I wrote this some time ago after emailing with some priests and protestant clergy I served with while on active duty...Just a thought...Fr. Di
It has not escaped the notice of men and women in uniform that quite a number of religious leaders in civilian life have been outspoken opponents of war against Saddam Hussein. None of the Chaplains I know or have spoken to would directly criticize their anti-war civilian colleagues. Yet some did say the clerical pacifism leaves many soldiers angry, confused, betrayed and even spiteful toward faith. These pronouncements tend to reinforce the notion that religion is for wimps, for frilly suited morons and those are among the more gentle statements, one hears.
As men and women of faith deliberate the morality of war with Iraq, it is a travesty that more of them haven’t had the perspective of military chaplains, that virtually the only religious voices heard in the public square are coming from the anti-war corner.
The divide between military and civilian clergy over the Iraq war is philosophically very deep. It cuts to the core of one’s belief in evil and the nature of human beings. Military chaplains who have been with American troops in war zones have seen a side of humanity that bishops in well-appointed chanceries and pastors sitting in suburban middle-class comfort, pondering therapeutic approaches to the mystery of iniquity, never see. This is what Philip M. Hannan, the retired Catholic archbishop of new Orleans and a World War II military chaplain, was getting at last fall when he criticized his fellow bishops for their pacifist pronouncements on the Iraq war. Hannan, 89, who was with G.I.’s when they liberated two concentration camps, remarked at the time that the bishops had no experience with tyranny and had no idea how to cope with it.
“I’ve stared into the face of evil, says Chaplain Vince Inghilterra, who will soon take over as chief chaplain for the U.S. armed forces in Europe and the Middle East. “We chaplains have actually seen the oppression, the devastation, the hopelessness, the absolute inexplicable, irrational hatred a person can have against another human being. It astounds me. But evil definitely exists, and what we are dealing with in this Middle East situation is evil. There’s only one-way to deal with that kind of evil, and that’s to confront it, with force if necessary”.
Some chaplains say the failure of contemporary American society to grasp the true nature of the evil we face means the country is spiritually unprepared for war and its sacrifices. The civilian clergy is not particularly helpful on this point. “There are a lot of people living in denial, even though right now there are Humvees with Stinger missiles patrolling Washington, ‘says one experienced chaplain’. “The battlefront is now here at home. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
Military clergy have been dealing with this chasm in understanding with their civilian counterparts since at least the Vietnam era. When Father Vince Capodanno, a Maryknoll priest, returned from a year spent ministering on the battlefields of Southeast Asia, his fellow Maryknollers greeted him with indifference at best and scorn at worst. “They didn’t want to hear about it. They didn’t know and they didn’t want to know because they were anti-war,” says Chaplain Mode, Capodanno’s biographer. Father Capodanno immediately wanted to go back and be with his men. Father Capodanno did go back. He died on the battlefield serving the needs of his men. For that he received the Medal of Honor.
It has not escaped the notice of men and women in uniform that quite a number of religious leaders in civilian life have been outspoken opponents of war against Saddam Hussein. None of the Chaplains I know or have spoken to would directly criticize their anti-war civilian colleagues. Yet some did say the clerical pacifism leaves many soldiers angry, confused, betrayed and even spiteful toward faith. These pronouncements tend to reinforce the notion that religion is for wimps, for frilly suited morons and those are among the more gentle statements, one hears.
As men and women of faith deliberate the morality of war with Iraq, it is a travesty that more of them haven’t had the perspective of military chaplains, that virtually the only religious voices heard in the public square are coming from the anti-war corner.
The divide between military and civilian clergy over the Iraq war is philosophically very deep. It cuts to the core of one’s belief in evil and the nature of human beings. Military chaplains who have been with American troops in war zones have seen a side of humanity that bishops in well-appointed chanceries and pastors sitting in suburban middle-class comfort, pondering therapeutic approaches to the mystery of iniquity, never see. This is what Philip M. Hannan, the retired Catholic archbishop of new Orleans and a World War II military chaplain, was getting at last fall when he criticized his fellow bishops for their pacifist pronouncements on the Iraq war. Hannan, 89, who was with G.I.’s when they liberated two concentration camps, remarked at the time that the bishops had no experience with tyranny and had no idea how to cope with it.
“I’ve stared into the face of evil, says Chaplain Vince Inghilterra, who will soon take over as chief chaplain for the U.S. armed forces in Europe and the Middle East. “We chaplains have actually seen the oppression, the devastation, the hopelessness, the absolute inexplicable, irrational hatred a person can have against another human being. It astounds me. But evil definitely exists, and what we are dealing with in this Middle East situation is evil. There’s only one-way to deal with that kind of evil, and that’s to confront it, with force if necessary”.
Some chaplains say the failure of contemporary American society to grasp the true nature of the evil we face means the country is spiritually unprepared for war and its sacrifices. The civilian clergy is not particularly helpful on this point. “There are a lot of people living in denial, even though right now there are Humvees with Stinger missiles patrolling Washington, ‘says one experienced chaplain’. “The battlefront is now here at home. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
Military clergy have been dealing with this chasm in understanding with their civilian counterparts since at least the Vietnam era. When Father Vince Capodanno, a Maryknoll priest, returned from a year spent ministering on the battlefields of Southeast Asia, his fellow Maryknollers greeted him with indifference at best and scorn at worst. “They didn’t want to hear about it. They didn’t know and they didn’t want to know because they were anti-war,” says Chaplain Mode, Capodanno’s biographer. Father Capodanno immediately wanted to go back and be with his men. Father Capodanno did go back. He died on the battlefield serving the needs of his men. For that he received the Medal of Honor.
