Posted on 07/17/2003 12:51:12 PM PDT by yonif
Cynthia Gonzalez, a Catholic, carries a picture of her son Joshua in uniform and a prayer card written during the Korean conflict. Joel Garcia, also a Catholic, carries with him the memories of fighting in the trenches of the very same war.
Gonzalez prays for her son every day. Garcia doesn't think the church should.
"The Catechism says that we can only fight a war that is just," he said. "So far, no one has been able to tell me that this is a just war. By asking us to pray for soldiers, we are saying we support what they are doing. We hear all this talk about how they are heroes, but we never mention that they are over there killing people."
Both Gonzalez and Garcia said the war has officially ended but with thousands of American soldiers still deployed in the Middle East it is far from over.
Christian theologian St. Thomas Aquinas defined a just war as an act of aggression that serves a greater good and protects the safety of a nation and its people. The United Nations Charter defines it as the right of each sovereign nation to self-defense, until the Security Council can take action to restore and stabilize international peace and _security.
The United States staked its right to declare war in part on the belief that Iraq was manufacturing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and threatened the security of all nations. Religious leaders, including Pope John Paul II, issued pleas to the U. S. to allow United Nations investigators more time to search for weapons before declaring war.
Protesting for two weeks
For the past two weeks Garcia has been protesting outside the offices of the Diocese of Corpus Christi and its mother church the Corpus Christi Cathedral. He wants the church to stop praying for the soldiers or publicly declare that what the military is doing in the Middle East is right and just.
Joshua Gonzalez, 25, has been deployed since April and is stationed in the Palace District of Baghdad patrolling the streets at night and helping set up town meetings during the day.
His mother can't imagine why anyone would want to deny her son a prayer.
"The prayers are not to affirm the actions of a soldier," she said. "We pray for their safety."
And, above all, for peace, said Bishop Edmond Carmody.
"Always for peace," he said.
Garcia said Carmody is at the top of the local Catholic chain of command, which is why he chose his office as the location for a protest. He said so far no one from the diocese, including the bishop, has approached him.
"I guess they are waiting for me to get tired," Garcia said. "They just see that I am one person with a sign. I don't represent a group. I am just one crazy man in a million."
Carmody said the Catholic Church's position on the war is clear.
"War is always a sign of failure and should always be the last resort," he said.
But, he said, once the United States was committed to war, the church was committed to praying for all who might be involved or affected - the president, the troops and their families and the people of the Middle East. Carmody said the church will continue to pray and Garcia is entitled not to.
"He is entitled to his freedom of speech and belief," he said.
That is a freedom Gonzalez said would not be possible without her son.
"It's a fine line between church and state," she said. "We would not have the freedom to practice our religion . . . or he would not have the freedom to say those things or even to pray if we didn't have a military to protect it."
Reality of war
Gonzalez said that when her son was recruited to West Point on a football scholarship his senior year at Moody High School and even after his graduation from the top military school in 2001, the farthest thing from both their minds was the possibility that he would ever have to go off to war.
Now that he is there, the reality is that her son is in a dangerous position in a very dangerous place.
"He has not said he has had to kill anyone," she said. "He has just told me he has had to do his job many times."Garcia said that part of the problem is that the military lures enlistees when they are too young, like he was, to be spiritually grounded by enticing them with promises to see the world or of money for college.
What they don't focus on, he said, is that they are being trained to kill people.
"There is no excuse for that," he said.
Garcia said for thousands of years Christians have fought wars for all reasons and sometimes even in the name of God but none of those wars, he said, have made the world a safer place.
What has happened is weapons have become more advanced and more people have died.
He understands the idea that the United States is supposed to be saving the people of Iraq from an unjust leader and corrupt government, but he doesn't recall anyone asking us to be there.
"But then this isn't politics," he said. "We are talking about religion."
Contact Venessa Santos-Garza at 886-3752 or santosv@caller.com
I am under the impression that historically "Thou shalt not kill" was understood the Jewish way by most Christians (despite the ambiguous translation). Some pacifist sects were an exception, and liberal Christians are beoming an exception.
I am Jewish, BTW.
I don't believe we did declare war on Nazi Germany. Hitler declared war against the United States immediately after war was declared on Japan.
If I'm wrong I apologize, but I don't think I am.
Yep. The NIV is easily the most collaborated upon Bible in existence and it says "murder".
Maybe a trip to northern or southern Iraq would change your mind.
What exactly is required to make this a just war? Mass graves? (found) Terrorist training camps? (found). Using civiians as human sheilds? (happened). And that just begins to describe the stink left behind by Saddam and his Baath party.
OP hardly has to be a "Just War expert" to recognize that the statement:
...Is blatantly anti-Biblical on its face.
That said, I'm not exactly thrilled with the way things are going in Iraq. As far as I am concerned, the justification for War against Saddam wasn't the WMD, wasn't the internal atrocities -- we can find both of those the world over, if we really want some extra Wars to fight. The "Just War" casus belli was always the "How to take over a Boeing with Boxcutters" terrorist-training camp at Salman Pak, and (IMHO) shoulda been the Primary Justification for War (as I said even before the hostilities began; not Monday-morning quarterbacking here).
Granted, we don't necessarily have absolutely definitive proof that the 9/11 hijackers specifically trained at Salman Pak (wish the Bush Admin had not put it on the back burner; I think that this would be a PR coup for them), but Saddam had Motive, Means, Opportunity, and Salman Pak is (was) the only dedicated "Boxcutter-vs-Boeing" terrorist camp in the world, as far as I know. As they say -- close enough for Government work.
But what now? When one (justly) shoots a murdering burglar, one does not then acquire a moral obligation to provide for his impoverished household who are now orphaned. I suppose it might be the "charitable" thing to do; but Constitutionally I can't find the justification for spending $5 Billion a month on works of Charity, and Pragmatically I am pessimistic about the prospects of reforming Iraq into a Constitutional Republic with liberty and justice for all. What's the "exit strategy"? Is there an "exit strategy"?
No-one but no-one should stop saying prayers for our troops. That does not mean that we could not just as easily pray for them if they were stationed in North Carolina (or along the southern border? I can dream...).
Bring 'em back alive -- and soon, I say.
When Jesus quotes the Commandments to the rich man in Mark 10:19, the text uses the Greek word foneuw, which means "to commit murder".
The confusion arose around the meaning of the word "kill" in King James's time. It's been about 400 years, and meanings of words change. (By the way, it's the KJV, not the more modern translations, that started this confusion.)
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