Condemn War, Group Urges Bishops

 

I spent November 11,Veteran's Day, in prayer and reflection about three Veterans.  I was in Baltimore at a vigil at the Catholic Basilica, not far from the Fall meeting of the US Bishops.

 

Nov. 11, is the Feast Day of St. Martin of Tours.  He served in the military until in 336, Martin determined that his faith prohibited him from fighting, saying, "I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight." He was charged with cowardice and jailed.  In response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops. His superiors planned to take him up on the offer, but the battle with the Gauls never occurred and Martin was released from military service.

 

Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian peasant was beheaded in August 1943, for his refusal to enter the German military.  His wife and children attended his beatification by the Catholic Church in Fall 2007, in Linz Austria.  His Bishop and others had urged him to join the military.  Jagerstatter instead questioned, "If the Church stays silent in the face of what is happening, what difference would it make if no church were ever opened again?"

 

Joshua Casteel is a young, brilliant and passionate young man.  He was valedictorian of his class. After finishing college and enlisting in the Army he became an interrogator at Abu Graib.  Having a spiritual conversion, he became Catholic, applied and was approved as a conscientious objector, and was discharged.  Now a college teacher, author and playwright, among his powerful points in a talk in Baltimore on Nov. 11, was that only 5 of the 130 prisoners he interrogated "were guilty of anything more than being taxi drivers".   His chaplain told him to "just follow orders".

 

Also present at the US Bishops' conference, were military recruiters who staffed tables seeking to recruit chaplains.  Casteel reported that chaplains are termed "combat multipliers", i.e., they make fighting more tolerable.  These recruiters hosted the Bishops for a dinner on Veteran's Day.

 

The small group I was with, priests, former priests and lay people, have formed the "Franz Jagerstatter People for Breaking the Silence".  The group has written to every Bishop in the US, urging them to speak out forcefully to condemn war and torture; to educate Catholics of all ages, especially the young, on the Nonviolent Life and Teachings of Jesus; and to take steps to remove ROTC from all Catholic schools, colleges and universities.

 

How difficult is the challenge of Nonviolence.  We can see it in St. Martin, Blessed Franz and young Joshua Casteel.  If we study closely as did these three Veterans, we can also see that it is the call of Jesus Christ.

 

As President John F. Kennedy said, "War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

 

 

William H. Privett

Regional Coordinator, Pax Christi WNY

P.O. Box 283, Corfu, NY 14036

 

(H) 585-599-3366

(C) 315-866-6925