Every Church A Peace Church

	Support ECAPC!
	ECAPC is a movement built upon the financial support of individuals like you. Click here to make a contribution.

	Publications
	Subscribe to Online Publications to support your journey!

	Register
	Individuals, small groups,and congregations are invited to join the National Registry of Peace Churches. More...

Following Jesus in nonviolent struggle for justice and peace, we love our neighbors and enemies as God loves us all, becoming a peace church to share in God’s work to save the world.

Catholics and Conscientious Objection

View Archives

On John Carmody's website, introduced yesterday, you can find many excellent articles on the nonviolent teaching of Jesus and the implications of that. Here is a brief excerpt from a longer page on conscientious objection to military involvement by individuals in any walk of life. See full page: http://centerforchristiannonviolence.org/resources/conscientious_objection.php

Chaplain

To priests and ministers considering refusal on the basis of conscience to become military chaplains, we offer the example of Fr. George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Army Air Force, 509th Composite Group, who served as a priest for those who dropped the atomic bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. After his military chaplaincy, Fr. Zabelka was granted the grace of deep conversion to repent of his complicity in those war crimes. He became a witness to peace and nonviolence and an anti-nuclear weapons advocate the rest of his life.

Fr. Zabelka clearly, and rightly, felt that the U.S. military made use of his ministry to support combat. The April 21, 1941 Technical Manual given Fr. Zabelka by the War Department entitled The Chaplain explicitly declared four purposes for the office of chaplain (pp. 6-7):

The first two declared purposes are ministerial:

To provide the facilities for public religious worship to the military personnel.
To give spiritual ministration, moral counsel, and religious guidance to those under military jurisdiction.

However, the last two declared purposes clearly lend combat support:

To be the exponent in the Military Establishment of the religious motive as an incentive to right thinking and right acting.
To promote character building in the United States Army by precept and example and thus add greater efficiency to those engaged in the military defense of the country.

While there is hardly any open debate in the church about the combat support consequences of the role of military chaplain, some priests conscientiously object to taking on that role, silently expressing their objection simply by not volunteering for it. But their witness is invisible. And their witness may be lonely because they do not know who else objects to military chaplaincy in conscience. Public proclamation—such as on a website—can make this witness visible and inspiring.

You may also consider the statement of Bishop John Botean:

“All people enjoy the human right to refuse to kill or to cooperate in killing another human being. This means they have a right to claim themselves as conscientious objectors not only against participation in war as a combatant. They have a right also to proclaim themselves as conscientious objectors to non-combatant roles that support combat—such as logistical, medical and psychological roles. This right extends to priests and other ministers who see military chaplaincy in its current form as having the unintended consequence of combat support for unjust killing.”

Thus we urge national and regional bishops conferences, such as the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB), to receive testimony from psychologists and other expert witnesses on how the present form of military chaplaincy desensitizes to killing.

We also urge bishops and other religious leaders to design ways to minister to military personnel that do not even unintentionally support combat.

We finally urge Catholic bishops and those responsible for theological or ministry education, especially in seminaries and schools of ministry, to see to it that, when the just war tradition—based upon the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas—is presented in their schools, his teaching on the role of the priest in war is also included. In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas holds that the role of the priest in war is not purely ministerial but also combat support. What is more, in his Summa, St. Thomas does not give the priest any role in an unjust war.

St. Thomas Aquinas systematized the Catholic position on just war in his Summa Theologica, Part II, Section II, Question 40—“Of War.” The first article of that question summarizes the conditions for a war to be just. These are widely taught in Catholic schools, including colleges and seminaries and schools of ministry. However, the second article is hardly ever taught, even to candidates for ordination—that is, to future military chaplains. That second article treats the role of the priest in war. And Thomas does not regard that role as purely ministerial. For while Thomas exempts the priest from combat, he does not exempt him from combat support.

“Prelates and clerics may, by the authority of their superiors, take part in wars, not indeed by taking up arms themselves, but by affording spiritual help to those who fight justly, by exhorting and absolving them, and by other like spiritual helps...it is the duty of clerics to dispose and counsel other men to engage in just wars.”

We may note that for St. Thomas the priest is exempt from combat; that the priest actively participates in war by a ministry that supports combat by encouragement and absolution; and that this support is for wars specified as “just.” We may also note that military psychology has learned how to use chaplains to justify and even encourage combat; that religion can sell particular wars to the public; and that the ministry of military chaplain may have serious and objectionable unintended consequences.

Web address: www.webster.edu/peacepsychology

Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence:
Peace Psychology Division of
The American Psychological Association
Division 48

Links

Catholic Peace Fellowship: www.catholicpeacefellowship.org
Pax Christi USA: www.paxchristiusa.org

Submit a Comment!

We appreciate your comments. Your e-mail address will not be displayed on our website.
Name
Email Address
Comments (you may use html tags)

View Print-Friendly Page Send This Page To A Friend