Opposing Unjust War.
One of our Catholic Worker
apostolates is calling the Church -- and especially its Bishops
-- to the consistent defense of life,
from the moment of conception to the time of natural death.
The exceptionally poor response
of the United States Catholic bishops to the war crises in
Afghanistan and Iraq is among the tragedies of this era.
They have essentially preached a gospel of moral relativism in
the face of this terrible crime against life. the moral facts on
the ground are simple:
This page has links to the my
commentary and work on the Afghanistan and Iraq War issues going
back
to 1998. It is roughly in chronological order,
from the most recent to
the oldest. It is unlikely that I have found everything
that I
have had to say on the subject, but a lot of it is here.
It
includes all of
my responses to the poor response of the U.S. bishops
to these unjust wars. There is some material
missing from 1999-2001, due to the non-availability
of the archives of
the Catholic justice and peace listservs which I
moderated at www.cin.org , but
most
of the rest of it is here. (If anyone happens to have
any emails saved
from cinjustann
in that period, please email me at robert@justpeace.org I
have
also included links to the statements of the Catholic Worker
movement about the war, Bishop Botean's declaration of the
injustice of
the Iraq War, and Fr. Emmanuel McCarthy's essay
on moral law and the Iraq war,
all of which have been influential in
the development of my thoughts on these issues.
No bishop has ever responded to my writings on this subject.
The whole world should be
worried about the fact that the Catholic Bishops of the world's
most heavily armed country, which has more troops in foreign
countries than any other country, and is fighting three wars at
this time, are moral cowards who seem to believe that there is
an American Exception to the
teachings of the Catholic Church on war, peace, justice, and
life.
Bob Waldrop
The problem with Al Gore. July 2010
The runaway general and the US Catholic bishops. June 2010
An answer to Archbishop Chaput, March 24, 2010 (Feast of the Martyrdom of Romero)
Civilian death toll soars in Afghanistan, August 2009
Our Tyrant Emperor calls for more war , August 2009
The unmentionable sorrows of war, May 2009
Open Letter to Archbishop Piero Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Feast of Corpus Christi, 2008
Open Letter to H.E. Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago, March 2008
NCR and the Iraq War, September 2007
A Dark Day for the Church in the US (on the appointment of Archbishop O'Brien to the see of Baltimore). July 2007
Dear Catholic Bishops, part of the Letters from Osama series. Postcard version, suitable for mailing. Flyer version, suitable for copying and distributing. June 2007
Lent 2007 OKC Catholic Worker Newspaper, articles Response to the US Bishops Statements, 2006-2007, Bishops Destroy the Church's Witness to Life,
2006 National CW Statement to the US Bishops
Response to Stephen Colecchi November 2006
Moral Law and the Iraq War, by Fr. Emmanuel McCarthy
Liturgy and War and the US Catholic Bishops Feast of St. Benedict, 2006
The Errors of Michael Novak: A critique of the Catholic neo-conservatives support for the Iraq War, revised and updated from the two 2003 essays on the same subject. Summer 2006
Does the end justify the means? Lent 2005
Daily prayers in time of war, Lent 2005
Prayer to Dorothy Day for the people of Iraq, January 2005
More errors of Michael Novak and others regarding the war on Iraq, February 2003
The Errors of Michael Novak , Feb 2003
What would Jesus do with Iraq? Fall 2002
Open Letter to the US Bishops regarding the morality of our nation's war on the people of Afghanistan, Holy Innocents 2001
Eleven Concerns about the Justice of the Afghanistan War, November 2001
Lenten Message of Bishop John Michael Botean, Eparchy of St. George in Canton for the Romanians, declaring the Iraq War to be unjust. March 7,. 2003
Just War and the Iraqi Escalation February 1998