Protest Vietnam War Dec. 19Th Throughout the Nation on Satur Day, December 19Th There Will Be a Concerted Action by the Peace Groups to End the War in Vietnam
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CATHOLIC WORKER Sub1cription1 Yol. XXXI No. 5 DECEMBER, 1964 25o P1r Vear Price le Protest Vietnam War Dec. 19th Throughout the nation on Satur day, December 19th there will be a concerted action by the peace groups to end the war in Vietnam. Cooperating groups are: THE CATHOLIC WORKER; COMMIT· TEE FOR NON-VIOLENT AC· .TJON; FELLOWSIDP OF RECON CILIATION; SOCIALIST PARTY; STUDENT PEACE UNION; STU· DENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY; WAR RESISTERS LEAGUE and WOMEN'S STRIKE FOR PEACE. These groups are appealing to President Johnson to declare an immediate cease fire on the' part ol American forces in South Vietnam, followed by their earliest po sible withdrawal. Fur ther, the cooperating groups urge the immediate convening of a con ference ol those nations concerned, including both mainland China and the United States, and that the Conference seek: (1) To secure co operative action in a program of relief and rehabilitation, carried on through neutral auspices, and di rected toward bringing swift and compassionate economic and medi cal aid to the terribly ,.avaged peo ple of outh Vietnam; (2) To se~ cure an independent and neutral government in South Vietnam through free elections in which democratic, trade union, and reli gious forces can all have an effec tive voice; (3) To insure that the associated states of what was for merly French Indochina <Laos, Cambodia, and North and South Vietnam) will be freed from mili tary intervention from the United States, China, the Soviet Union, or any other nation. As one of the sponsoring groups of this appeal to the conscience of the American people, the CATH OLIC WORKER urges its readers all across America to join 1us, in your own way, in your own com munity, in giving a public voice to this urgent call to end the war in Vietnam. Among the public figures who have agreed to act as sponsors of the forthcoming demonstration as we go to press are: FATHER DAN IEL BERRIGAN, S.J.; FATHER PHILIP BERRIGAN, S.S.J.; DOR· OTHY DAY; PAUis GOODMAN; DWIGHT MACDONALD; LEWIS - MUMFORD; A. J, MUSTE; BAY· ARD RUSTIN. • "The main difticulty in eliminat ing armaments is found in the measure of our ability to substitute some other equally strong or stronger and more efficient means of defense than that of being Christinas EpiStle armed • . • Jt is urgent and indis pensable that the people should understand the danger and take Beloved: The grace of God, our Savior, has dawned on all men alike, part in protests in the most active possible way against the lunatic schooling us to forgo irreverent thoughts and worldly appetites, and to possibilities which threaten the ex live, in the present world, a life of order, of justice, and of holiness. istence of all of us." Danilo Doiel We were to look forward, blessed in our hope, to a day when there will be a new dawn of glory, the glory of our Savior Jesus Christ; who "If you do not specify and con front real Issues, what you say gave himself for us, to ransom us from our guilt, a people set apart will merely obscure them. If you do not alarm anyone morally, you for himself, ambitious of noble deeds. Be this thy message, this thy will yourself remain morally asleep. If you do not embody con encouragement in Christ Jesus our Lord. troversy, what you say will be an Titus 2. 11-15 acceptance of the drUt to the com ing human heJJ." C. Wright Mills Page Two THE CATHOLIC WORKER December, 1964 YoL XXI ,,o. J December, 1964 The Morality Of ciniouc ~WORKER Published Monthly September to .June, Bl-monthly .July-A111u& Thermonuclear Deterrence ORGAN OF THE CATHOLIC WORKER MOVEMENT PETER !WAURJN, l<'ounder By JAMES W. DOUGLASS DOROTHY DAY, Editor •nd Publisher During last year's Military Pro between combatant and non-com land's best-known Catholic the MARTIN J. CORBIN, Managing Editor curement Authorization Hearings, batant and the obligation to pre ologians, Dr. L. L. McReavy, made Associate Editors: a Senator requested that a speech serve the rights of the innocent, the statement in 1958 that " In no CLARE BEE, CHARLES BUTTERWORTH, THOMAS CORNELL, relating current defense policy to rights obviously transgressed by circumstances, not even save EDGAR FORAND, JUDITH GREGORY, WILLIAM HORVATH, to WALTER. KERELL, KARL MEYER, DEANE MOWRER, HELEN C. the Christian just war doctrine be "the pure and simple annihilation the Westea-n world from being RILEY, ARTHUR SHEEHAN, ROBERT STEED, ANNE TAILLEFER, inserted into the record. He was of all human life within the radius swamped by atheistic communism, EDWARD TURNER, STANLEY VISHNEWSKI. quick to note, however, that he of action." Since few Protestant will it e'7er be lawful to explode New subscriptions and change of address: agreed only with some o<f the theologians would challenge the indiscriminate nuclear weapons of • I 175 Chrystie St., New York 2, N. Y. speaker's views on defense policy, substance of Pius' condemnation, the major type on predominantly Telep~one GR 3-5850 Editorial communications to: Sox 33, Tivoli, N. Y. not with the moral principles out the methods of total war have been civilian centers of population.'' In lined: "You won't ft.nd them in effectively ruled out of the Chris his Easter sel'mon of the same Subscription United States, 25c Yearly. Canada and Foreign 30c Yearly. any doctrine in any church; in tian frame of reference. year, Cardinal Godfrey affirmed Subscription rate of one cent per copy plus postage applies to bundles of one fact, the Catholic Church justifies this principle in almost exactly hundred or more copies each month for one year to be directed to one address. Short of total war, an act of the use of force to protect life and such evident injustice that a for the same words. And in 1962 Uie Reentered as second class matter August 10. 1939, at the Post Office property." Another Senator point mal condemnation is almost un English philosopher, Father An of New York, N. Y., Under the Act of March 3, 1879 ed out that the speeC'h included necessary, the problem of speci thony Kenny, noted that moral the statement, "According to theologians in that country had ~ 120 _ fying just limits remains. The Christian doctrine the use ol. force root principle at stake in all reached agreement witb the prin to oppress evil can be justifiable such efforts is that one is never ciple thus stated by McReavy and under certain conditions," and permitted to seek the death of an the Cardinal. A MEMOIR OF added the caution: ''I would hope innocent non - combatant. The If such agreement in principle is the implication is not that under willful killing of the innocent is not so clearly evident among Amer certain other conditions it would murder, in war as well as in ican Catholics, the foremost rea FLANNERY O'CONNOR be wrong to resist evil." peace. The first theologian to ap son would have to be that few of (1925-1964) The potentially scandalous but ply this principle - with any them have even shown any inter est in the problem. With a few By ANNE TAILLEFER usually ignored significance of the thoroughness to the indiscriminate just war doctrine for our age of. bombing of World War II was the exceptions like Fathers Ford and In this popular pity [of our mod· scribed as a writer who ls "expos total war is that it does in fact Jesuit, John C. Ford, in "The Francis J . Connell, who also ruled ern world] we mark our gain in ing the Bible Belt." Nothing could set . definite, morally unbreakable Morality of Obliteration Bombing" out anti-population H-bombs, the sensibility and our loss in vision. be further from the truth. limits to a just use ·Of force so (Theological Studies, 1944). His development of a beginning "nu H the other ares felt less, they saw It is against this grand ecumeni tiha.t "under certain conditions it pioneer effort remains basic to clear theology" has - been the more, even thourh the)' saw with cal background that Flan.nery would be wrong to resist evil." any discussion today of the moral achievement of the English_ (One the blind, prophetical, unsenti learned to seek the kingdom of The doctrine holds that against ity of nuclear bombing and other major exception to Ameri mental eye of acceptance, which is God and ex;pressed it in two sear even the most unscrupulous en deterrence. can Catholic apathy, John Court to say of faith. In the absence of ing novels, each about. a young emy a defense must not be made Fa.ther Ford began by establish ney Murray, S.J ., has unfortu thia faith now, we rovern by ten Evangelist, shaking with fear in through morally evil means. Nor ing beyond reasonable doubt the nately never brought his princi derness. It is a tenderness which face of his awesome mission and contemporary validity of the qis ples close enough to nuclear war long since cut off from the person trying unsuccessfully to run away ti.nction between combatant and to deliver a judgment on city-de of Christ, is wrapped in theory. from it, for each is hounded by non-combatan.t. A combatant is stroying.) But even w1thout much When tenderness is detached from his vocation and brought to his defined by his close participation theological promI)ting, a few con knees, the one gouging out his the source of tendemess, its logi in the waging war, and despite cerned policy analysts like John eyes never again to be tempted by cal outcome is horror.