Catholics at odds over war on terror

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Catholics at odds over war on terror
In the weeks and months since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, numerous religious bodies and leaders in the United States have issued statements seeking to lay out a moral framework for confronting terrorism. Many of these statements have expressed measured support for the war. Within the Catholic community, however, serious differences of opinion have emerged.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has been especially active in making statements at various points in the course of events since September. The conference has devoted much attention to what then-USCCB president Bishop Joseph Fiorenza called the "traditional moral limits on the use of force"—what is sometimes called the "just war" theory. While individual American bishops—including some prominent ones—have explicitly called the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan "just," the conference as a whole has been more careful in articulating the moral principles that limit what military action can and cannot do and in viewing the current situation in light of those principles.

"Military action," Fiorenza said on October 9, 2001, immediately after the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan began, "is always regrettable, but it may be necessary to protect the innocent or to defend the common good." In a longer and more detailed Pastoral Message: Living with Faith and Hope after September 11, the USCCB discusses the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on the use and limits of military force in the context of the war in Afghanistan. But another, less-official group of some 70 Catholic leaders, many of them members of religious orders or Catholic missionary and justice and peace organizations, have come to somewhat different conclusions about the U.S. campaign.

In a December 19 statement, these leaders praise the bishops' efforts to offer moral guidelines and outline other areas of concern in the response to terrorism, but, they write, "The serious restrictions which Catholic moral teaching has placed on warlike actions . . . in practice rule out modern warfare. . . . We believe these restrictions also judge this war to be immoral, even though it appears to have just cause."

After analyzing the various moral principles deployed by the bishops and taking issue with whether they can actually be applied to the war on terrorism, they conclude, "We are convinced that the attacks on U.S. cities and citizens constitute criminal acts to be dealt with by careful international police investigations." Terrorism, they say, calls for police actions and the bringing of terror perpetrators to justice before an international tribunal, not for full-scale war.

To promote a "new direction in the worldwide response to terrorism," the group of Catholic leaders outlined a number of steps they propose for U.S. policymakers, who are urged to: stop military action in Afghanistan and to not open any new military theaters in the "war on terror"; start using language referring to criminal, rather than military actions; cease censorship of war information; take responsibility for rebuilding Afghanistan; facilitate a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; protect all Constitutional rights and liberties; and study the injustices manipulated by perpetrators to justify terrorism. The letter writers also call on the church to clarify the notion that earlier Catholic responses to the war have been mistakenly interpreted as full support; and chart a new Catholic paradigm to replace just war theory.

Other Catholics have also rejected the legitimacy of the war in Afghanistan. In Massachusetts, by late December 1,000 people had signed "A Catholic Call to Peacemaking in a Time of War" document, which came out of the Agape Catholic Worker community in Ware, Massachusetts and was cosponsored by Pax Christi, Massachusetts. Members of both these groups also protested outside Boston's Holy Cross Cathedral and confronted Boston's Archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law at the end of Mass. Law has vigorously supported the military actions against terrorism.—Joel Schorn

For more information:
The full text of the group's statement

Statements from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, visit:
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/ and http://www.usccb.org/comm/bishopsstatements.htm

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