t h e SPRING 2006 VOLUME 5.1 o f s i gn pJournal e of thea Catholic c Peace Fellowshipe The Moral Compass of Benedict XVI Where will he lead Church teaching on war? Saint Ignatius and ROTC at Jesuit Schools Joshua Casteel: A Soldier’s Magnificat The Editors on the 3rd Anniversary of Iraq Invasion ts h e i gnof p e a c e contents S P R I N G 2 0 0 6 · V O L 5 . 1 4-5 Peace Briefs News compiled by the CPF staff. ED I T O R 6-9 Saint Ignatius Loyola and ROTC A report from Jesuit campuses Michael J. Baxter on the relationship between the man who laid down his sword and those who train for war. MA N A G I N G ED I T O R 10-13 A Soldier’s Magnificat Conscientious objector Joshua Casteel tells his Mike Griffin story of conversion in Iraq. ASSOCIATE EDITORS 14-15 Pledging Allegiance William T. Cavanaugh reflects on the case of Brenna Cussen Stephen Kobasa, fired for refusing to display the U.S. flag in his Catholic high school classroom. David Griffith 16-22 The Moral Compass of Benedict XVI The CPF Staff consid- Mary Margaret C. Nussbaum ers Benedict’s commitment to peace and peacemaking. Benjamin Peters Margaret Pfeil 23-24 The Mass and Peace Joel Schorn on the community of the Body of Christ. Joel Schorn Michael Schorsch 25-28 War and Conscience after Vatican II Tom Cornell remem- Gregory Watson bers the early days of counseling conscientious objectors to the Vietnam war. 29-30 The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien Reviewed by Mia EDITORIAL BOARD Nussbaum. Frederick C. Bauerschmidt Tom Cornell Jim Forest letters Michael Garvey Hello, I am a priest of the Diocese Response to a CPF retreat ad on site Kelly Johnson Jeremy Langford of Madison, WI. At the conclusion run by editor of Catholic World Report Bill Ofenloch of Pope Benedict’s message for the I’m writing about a Blog ad that Patrick O’Neill World Day of Peace, he encouraged someone from your organization Shawn T. Storer each community to have an educa- purchased for display on my web Julianne Wiley tional effort for the truth of peace. site. It’s a little embarrassing to say Mark and Louise Zwick What do you offer in your work- this, but you don’t want your ad on shop? I’d like to include this as an my site because I don’t want it CIRCULATION option for our Bishop to fulfill the there either... I will refund your Liz Fallon Catherine Gehred Pope's wishes. -Jim Murphy money. Patrick McGowan My site is extremely conservative I am an Air Force veteran, honor- and pro-US military and you’re not ably discharged for conscientious going to get any takers for your WEB TEAM Nate Wills, csc objection. I have a B.A. in conference from advertising there. Jim Bilek Philosophy from the University of Your money would be better spent Jonathan Williams Arkansas and an M.T.S. from Emory elsewhere... -Domenico Bettinelli University. I will be received into the The Sign of Peace is published Catholic Church this Easter... I am Excerpt of CPF’s response: periodically throughout the year. interested in sharing my story pub- Thanks, though I’m sorry that Subscription is $5 per issue. licly, giving talks where I can and there’s no room for the ad, which To submit letters to the editor, address changes, manuscript helping bring about the removal of promotes a Catholic event held by submissions, or questions, contact: just-war theory from the teaching of Catholic people who happen to the Church. think that the Catholic faith has a The Sign of Peace Thank you. -Jonathan D. Lace thing or two to say to our culture of BOX 4232 death. Honestly, I think your deci- SOUTH BEND, IN 46634 Response to our “Conscientious sion to remove the ad is wrong- TEL: 574.232.2295 Objection and Abortion” e-mail headed, theologically flimsy and, Email: [email protected] I wanted to thank you for ultimately, based in cowardice. addressing conscientious objection -Mike Griffin Cover art by Jan Peters for and abortion. As I look ahead to my The Sign of Peace ob/gyn clinicals at an ultra-secular medical school, this is very signifi- Please send letters to our P.O. Box or Visit us at cant for me. -Lauren O’Connell to [email protected] www.catholicpeacefellowship.org The Feast of Saint Joseph . Three Years Later arch 19, 2003 will be remembered as the night that “shock and awe” began. In the U.S., people sat glued to their televisions, wondering, “when will it begin?” In Iraq, Mpeople were quite unglued, scurrying to protect their young, also wondering, “when will it begin?” So we all waited. It was the Feast of Saint Joseph. Saint Joseph, protector of the Christ Child, was likely invoked by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Catholics—perhaps as patron of families, perhaps as patron of a good death. We have remarked before on the strange juxtaposition of the Church’s Feasts of life and the world’s liturgies of death. Sometimes the coincidence is felicitous: Armistice Day, putting an end to the massive killing of World War I, occurred on November 11—the Feast of Saint Martin of Tours, a conscientious objector who laid down his sword and became a soldier of Christ. Sometimes the coincidence is ominous: The Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, was profaned in 1945 by what Pope Paul VI would later call “a butchery of untold magnitude.” We cannot help but reflect on the meaning of March 19. The point is not that some other day would have been better. Indeed, “the war” began long before March 19, 2003; the invasion was merely one more escalation of a twelve-year system of sanctions and violence imposed on ordinary Iraqis. Still, liturgical reflection has a way of making the realities of sin and grace a bit clearer. This year, with March 19 falling on a Sunday (and the Feast of St. Joseph thus moved to the next day), the readings for the Third Sunday of Lent come into focus. The first, from Exodus, reminds us of the commands of God, including “You shall not kill” (Ex 20:13). Paul reminds those at Corinth, and us here, that the world will not understand what we preach, but that “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Cor 1:25). And in a providential bit of irony, the Gospel is the text most often used by warmakers to justify their belligerence. “He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, ‘Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace’” (Jn 2:15-16). Some see here a Rambo-like Jesus, and with each table that falls another hundred thousand deaths can be jus- tified. An inane reading of Scripture—it was, after all, tables that fell and coins that spilled, not a village destroyed, not a spray of bullets or bombs. There is a difference. Constantinian figures in the Church have always obfuscated the first and self-evident meaning of this text, that the mix of religion, money and power is diabolical, contrary to the Father’s will. Such a mix brings compro- mise. We still see it in the U.S. Church. We failed three years ago and we are failing now, becoming desensitized to perpetual war and countenancing those leaders—like military Archbishop O’Brien—who somehow square this violence with the way of Jesus Christ. Christ taught us better. His nonviolent love of friends and enemies was no quaint sentiment, but a mandate for living in accord with the creator of the universe. Violence will sooner or later fail. Three years ago, this truth was proclaimed by John Paul II. Three years later, we can reflect on the present quagmire and remember his constant insistence on an active love that is above both “the cowardice which gives in to evil and the violence which, under the illusion of fighting evil, only makes it worse” (Centesimus annus, n. 25). Today the debate rages. Should we pull out of Iraq? Don’t we need a presence there? Our response, as one CPF member put it, is this: We, the Church, do have a presence there. We should help in doing what Christians do in troubled lands—build hospitals, serve the poor, teach the children. We might also, in a spirit of commun- ion with them, use the traditional titles in the Litany of Saint Joseph to adapt a prayer for these difficult days: Saint Joseph, pray for us. Diligent protector of Christ . help us to revere His teachings. Head of the Holy Family . make us see all as our kin. Joseph most Just . teach us to name evil as evil. Joseph most faithful . show us how to trust in God. Patron of the dying . be with all victims of violence. Terror of demons . guard us from the demons of Terror. Protector of the Holy Church . help us to be a sign of peace in the world. Amen. —The Editors Peace Briefs News Compiled by the CPF Staff Here, Bullet Christian Peacemakers Still Missing No matter/ what god shines As of this writing, the four members of the Christian down on you, no matter/ what Peacemaker Teams (CPT) who were kidnapped on crackling pain and anger/ you November 26, 2005, have not yet been released.