M
Matt25
Guest
gilliam said:
Priests are forbidden to bear arms. Do you despise them? Or resent the fact that they “shelter behind soldiers”? I am a resistered nurse. Do you think that a dishonourable cowardly profession to follow/
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Priests are forbidden to bear arms. Do you despise them? Or resent the fact that they “shelter behind soldiers”? I am a resistered nurse. Do you think that a dishonourable cowardly profession to follow/
M
Matt25
Guest
I didn’t ask you to thank France, that was Norwich.
I asked you how we should thank the 8 500 000 Red Army dead and all the others. I asked you if you thought we should support foreign policy decisions of the USA forever because of the actions of those, during the Presidency of the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his succesor Harry S Truman, who fought in Europe. You answered none of these questions.
Scotland had an independent Parliament until 1707. I don’t think we qualify as latecomers to Parliamentary Democracy. How exactly did I advise you about running your government? As a foreigner I do feel free to comment on your foreign policy since it does rather affect me.
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gilliam
Guest
Who said anything about dispising anyone? Everyone has their calling from God. Everyone has a duty to uphold and a positive part to play in a democracy. The trick is finding that positive role to play.
L
Listener
Guest
I would like to bring up a direct quote from Pope John Paul II: “To attain the good of peace there must be clear and conscious acknowledgement that violence is an unacceptable evil and that it never solves problems.” The pope wrote this in his message for the Jan. 1 observance. If all Christians would take the evil of war as seriously as they take the evil of abortion, I believe that there would be a lot fewer wars.
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gilliam
Guest
really? maybe just the enemy will win more wars:
Muslems are not Christians
Communists are not Christians
M
Matt25
Guest
Christians, however, are Christians and our behaviour is dictated not by that of our enemies du jour but by our Royal Master, Christ the King. How many legions of Angels did he call upon to defend himself?
incommunion.org/articles/introduction/quotations
It is not virtue either to be the enemy of the bad or the defender of the good, because virtue cannot be subject to uncertain chances.
Code:
What are the interests of our country, but the inconveniences of another state or nation? — that is, to extend the boundaries which are violently taken from others, to increase the power of the state, to improve the revenues, — all which things are not virtues, but the overthrowing of virtues: for, in the first place, the union of human society is taken away, innocence is taken away, the abstaining from the property of another is taken away; lastly, justice itself is taken away, which is unable to bear the tearing asunder of the human race, and wherever arms have glittered, must be banished and exterminated from thence.
How can a man be just who injures, hates, despoils and puts to death? Yet they who strive to be serviceable to their country do all these things: for they are ignorant of what this being serviceable is, who think nothing useful, nothing advantageous, but that which can be held by the hand; and this alone cannot be held, because it may be snatched away.
– Lactantius, the Divine Institutes, Book 6, Chapter 6 [Lactantius was the tutor of the son of St Constantine the Great. He lived approximately from 260 to 339 AD.] – Sayings of the Desert Fathers
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gilliam
Guest
And if the innocent are about to be attacked by the bad guys it is our Christian duty to protect them.
Rom. 13:3-4 "For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. " NRSV, see NAB
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gilliam
Guest
some quotes for you:
"2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor… The one is intended, the other is not.”[St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 64, 7, corp. art.]
“2321 The prohibition of murder does not abrogate the right to render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. Legitimate defense is a grave duty for whoever is responsible for the lives of others or the common good”
**2297 ***Kidnapping *and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. *Terrorism *threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity.
The Catholic Catechism
"2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor… The one is intended, the other is not.”[St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 64, 7, corp. art.]
“2321 The prohibition of murder does not abrogate the right to render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. Legitimate defense is a grave duty for whoever is responsible for the lives of others or the common good”
**2297 ***Kidnapping *and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. *Terrorism *threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity.
The Catholic Catechism
M
Matt25
Guest
No it is our Christian duty to resist them non-violently and to put our trust in God.
incommunion.org/articles/introduction/quotations
I am a soldier of Christ. To fight is not permissible for me.
Code:
– St Martin of Tours [while still an army officer, explaining his unwillingness to take part in battle]
God, in prohibiting killing, discountances not only brigandage, which is contrary to human law, but also that which men regard as legal. **Thus participation in war will not be legitimate to a just man; his “military service” is justice itself.**
– Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones, VI, xx
We, a numerous band of men as we are, have learned from His teaching and His laws that evil ought not to be requited with evil, that** it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, that we should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our conscience with that of another**. An ungrateful world is now for a long period enjoying a benefit from Christ, inasmuch as by His means the rage of savage ferocity has been softened, and has begun to withhold hostile hands from the blood of a fellow-creature.
– Arnobius, Against the Gentiles, Book 1, Chapter 6
Code:
– St Ambrose of Milan, Duties of the Clergy 3,4,27
Code:
– St Theodore Studite, Small Catechism
Code:
– Tertullian, Apology, 37:4 – St Cyprian of Carthage, To Demetrian, Chapter 17
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gilliam
Guest
I think you need to purchase a Catechism
M
Matt25
Guest
cjd.org/paper/pacifism.html
One of Dorothy Day’s great gifts to the Catholic Church and to the United States was her drawing together of Catholic biblical and theological resources to establish pacifism and conscientious objection as a legitimate stance for Catholics and for Americans.
The U. S. Catholic Bishops affirmed pacifism and conscientious objection as a legitmate expression of Catholic faith in their 1983 peace pastoral, The Challenge of Peace, giving Dorothy Day credit. The Second Vatican Council insisted that conscientious objection was an option for Catholics in the document, The Church in the Modern World (79:3) and the same document condemned bombing of cities and civilians (80:3).** These quotes were also included in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in Nos. 2311 and 2314. Recent papal statements have strengthened this teaching…**
Code:
The authors tell us that she "distinguished in *The Catholic Worker *between true and false pacifism, the former using traditional, spiritual weapons like prayer and reception of the sacraments to actively resist evil." Dorothy went so far as to say, "If we are not going to use our spiritual weapons, let us by all means arm and prepare." **Editorials in the 1939 Catholic Worker exhorted all the Worker houses to recite the Rosary daily for peace--not for victory...**The authors always emphasize that Dorothy located her pacifism within the vision of Maurin’s Christian personalism, “where the decision rested with the individual and was not dependent on historical circumstances” and the profound belief that there was a power beyond history–Jesus Christ.…
Pope John Paul II has been able to take the theological discussion of war and peace beyond a disagreement between pacifism and just war doctrine. William Portier tells us, “While leaving the door open a crack for the serious possibility of “humanitarian intervention” the Pope seems possessed at the same time of a profound evangelical skeptisicm about using force as a means of securing justice. This skepticism is evident in both his opposition to the Gulf War and his extreme reluctance to urge international military intervention in Bosnia” In the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul II rasises the same doubts about war as he did about the death penalty and Portier notes that he places among the signs of hope at many levels of public opinion that there is a new sensitivity ever more opposed to war.
Pope John Paul, speaking on war and using the symbolism of Isaiah of the lion and the lamb, reasoned that the commandments and the beatitudes must lie down together. This results in a corresponding evangelical realism, “which challenges us to mean it truly when we pray to be delivered from war, or when we say that Jesus is suffering among the people in Bosnia or that, because he has come into the world, war is not inevitable.”
On the eve of the Gulf War in widely publicized letters to Presidents Bush and Hussein, the Holy Father pleaded with them to recognize the futility of recourse to war. Between August 2, 1990 and March 1991, the Pope condemned the war fifty-six times.
Portier notes that together with Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council and the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, if the Pope is not saying “Just War No More,” he has come very close.
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gilliam
Guest
I still think you need to purchase a Catechism
M
Matt25
Guest
There is nothing wrong with the one I bought in 1994. Catholics are bound not to exceed the limitations of Just War Doctrine by waging unjust war but they are free to embrace greater virtue by saying ‘No War, Never again war’.
The Catechism is the minimum standard to which we must adhere. It is not the maximum. The Catechism does not call upon the faithful, for example, to give all that they possess to the poor and follow Christ, but it certainly permits us to do so. Likewise it does not demand that we forsake all violence forever but in the 11 years since I bought it I have never found anything that forbids me to forsake violence.
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gilliam
Guest
You can’t supercede the Catechism and say we don’t have an obligation to protect the innocent. To teach such a thing is heresey.
“2321 The prohibition of murder does not abrogate the right to render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. Legitimate defense is a grave duty for whoever is responsible for the lives of others or the common good”
The Catholic Catechism
If you are in such a position (even parents are in such a position in regard to their children), it is your grave duty to protect the innocent. Nothing you can say will absolve you of that duty. Try as you might.
L
Lance
Guest
Back to the original post-- an award from the Sundance and $2.25 will get you a cup of coffee at the local Starbucks.
M
Matt25
Guest
In my answer above (#126) I said it is our Christian duty to resist them non-violently, perhaps you have forgotten that I said that
Are military means the only ones to protect the innocent? Particularly when modern weaponry often causes collateral damage in the form of dead innocents.
http://www.socialjustice.catholic.o...3_2_25the_church_speaks_on_war_and_peace.html
Two Strands of Church Teaching on Peace and War There are two strands historically running through the Catholic Church’s responses to questions on the use of force: what we would call today a ‘pacifist? or non-violent tradition, and the ‘just war? tradition.
As a rule, the pacifist tradition, exemplified especially in the religious orders, seeks the maintenance of peace using non-violent means. Based on Gospel values and the experience of national and global violence, pacifism regards war as being unthinkable and not to be justified. The just war tradition, on the other hand, opposes the use of force for similar reasons, but concedes that engagement in war may be justified in certain circumstances, under strict moral conditions and only as a last resort, in order to protect the innocent or to restore justice. The case of East Timor is a perfect example.
Though these traditions are strictly logically incompatible, they have co-existed over the centuries. While there is often disagreement between them on specific issues, there are also areas of strong convergence. For example, in response to emerging forms of warfare involving the threat of mass destruction, the pacifist and just war traditions often find themselves as one in calling for dialogue and the art of diplomacy as a means for avoiding the use of force…
Paragraphs 2302 to 2317 of the Catechism deal with safeguarding peace and avoiding war. Here is a summary of these teachings.
Respect for life
Right at the start of its reflections about war and peace the Catechism recalls the commandment, You Shall Not Kill (n 2302). All that follows must be read in the light of the Church’s fundamental commitment to respect for life.
Respect for human life and its flourishing need peace. Peace isn’t just the absence of war. It is a ‘tranquillity of order? or state of well-being that comes from respect for the dignity and rights of both individual people and whole communities. It requires justice but is also made possible by love (n 2304).
Jesus is our peace. It is his love for us that makes peace possible. By his death and resurrection he reconciled us with God and has made the Church a sacrament and sign of the unity of the whole human family. Among the beatitudes he proclaimed “Blessed are the Peacemakers? (n 2305).
**Rejecting violence
**Those who renounce violence bear witness to the serious physical and moral risks involved in the use of violence. In order to defend human rights they make use of non-violent means that are available to the weakest. It is a legitimate option for Catholics to be pacifists. Pacifism can be a way of bearing witness to love, as long as the rights and duties of other people or communities aren’t harmed (n 2306).
All war is accompanied by evil and injustice and so the Church urges everyone to pray and act so that we may be freed from the bondage of war (n 2307).
Everyone has a duty to work to avoid war. That applies to every person and every government. However, once all peaceful efforts have failed, governments have a right to lawful self-defence. This will be true as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power to perform what would be in effect police actions (n 2308).
Peace is not simply the absence of war. We must also address those issues in our society and around the world that undermine human dignity and cause war. Injustice, excessive economic or social inequalities, envy, distrust, and pride constantly threaten peace and cause wars. We must do everything we can to overcome these disorders so that we can build up peace and avoid war (n 2317).
M
Matt25
Guest
socialjustice.catholic.org.au/content/publications/positionpapers/2003_2_25the_church_speaks_on_war_and_peace.html
**What Pope John Paul II said about the first Gulf War
** On nearly fifty occasions from August 1990 to March 1991, Pope John Paul II spoke out urging a non-violent resolution of the conflict in the Persian Gulf. In these interventions he constantly called for dialogue, negotiation, and respect for the rights of people and of nations.
He emphasised the role of international law. He said that war was ‘unworthy of humanity?, that war could never adequately resolve the issues at stake and would only give rise to further hatred and injustice. He emphasised the risk of escalation and the unpredictable magnitude of the consequences. He found the indiscriminate effects of modern warfare morally unacceptable.
In his Christmas message of December 1990 he urged world leaders to walk the path of peace. He said:
‘May leaders be convinced that war is an adventure with no return! By reasoning, patience and dialogue, with respect for the inalienable rights of peoples and nations, it is possible to identify and travel the paths of understanding and peace.’
He also spoke on the role of the United Nations as a moral authority finding the peaceful resolution of world conflicts. In an address to the Secretary of the State of the United he stated:
‘I ardently hope that the moral authority of the Organisation which you represent may make its contribution so that ultimately dialogue, reason and law may prevail and thus choices with disastrous, unforeseeable consequences may be avoided. May the supreme good of peace triumph, that peace which is so greatly desired by all the peoples of the earth!’…
In mid-January, the Pope addressed the representatives of 177 countries that have diplomatic relations with the Vatican. He said that he has been “personally struck by the feeling of fear which often dwells in the hearts of our contemporaries? in the face of terrorism, the threat of war, famine, disease and environmental degradation.
The Holy Father paid particular attention to the threat of war. He spoke of the need for the ‘peoples of the earth? and their leaders to say “NO TO WAR!?.
He emphasised the role of international law, honest dialogue, solidarity between the States and the exercise of diplomacy as methods for resolving differences. Stating that war is always a defeat for humanity, he added that the solution to difference “will never be imposed by recourse to terrorism or armed conflict, as if military victories could be the solution?. …
When presenting the recent papal message for the World Day of Peace, Archbishop Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called on developed countries to ensure that more of the resources involved in the production and sale of arms are allocated to peace and development in the world. On the subject of the war on terror he said:
‘Since September 11, peace is threatened by the cancer of international terrorism? The response to terrorism and violence is never more violence. Peace is not weakness but strength.’
When asked about the Church’s position on a possible ‘preventive war? in Iraq, the Archbishop highlighted the difference between preventive war and the right of persons and states to exercise self-defence against an unjust aggression. A preventive war is not the same as defence against unjust aggression he said, “because it is a war or aggression and there is no doubt whatsoever that it does not belong to the definition of a just war?.
Refer: www.cathnews.com/news/212/153.html
“The Lord bless you and keep you?. In the face of the events that unsettle the planet, it is very clear that only God can touch the depths of the human soul; his peace alone can restore hope to humanity. We need him to turn his face towards us, to bless us, to protect us and give us his peace.
For this reason, we must begin the new year by asking him for this precious gift. Let us do so through the intercession of Mary, Mother of the “Prince of Peace?.
Homily of John Paul II, 1 January 2003
**What Pope John Paul II said about the first Gulf War
** On nearly fifty occasions from August 1990 to March 1991, Pope John Paul II spoke out urging a non-violent resolution of the conflict in the Persian Gulf. In these interventions he constantly called for dialogue, negotiation, and respect for the rights of people and of nations.
He emphasised the role of international law. He said that war was ‘unworthy of humanity?, that war could never adequately resolve the issues at stake and would only give rise to further hatred and injustice. He emphasised the risk of escalation and the unpredictable magnitude of the consequences. He found the indiscriminate effects of modern warfare morally unacceptable.
In his Christmas message of December 1990 he urged world leaders to walk the path of peace. He said:
‘May leaders be convinced that war is an adventure with no return! By reasoning, patience and dialogue, with respect for the inalienable rights of peoples and nations, it is possible to identify and travel the paths of understanding and peace.’
He also spoke on the role of the United Nations as a moral authority finding the peaceful resolution of world conflicts. In an address to the Secretary of the State of the United he stated:
‘I ardently hope that the moral authority of the Organisation which you represent may make its contribution so that ultimately dialogue, reason and law may prevail and thus choices with disastrous, unforeseeable consequences may be avoided. May the supreme good of peace triumph, that peace which is so greatly desired by all the peoples of the earth!’…
In mid-January, the Pope addressed the representatives of 177 countries that have diplomatic relations with the Vatican. He said that he has been “personally struck by the feeling of fear which often dwells in the hearts of our contemporaries? in the face of terrorism, the threat of war, famine, disease and environmental degradation.
The Holy Father paid particular attention to the threat of war. He spoke of the need for the ‘peoples of the earth? and their leaders to say “NO TO WAR!?.
He emphasised the role of international law, honest dialogue, solidarity between the States and the exercise of diplomacy as methods for resolving differences. Stating that war is always a defeat for humanity, he added that the solution to difference “will never be imposed by recourse to terrorism or armed conflict, as if military victories could be the solution?. …
When presenting the recent papal message for the World Day of Peace, Archbishop Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called on developed countries to ensure that more of the resources involved in the production and sale of arms are allocated to peace and development in the world. On the subject of the war on terror he said:
‘Since September 11, peace is threatened by the cancer of international terrorism? The response to terrorism and violence is never more violence. Peace is not weakness but strength.’
When asked about the Church’s position on a possible ‘preventive war? in Iraq, the Archbishop highlighted the difference between preventive war and the right of persons and states to exercise self-defence against an unjust aggression. A preventive war is not the same as defence against unjust aggression he said, “because it is a war or aggression and there is no doubt whatsoever that it does not belong to the definition of a just war?.
Refer: www.cathnews.com/news/212/153.html
“The Lord bless you and keep you?. In the face of the events that unsettle the planet, it is very clear that only God can touch the depths of the human soul; his peace alone can restore hope to humanity. We need him to turn his face towards us, to bless us, to protect us and give us his peace.
For this reason, we must begin the new year by asking him for this precious gift. Let us do so through the intercession of Mary, Mother of the “Prince of Peace?.
Homily of John Paul II, 1 January 2003
H
HagiaSophia
Guest
When you read this:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=37627&highlight=sundance
You must say to yourself, another bunch to “ignore”— residuals from the marching crowd who have grown tired of placards in bad weather and all bought a video camera and are “self titled moviemakers”.
L
Lance
Guest
Thanks Sophia for making harder to keep my Lenten vow to give up beer except on Friday and Saturday. I read this and immediately wanted a beer to get the sour taste out of my mouth.
H
HagiaSophia
Guest
That’s what good modern art does for ya - you have to have a beer these days just to be able to swallow again…Thanks Sophia for making harder to keep my Lenten vow to give up beer except on Friday and Saturday. I read this and immediately wanted a beer to get the sour taste out of my mouth.
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