Catholic Sensibility

Taking Archibshop Burke to task on war When I read over Archbishop Burke's pastoral letter (here: http://www.stlouisreview.com/article.php?id=7051), I almost choked on this passage in paragraph 30: Let's focus on war, with a nod that the other issue brings its own baggage to the table. Exodus 20:13: "You shall not kill." CCC 2307: "The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life." Y'all can go read your own catechisms, but I point out that Catholics are obliged to action, not just prayer to end war (2307), that a legitimate defensive war requires "rigorous" consideration and "strict" conditions, particularly a judgment that war should not "produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated." (2309) Moral law is a permanent fixture of war (2312) and not abrogated in the cases of victory or defeat. Anger (2302) and hatred (2303) are dealt with appropriately here, too. The Church's position on war is not without some flaws, however. Sadly for pro-war Catholics, I think these flaws tend to sprout up as an obstacle to maintaining a philosophical status quo rather than as a pass on applying morality. The CCC seems to give such a pass on attacking enemy combatants, but there are moral dangers with this approach. First, many honorable people with honorable motives have fought in defense of their country or principles, even against the US, and we would be hard-pressed to say that all individual combatants are evil. It could be argued that they are misguided or duped by their leaders, but not every enemy soldier is a rapist, torturer, looter, murderer, or terrorist. And even if they were, their life is still worthy of respect, even if their individual morality is suspect. The Catechism also avoids the danger to soldiers themselves who, when they must kill in the line of duty, themselves become tainted with the evil they resist. Violence begets violence, and it is seen in elevated levels of spousal and child abuse in families of people with violent professions, especially the military. The taint of evil is seen in the conduct of war by a side which may have stood on the moral high ground before a conflict or early in it, but who have themselves resorted to immoral means of achieving a just end. In making these points, I don't even cross the line into serious pacifism. This is all basic morality derived from the Bible and Catechism. I think the archbishop's letter is seriously flawed in that it glosses over the issue of war, which is probably one of the most serious and current moral issues we face in the US today. Burke's statement that war is "not intrinsically evil" is ... incredible. I have no other polite word for it. Killing is intrinsically evil: that's why abortion is wrong. Abortion isn't wrong because the unborn are small, innocent, defenseless, precious, or cute. (Though fetus children are all of these things and more, especially to expectant parents.) Abortion isn't wrong because we get to dump on our favorite villains because of it. Abortion is wrong because it is a violent act against human life. War is also a violent act. A human pregnancy might end for biological reasons (mother or child) or by external accident. Likewise, a born person may die as a result of illness or accident. Moralists might also acknowledge a pregnancy ending as an unintended consequence, and it seems at first glance that enemy combatants are treated in the same way: if opposing soldiers must die to achieve a good and moral end, this is an acceptable cost, especially if the intent is not to kill outright. The archbishop is correct in saying that some things are always wrong. Some of these issues are far more grave than others. Cheating on a test, falsifying documents, cheating on taxes, blaming someone else for a mistake, cruelty to an animal: these are all things which are always wrong. But none of them approach the gravity of killing a human being. Even conceding that killing in a just war is a needful thing, the matter of war, however prudential it might be deemed, is a far more grave moral dilemma than same-sex marriage. Certainly, some of these issues are more important to some of us than others. A gay Catholic would certainly find church teaching on homosexuality a bit higher up on the list than a heterosexual. Teachers, taxpayers, victims of identity fraud, animal rights activists would each have their own rendering of some of these absolute issues in their priority lists. We'd like to think that life and death is at the top of everybody's list. This statement: "One cannot justify a vote for a candidate who promotes intrinsically evil acts which erode the very foundation of the common good, such as abortion and same-sex "marriage," by appealing to that same candidate's opposition to war or capital punishment." lacks the depth a bishop must bring to the table when teaching the faithful. Just because the issue of war or capital punishment are theoretically matters of prudential judgment, doesn't mean they offer the moral person a pass on making such judgments, or that they are automatically assigned a second tier of morality, somewhere behind same-sex marriage or even tax evasion, theft, or looking over someone's shoulder on the final exam. Even if the war in Iraq were an entirely just enterprise, "rigor" and "strictness" would still be needed to ensure a just prosecution of matters there. And for millions of Americans, there are grave moral doubts on this issue. My suggestion is that the archbishop return to the drawing board on his letter. Sensible Catholics acknowledge that issues are aligned by gravity of the subject matter, not the surety we bring to the topic. Sensible Catholics actually engage their consciences and church teaching to make prudential judgments on issues such as war. Even non-pacifists who concede that war is sometimes just and necessary might find serious moral problems in the support of a war which has lost its focus. This letter has been termed "complicated," and maybe that's the truth. The archbishop may have gotten caught up in the complexities of life and death issues himself. That's fine. We all need to grow and change on the path toward greater holiness and wisdom. And regarding the upcoming elections, we certainly need all the holiness and wisdom we can muster to make the best choices possible.