Gumbleton: Scrap just war for
nonviolence
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton made an impassioned plea to his brother
bishops to change the thrust of their pastoral on terrorism from one that
allows military retaliation for the events of Sept. 11 to one that calls forth
a nonviolent response.
He urged the bishops to abandon their traditional approach to
assessing war: Take that just war theology. Put it in a
drawer. Lock it. Never open it again. He recommended that the bishops
replace just war theology with the nonviolence practiced by their faith
forebears in the first four centuries of Christendom.
The Detroit auxiliary pointed to the bishops own advice in
the pastoral -- to Israelis, Palestinians and to Sudanese warring forces -- to
stop the violence and return to a negotiated settlement of their conflicts.
He read a letter he received last week from Colleen Kelly of the
Bronx whose brother, William Hill Kelly Jr. was killed in the trade towers. She
did not wish any family, American or Afghan, to endure what her family was
feeling.
I adamantly oppose the bombings, she wrote. I
have no other argument other than it is not Christ-like.
Kelly had this urgent request of the bishops: Could you begin
the discussion of the other way, Christs way? Could you help provide
moral guidance to a majority that is voicing support for a bombing campaign,
but with reserve and ambivalence? Could you open a dialogue of alternatives,
concrete ideas leading to Christs truth in our hearts? Could you pray
that we may be all open to Gods difficult and sometimes divisive
message?
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington thanked Gumbleton for
his prophetic voice, but noted that governments have to defend
their own people and reach out and protect the poor. No one gets a free
ride in our society, the cardinal said. A member of the International
Policy Committee that drafted the pastoral, McCarrick said the bishops need to
be sure that what we do is moral and the it upholds our values as
Americans and our Judao-Christian values.
Gumbleton countered: Yes, but the mistake we make is in
thinking that the only way to defend ourselves is through violence.
In the end the bishops transformed their sentiments into votes,
approving of the pastoral 167-4. A copy of the document appears on the
bishops Web site: ww.usccb.org
-- Patricia Lefevere
National Catholic Reporter, November 23,
2001
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