 | Et pourquoi ne pas ... |
 Imprimer |
| Auteur : PGM (216.162.67.xxx) |
| Sujet : Et pourquoi ne pas ... |
| Date : 2003-04-06 04:44:47 |
en remettre une couche à l'intention particulière des concicis et autres papolâtres ( d'arrivé récente ou non sur ce forum ) qui trouveront dans cet article, entre autres bonnes choses, un résumé lumineux de la seule attitude raisonnable que puisse prendre un catholique face à la crise de l'Église et du monde, attitude qui rend caduques les logorrhées de citations plus ou moins à propos tirées des textes conciliaires, post-conciliaires, ou du Code de droit canon de 1983, tellement elle demeure marquée au coin du bon sens. In Christo, PGM Opposing Islam—the Catholic Way Why should Americans die in Iraq to elevate one Muslim sect over another, while the West continues to commit suicide by pluralism? -Christopher A. Ferrara- REMNANT COLUMNIST, New Jersey About the last thing that should be governed by emotion is the decision to wage war upon another nation. Of all the decisions that public authority can make, this one above all requires the rational assessment of real evidence and a careful balancing of interests. The calculus of the just war is not satisfied by some vague notion that we must “kick some Arab butt” in order to “show them that America means business” or some other useless, jingoistic sentiment unsupported by substantial concrete proof that this war will serve American interests and make America more secure. Nor can this war be justified by some grand design of bringing “God’s gift of liberty” to Arab nations. Catholic moral theology does not recognize the spreading of “democracy” as grounds for waging war. What of the Common Good of America? One can debate all one wishes the application of just war criteria to the invasion of Iraq, but when all is said and done the overriding duty of America’s leaders is to secure and promote the common good of this nation, not Iraq, Israel or any other nation. As the Catholic Encyclopedia observes: “The common good of the nation is a restricting condition upon the exercise of its right to go to war…” Who can say with a straight face that the invasion of Iraq is necessary for America’s common good, including her national security? Not a single defender of this war has been able to articulate a coherent answer to the question: “How will the invasion of Iraq make America more secure?” Indeed, every datum of our common sense tells us that this war will make America less secure; for if terrorists know no borders, then the removal of Hussein from power will have no effect on their activities but to intensify them in retribution for the invasion of Iraq and—God help us!—the martyrdom of Hussein. Yes, George Bush is actually succeeding in turning a third-rate thug of a dictator into an icon of the Muslim world. (And let us not forget how America itself built up the Hussein regime during the Reagan administration, with the help of none other than Mr. Rumsfeld.) Remember the “weapons of mass destruction” we heard about incessantly for some eighteen months before the invasion began? Where are they? At this point it seems that the most we can expect to uncover is some battlefield chemical weapons (mustard gas, sarin) of the kind possessed by a dozen other nations and which terrorist cells can manufacture on their own or buy from any number of other sources. Yet not even these weapons—assuming they exist—have been deployed in the midst of an invasion of the whole of Iraq by a foreign power. Why should a single American die in the search for “weapons of mass destruction” which clearly pose no threat whatever to America’s common good? Yet it seems that sheer emotion has entered into the thinking of not a few Catholics, even some traditionalists, when it comes to Bush’s ever-shifting and unproven claims for the necessity of this war. The slogan “support our troops” has supplanted rational thought on the subject. But how should a Catholic support our troops if he knows that this war is unjustified and in fact poses a positive danger to American security? Here it is necessary for me to clarify some points made in earlier articles I have written on the war—bearing in mind that this is a journal of Catholic opinion which does not presume to have any teaching authority. The morality of participation in this war My last piece on the war (“Weapons of Mass Distraction”) concluded with this quotation from the Lenten sermon of Romanian Byzantine Catholic diocese in America, His Excellency John Michael Botean: "Thus, any killing associated with it [the invasion of Iraq] is unjustified and, in consequence, unequivocally murder. Direct participation in this war is the moral equivalent of direct participation in an abortion. For the Catholics of the Eparchy of St. George, I hereby authoritatively state that such direct participation is intrinsically and gravely evil and therefore absolutely forbidden." By no means did I mean to suggest in providing this quotation that American military personnel in the field are subjectively guilty of murder or can be likened to abortionists. Here the bishop is only making a moral comparison for those whom he has already instructed on the immorality of this “war of preemption,” and in the same sermon he offered personal support to those who would have the courage to be conscientious objectors to the war. In order for participation in an unjust war to be a mortal sin, one must know that it is unjust, and one’s participation in it must be direct. Knowing what I know, I could not drop a bomb on Baghdad without committing a mortal sin. But I do not presume to judge what American pilots or soldiers in the field know about the morality of this war. Moreover, even Catholic military personnel who know or suspect that this war is immoral may not be engaged in direct participation in the killing; they could be serving as communications officers, medics, supply staffers, and so forth. Finally, culpability even for knowing and direct participation in unjustified killing could be diminished by coercion in cases where the refusal to fight could result in death by enemy fire or a prison sentence. (But what one cannot say—for this is contrary to Catholic teaching—is that a soldier who knew better can be excused from culpability merely because he was following orders.) In short, no one has the right to judge subjective culpability in this matter. Quite the contrary, Catholic soldiers who fight valiantly in this war without any understanding of its lack of justification would be authentic heroes. The Catholic way is to state the objective moral facts, as the Bishop did, and leave the judging to God and the individual conscience. Nevertheless, Catholics must be free to oppose an unjust war rather than mindlessly “supporting our troops” in what is objectively an immoral and counterproductive enterprise. Otherwise, there would be no point to the Church’s teaching on just war criteria; Catholics would simply have to behave as if all wars were just once they begin, which is an absurdity. The view of John Paul II Someone has also suggested that in citing the Pope’s opposition to the war, The Remnant is somehow subscribing to the Pope’s progressivism. Ridiculous. Traditionalists stand with the Pope in opposition to the war only because he stands in line with traditional Catholic teaching on just war criteria. As the Pope has stated: “War is never just when there is another means … for settling differences between nations…. [W]ar cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations.”[1] The Pope does not say, simply, “war is never just,” but rather that war is never just if it can be avoided by some other means. That is the Catholic teaching. Yes, of course, the Pope is personally a pacifist of sorts, who would probably oppose war for any reason. But that is beside the point. Concerning this war, the Pope and the Vatican cite the Church’s traditional teaching on the just war; it is this teaching, not the Pope’s personal pacifism, that traditionalists ought to follow. Now, even the neo-Catholic supporters of this war, such as Michael Novak, admit that Catholic just war criteria would have to be “developed” to allow for Bush’s war of “preemption” against Iraq. They recognize that Bush has not shown that America is imminently threatened by the Hussein regime, and they wish to invent a “Catholic” doctrine under which nations deemed a threat in some projected future can be invaded now—even if that invasion will cost American lives, compromise our domestic security, and seriously drain our economy. Do we traditionalists want to subscribe to this sort of convenient “development” of doctrine? Are not such “developments” a major cause of the postconciliar crisis in the Church? Notice how the neo-Catholics are deserting the Pope in droves over this war. The man they have lauded for 25 years they now kick in the gutter in their rush to support George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld—a pair of Protestant Masons who condone abortion in “hard” cases. Amazingly enough, the same neo-Catholic spokesmen who defend the scandal of papal Koran-kissing as a gesture of goodwill to the Muslim word, will not defend the Pope’s opposition to bombing the Muslim world in some amorphous War on Terrorism. (I must note again that The Wanderer has been the exception here.) Why do traditionalists stand with the Pope against this war even though they also object to innumerable novelties of this pontificate? The answer comes down to one word: consistency. The entire traditionalist movement is founded on the principle of consistent fidelity to what the Church has always taught, rather than the person of a particular Pope. If John Paul II teaches what the Church has always taught, traditionalists will defend what he teaches; if he or any other Pope essays some novel opinion that departs from what the Church has always taught, traditionalists will rightly raise objections. That is why traditionalists support John Paul II’s statements against the war, while demurring from his statements against the death penalty. And that is why the neo-Catholics reject the Pope’s statements against the war while supporting his statements against the death penalty. The neo-Catholics are inconsistent in these matters because they are liberals, and all liberals are more or less inconsistent. (See, Chapter 11, “A Nest of Contradictions,” The Great Façade). In this case the neo-Catholic’s liberalism leads him to support the American Way rather than the Catholic way. The Pope’s statements aside, the Catholic way to approach this war is expressed most eloquently by the Catholic hierarchy of Iraq, which is united in its total opposition to the invasion of Iraq. In addition to the statements of the Catholic patriarch of Iraq which I have quoted in the earlier articles, we have the statement of Msgr. Shlemon Warduni, the auxiliary bishop of Baghdad of the Chaldeans, who on March 28th condemned Bush’s war as “this unjust aggression against our tormented people, cause of the death of children, the elderly, women, the sick…” Why should a Catholic pay less heed to the Catholic hierarchy of Iraq than to the pro-war propaganda of non-Catholic politicians like Bush and Rumsfeld? Is the suffering of our Catholic brothers under our nation’s military onslaught of no account? Have we forgotten our membership in the Mystical Body of Christ? Are we Americans first and Catholics second? Opposing Islam the Catholic Way As of this writing, the predicted cakewalk to Baghdad has been slowed somewhat by unexpected resistance. I confess I was taken in by government propaganda, including the false claim of U.S. military sources that the entire 51st Infantry Division of the Iraqi Army had surrendered. That claim was later retracted, after it was revealed that the 8,000 Iraqi soldiers had simply gone home and were returning to the fight. Nevertheless, combat casualties have been limited thus far to about 35 deaths among our 120,000 troops, about half of these the result of helicopter accidents and friendly fire. While even one American death is unacceptable, it is obvious that Iraqi military capabilities are no threat to the world at large. Guerrilla attacks, small arms fire and suicide bombings by desperate, vastly outgunned Iraqi militants are hardly the “weapons of mass destruction” that were the only proffered justification for the invasion. But while “victory” over the feeble Iraqi military is assured, Bush’s war is manifestly a disaster in progress that cannot possibly serve our national interest. This is a war to “liberate” the Shi'ite Muslims from their domination by Saddam Hussein and his Sunni Muslim regime. Indeed, the neo-con plan for the overthrow of Hussein’s regime depends upon a massive Shiite uprising which is supposed to assist our occupation army. The Christians of Iraq want no part of this war and do not require “liberation.” The rights of Christians are respected by the Hussein regime, which has protected them from violence by the Shiites, who are by far the largest of Iraq’s Muslim sects. For their part, the Shi'ites have already announced that immediately upon their “liberation” they will begin armed resistance against our troops. As Reuters reported on March 25, 2003: “Iraqis are against foreign dominance, and if they (the Americans) don't want to leave Iraq, the nation will resist,” said Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir Hakim, head of the Tehran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). “One of the legitimate ways of resistance against occupiers is force and weapons,” he told a news conference. The gray-bearded, black-turbaned Hakim said SCIRI, which draws its support from Iraq's Muslim Shi'ite majority, said he had tens of thousands of troops stationed inside and outside Iraq, ready to resist any foreign occupation. The Shi'ite resurgence following the demise of the Hussein regime will thus leave the United States with two choices: semi-permanent occupation of Iraq to keep down armed Shi'ite resistance to the illusory “democracy” Bush is foolish enough to think he can impose there, or a military departure from Iraq, in which case the regime of President Hussein will be replaced by the regime of Ayatollah whoever. I rather doubt that Ayatollah whoever will be standing for election every four years. At any rate, with or without permanent US occupation, Bush’s war will make Iraq safe for the Shi'ites. And, ironies of ironies, in consequence the war will make the Middle East less safe for Israel—unless, that is, Mr. Bush proposes to make virtually all of the Middle East outside of Israel a United States protectorate under military occupation. And even that surreal measure would only increase the risk of terrorism here at home, while utterly bankrupting us in short order. When one contemplates the sheer magnitude of Bush’s actual and potential blundering about in the Middle East, one gets the uneasy feeling that all of this was foreordained as the prelude to some ineluctable biblical apocalypse. Any Catholic who thinks this war will protect America from the onslaught of Islam has lost his reason. The pro-abortion Colin Powell has said that our latest aim in Iraq is to establish “religious liberty”—the same “religious liberty” that has allowed Islamic forces to infiltrate and occupy the entire Western world without firing a shot; the same “religious liberty” that has reduced the Pope and the Church he heads to a state of impotence before Islam’s steady advance. American soldiers are being asked to die for the very notion of liberty that has brought about the long, slow suicide of the West. They are being asked to die for Pluralism. No one has more pithily described the absurdity of our situation as Catholics before the god of Pluralism than Dr. John Rao, in his brilliant essay “Why Catholics Cannot Defend Themselves”: "The Pluralist way of life destroys a man's capacity to react against madness as a man should, with all of his reason and active energy in both the private and the public realm. It suggests to those who are sufficiently brave to want to resist, means of defending themselves which keep them endlessly busy with… democratic gimmickry, and which render them impotent, incoherent, bewildered cheerleaders for what destroys them." How distressing it is to see even traditional Catholics acting as cheerleaders for the very thing that destroys them. How could any Catholic think that dropping 3,000 smart bombs on Iraq in the name of Pluralism is the way to deal with Islamic fanaticism, when Muslim fanatics feast on our Pluralism like vultures on carrion? The Pluralist way of life that has destroyed Christendom absolutely precludes any sort of Crusade to turn back the advance of Islam. The only war Mr. Bush is prepared to fight is a war for the American Way, which happens also to be the Muslim way for subverting what is left of Western civilization. Now only the Holy Catholic Church can defend us against the encroaching darkness of the cult of Islam through the supernatural weapons at her disposal. Have we forgotten the public prayer that Pius XI commanded the whole Church to pray for peace and safety in the world? Let us recall it: “Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism and refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God.” The man who presides over the bombing of Iraq would regard Pius XI’s prayer as positively un-American. Yet it is this very man some traditional Catholics view as our great defender against Islam’s advance. Come to your senses, all of you! Can you not see that the visibly nervous Mr. Bush is a blind guide, who takes his advice from other blind guides, and that the whole lot of them is leading us into a ditch? The Catholic way to support our troops, the Catholic way to oppose the forces of Islam, is to pray that not one more American dies in this pointless, lunatical misadventure, and that the recent consecration of Iraq to the Immaculate Heart will secure a miraculous end to Mr. Bush’s war—not his way, but the Catholic way. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] National Catholic Register, January 31, 2003. |
