A CATHOLIC CALL TO ARMS
Rod Dreher of National Review reports that the Catholic Bishops (led by none other than Cardinal Bernard Law) plan to draft a resolution opposing the war in Iraq. There is nothing more frustrating for a Catholic who actually still believes in the moral principles the Catholic Church has stood on for thousands of years than to see its leadership continually fritter away its moral authority by turning a blind-eye to the deviant sexual mores of its own priesthood and providing rhetorical fodder for the fascists, despots, and EVIL people of this world. How will history judge them? How will the laity? The falsehood of the charges against the Church that it supported fascism in the WWII era have been documented...but that historical reality stands in direct contrast to the American Church's apparent unwillingness to stand on behalf of the poor, downtrodden, and oppressed peoples living in squalid dictatorships like Iraq. Not only should the Church NOT be drafting peacenik resolutions against war in Iraq, the Catholic Church should be leading the charge...waving the banner of liberty and freedom for the 'meek' of this world who can only look to the United States for leadership on removing them from their plight. Christianity has much to offer the peoples of the Arab world and in other areas of oppression. Increasingly, though, the Catholic Church is silent on the very front where moral leadership is needed most. Captured by the vacuous politics of the 1970's, the American Catholic Church articulates an ideology of fatuous pacificism. It lacks the intellectual rigor or moral coherence of a Ghandi or even a Martin Luther King. It is filled with euphamisms like 'economic rights' and 'social justice' that have little connection with anything other than the failed marxism of the Green movement (little M because even Marx wouldn't claim some of these folks). Indeed, the arguments from the pulpit (would that we could dismiss these views as merely the provincial concerns of the East coast Bishops...no, I hear the same nonsense in Conway, AR and Columbia, MO) are not far, in terms of rational argumentation, from the "Stop Israeli Fascism" and "End Corporate Murder" signs that the self-labled 'Peace' movement trunk around with. The truly sad bit about this sorry state is that, unlike with a political party (the Bob Michels GOP, for instance), turning away from this institution is not an option for a humbly faithful Catholic. What to do? I have no easy answer. But the necessetity...nay, the moral duty for Catholics of conscience to speak out and take a stand against Evil is evident and long overdue. The Church cannot stand by and do nothing. And if its leadership cannot find it in their hearts or their Faith to do so, then we must do it for them. D.GOOCH
