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Weep for our Country Anyone who has been privileged to hear the voice of the women who have lost sons or daughters in Iraq, members of Military Families Speak Out, whether at Dover Air Force Base, Arlington National Cemetery, or at City Hall in Philadelphia, has heard the most profound outcry against the policies of George Bush, the modern tragedy in Iraq that consumes life like a medieval plague. These women speak with passion, and they weep, like Rachel, “weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more.” (Jeremiah) They bring to mind the biblical weeping of Jesus as he drew near to Jerusalem and “he shed tears over it and said ‘If you too had only recognized on this day the way to peace! But in fact it is hidden from your eyes....because you did not recognize the moment of your visitation.’” Jesus speaks of the blindness, the frightening inability of the leaders to see “the way to peace.” I heard a priest at the Eucharist at St. Francis Inn eloquently describe the blindness afflicting our leaders using this passage. Jesus wept as well for the impending destruction of Jerusalem, and some, like Chalmers Johnson in his book Sorrows of Empire, see a self-destructive arrogance that will haunt the destiny of our country. In a huge portion of the Muslim world we are viewed as modern crusaders hell-bent on killing their people. One of our longtime CPF voices, Charlie Bauerlein, (see Charlie’s article), has stirred us to take up the call of two Jesuit priests, John Langan, S.J. and Drew Christensen, S.J. to challenge the Catholic community, from bishops to the people, to condemn this war as unjust and immoral, based on the ancient Just War Theory. The Just War arguments have rarely, if ever, been brought to bear by the church during an ongoing war to call the leaders and proponents who launched it to be held accountable. Listen to Drew Christensen, S.J., America 9.13.04 “First condemnation would provide a firmer barrier against repetition of the abuses that led to this war: misrepresentations of the causes for the war, spurning alternative courses of action, indifference to world opinion, and, most of all, setting a precedent for preventive war. Whatever critics’ private reservations about the war may be, only public rejection will make hard-bitten leaders set on war, as the ‘Vulcans’ around President Bush were, think twice before attempting similar campaigns in the future. The road to war followed by the Bush administration must be closed for good.” Christensen rejects the idea of deferring to “the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good... As a vehicle for public moral decision making, our system of government is broken. The reports of the Congressional 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Survey Group have left the central myth used to support the presumption in favor of political authority--that elected leaders know more than informed citizens--in tatters. Millions of people marching in the streets around the world knew better than our elected leaders.” A group in Baltimore called the Baltimore Faith Response Coalition laments the rejection of our own poor people as this war continues to bleed the treasury, leaving them bereft. Our primary commitment is to the people, not the nation state. “This commitment to Christian principles can never become an oath of allegiance to any one nation. Christianity does not require support of any single government or approval of any political party. The mission of the Baltimore Faith Response Coalition is to question any government or any policy which does not open its hands and treasury to the weakest among us, does not bend to the fallen, does not see the smallest. It has been said many times, “If what is preached and what is done is not Good News for the poor, it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” So we are surrounded by stout-hearted, spirit-filled people who hunger and thirst for justice and who invite us to close ranks with them. The mothers, Iraqi and American, who have lost their children pursue unwaveringly one goal, an end to this war; a return home of the living while they are still with us. Perhaps we will not exert the citizen pressure to end this war, remembering Vietnam, until we value the lives of the anonymous Iraqis murdered daily with the passion we attach to our own wellbeing. Is there a commandment more challenging than to love your neighbor as yourself? Joe Bradley |