Jesus again -- to love the "other," (AND ESPECIALLY THE LEAST OF OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS) to do justice for the weakest members of our society, to savor the beauties of this world, to serve God magnanimously (compassionately, commitable, full heartedly......just as Jesus LIVED and DID). Jesus was so wildly inclusive he dined with Judas at his last supper, and according to everything we're taught, must love the serial killer as much as Francis of Assisi.
Let's return to the gospels, first and foremost, for the template of the people we should become (not to a set of rules established by men who do not care or concerned about the spiritual and material wellbeing of people). Then let's look (and study) more deeply at the mystics, a treasure too long neglected. Writings from Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Hildegard of Bingen, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Henri Nouwen, and many other rich sources could nurture (our) spirituality for a lifetime. And this just skims the surface. For more on these life-giving figures, see Enduring Grace by Carol Lee Flinders or my Women of Mercy. (This is the TRUE TRADITION not HUMAN TRADITONS (book written by Yves Congar)of the Body of Christ, the Church)
Our spiritual heritage from these great ones teaches us the inner peace that no external force can destroy. It enables us to share a vision worthy of our Divine-Human founder, our long tradition, and ourselves. Colossians 1:19 says of Jesus: "in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell." We share in that fullness: if we believe that, it should put an end to our bickering, greed, and warfare. As Henri Nouwen says, it doesn't really matter how much you do or how many people you know. What matters is that you are internally (and always) at peace. That peace becomes our gift to our families, colleagues, friends, and eventually the world.
Given the challenges the human race will face in the next century, Christians can't waste time judging, carping, and condemning. Let's get on with the task of being Christ to a hungry, hurting world.
Kathy Coffey is a national speaker, retreat leader, and the author of numerous articles in Catholic periodicals, including America, U.S. Catholic, St. Anthony Messenger, and Catechumenate. She has written many award-winning books on women, sacraments, and Catholic spirituality; her most recent book is Mary , a volume in Orbis Books' Catholic Spirituality for Adults series.
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