Nuclear Silence
Barack Obama, president of the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons in war, has called for a world free of nuclear weapons. One of the very few things I admire about Ronald Reagan was that he too abhorred nuclear weapons, and dreamed of a world without them. And now Obama has taken up the cause of abolition, committing to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. ” This is huge news. Surely, given Church teaching on the issue, this commitment would be applauded in Catholic circles? In fact, it was largely ignored.
Let’s do a very quick recap of Church teachingon this issue. As the Catechism notes:
Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons – to commit such crimes.
The accumulation of arms strikes many as a paradoxically suitable way of deterring potential adversaries from war. They see it as the most effective means of ensuring peace among nations. This method of deterrence gives rise to strong moral reservations. The arms race does not ensure peace. Far from eliminating the causes of war, it risks aggravating them. Spending enormous sums to produce ever new types of weapons impedes efforts to aid needy populations; it thwarts the development of peoples. Over-armament multiplies reasons for conflict and increases the danger of escalation.
Or going back to Gaudium Et Spes (on which the Catechism draws):
“The unique hazard of modern warfare consists in this: it provides those who possess modem scientific weapons with a kind of occasion for perpetrating just such abominations; moreover, through a certain inexorable chain of events, it can catapult men into the most atrocious decisions…. the arms race in which an already considerable number of countries are engaged is not a safe way to preserve a steady peace, nor is the so-called balance resulting from this race a sure and authentic peace. Rather than being eliminated thereby, the causes of war are in danger of being gradually aggravated. While extravagant sums are being spent for the furnishing of ever new weapons, an adequate remedy cannot be provided for the multiple miseries afflicting the whole modern world. Disagreements between nations are not really and radically healed; on the contrary, they spread the infection to other parts of the earth….Therefore, we say it again: the arms race is an utterly treacherous trap for humanity, and one which ensnares the poor to an intolerable degree….”
Back in 1983, a period marked by continued cold war tensions, the United States bishops issued a brave and prophetic document –The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response– calling for nuclear disarmament. It recognized that deterrence could be licit, but only as an interim step on the way toward progressive disarmament. There had to be a world without nuclear weapons, as they veery existence of these weapons offends God’s creation. It is not much exaggeration to say that this document helped frame the debate, forced political leaders to focus on the just war principles, and may even have pricked Reagan’s conscience.
In retrospect, the peace pastoral appears quite restrained. Respected and orthodox moralists like Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and John Finnis went further — they argued that even the nuclear deterrent is deeply immoral, on the grounds that such deterrence entails an intention to kill innocents. But today, the bishops are largely silent, and very few Catholics devote much energy to the issue. Why?
Part of it may be the inroads made by the Republican party and the broader pseudo-conservative movement with Catholics over the past quarter century – Catholics might have signed up to protect innocent human life, but got stuck with a group dedicated to American military superiority and an exponentially-expanding military budget. Not exactly the environment to push disarmament! And even if they do not support the agenda of the warrior class, they seem to have bought into the “take no prisoners” high-octane partisanship of this group. It certainly explains the completely disproportionate outbreak of ”Obama derangement syndrome” that has more in common with Hannity and Limbaugh than a European or Latin American Christian Democrat. In such circumstances, his nuclear overtures merit no response.
But there’s more to it than that. I think it reflects a profound discomfort and uneasiness Americans have over the disarmament issue. After all, this is the country that not only used the weapon to kill millions, but where the justification of that act has become part of America’s national myth. We know differently. As Elizabeth Anscombe put it, with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “it was certainly decided to kill the innocent as a means to an end”. She has no problem dubbing Harry Truman a war criminal, a war criminal who makes Bush and Cheney took like petty street hoodlums. But Americans are unwilling to face up to that fact. Truman remains a hero — on both sides of the partisan divide.
For when we talk about disarmament, people become afraid. Afraid of the scary people out there who would do them harm in the absence of a big strong deterrent. Americans love feeling safe, and — as we have learned — will go to great lengths to restore a lost paradise. And so, surely the Church could not preach about disarmament in such a big bad world, could it? That’s so naive, so effete, so European! This attitude really sums up the American approach to Christianity, and to spiritual matters in general — whatever you do, don’t make me feel uncomfortable.
Douthat put it quite well in a somewhat different context: theological differences are “less to do with any theological principle and more to do with what aspect of American life they want God to validate.” Larison says it even better: “It is an inoffensive, undemanding Gospel, which always seems to find loopholes for our self-fulfillment rather than calling for self-denial or sacrifice of any kind, and which exists not so much to call men to repentance as to endorse choices they have already made.”
I would say that a side-effect of the “feel good” pop Gnosticism is that one is quick to denounce sins that one cannot relate to personally. Thus so many right-wing “Christians” are the first to denounce abortion, while making no attempt to understand the women living in inner-city poverty who make this awful decision. It is beyond their comprehension. They will accuse gays of destroying traditional marriage, because they are not gay themselves, while their serial adulterer friends get a free pass. And so it is with nuclear weapons — fighting for disarmament is too demanding, too hard, too disruptive for comfort. It’s too out of synch with a cozy worldview where America is always the good guy, blessed by God. Easier to bash some gays instead.
Comments are closed.
Speaking as one who likes the idea of reducing, at a bare minimum, the world’s nuclear arsenals to below a planet-wrecking threshold, I actually had some hopes for this one.
Alas. It’s like watching Old Faithful: an indiscriminate superheated eruption you can set your watch to.
Once again, you destroy the makings of a thoughtful essay with an assault on the right-wing boogeyman. During the course of a post railing about the dangers of demonizing the other, you strap your bete noire into the rhetorical electric chair and once again, flip the switch.
I mean, really–the bishops have been cowed into mute submission because of the “apostate” right? OK.
And your evidence in support of this is…nothing at all, as it turns out.
Perhaps the episcopate is waiting to see something of the specifics behind the laudable rhetoric? Crazy, but just possible.
The last paragraph is merely a stereotype you have conjured to feed into your own prejudices and is not worth additional comment.
As for the article you cite (which talks about the bishops-are you also condemning the bishops in the last paragraph as some of those who find it “easier to bash gays?), I think it is fairly reasonable to believe that the bishops had to choose their issues, and nuclear disarmament just hasn’t been a top priority. Kinda hard to convince a nation to disarm when the same nation is convinced it has to keep invading for its own security.
Perhaps the bishops have been slow to this newest claim by Obama, but then again there was a small thing called Easter that may have taken up a good portion of their time, so a response may be forthcoming and we would be wise to wait for it patiently.
This would seem to be another good example of what I talked about here. One can understand being equally exercised about nuclear weapons both now and in the early 1980s, and one can understand being a stronger proponent of abolition now that we aren’t facing a Soviet threat. But why make a big stink about the nuclear issue when the potential negative consequences of abolition are most pronounced, only to drop the issue once abolition could be achieved at relatively low cost?
The first two comments have it right. When your argument collapses into that kind of rhetoric, how many of the right-wingers whose hearts might be moved will instead seize on your final words as a handy way to distract their consciences? Imitate The Challenge of Peace in both style AND substance and you might see some real results like the bishops did!
I think the reason nuclear arms has fallen off the radar for many people is the simple fact that the Cold War is over. With the U.S/Soviet dynamic gone it doesn’t feel like such a pressing issue. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we made it through forty years of cold war without dropping the bomb only to be nuked in the 21st century by a smaller rogue nation because we chose to be complacent and ignore this problem.
Funny reactions. The point I as trying to make, perhaps too clumsily, was that this is bigger than just partisan allegiance, and gets to the core of America’s sense of self-identity. And the episcopate has shown itself very wary of challenging that self of self identity, in all its manifestations (we could devote a whole blog to that topic!).
(But sorry, I’m also not going to stop commenting on what the denigration of Catholic discourse over the past few years – and yes, much of the recent disproportionate and historically unprecedented Catholic reaction to Obama stems from this source. And no, I’m not talking about the bishops — you can count the number of episcopal bandwagon jumpers on one hand).
they argued that even the nuclear deterrent is deeply immoral, on the grounds that such deterrence entails an intention to kill innocents.
I’m still interested to hear more about how they square the circle here. Saying that nuclear deterrence requires an “intention to kill innocents” is unbelievably simplistic. Nuclear deterrence would more properly be described in terms like this:
“Fearing that someone else may kill innocents [not a hypothetical when the Soviet Union was killing a hundred million people over the course of several decades], and hence threatening to be able to retaliate against innocents [the part that seems to get you hung up], but all with the over-riding goal of ensuring that such a situation never arises in the first place and thus that innocent life is preserved above all else [the part that you completely ignore].”
Also, just in the interest of accuracy, there were not “millions” killed at Hiroshima and Nagaski; more like 1/4 of a million. Not that this lessens the atrocity, mind you, but it does lessen your credibility to make such exaggerated assertions.
MM, I completely agree with your point. The Church in America is hard-pressed to speak about nuclear disarmament because half (roughly) of American Catholics identify with a party that is fundamentally jingoistic. Moreover, I agree with you that nuclear weapons are a hot-button topic (pun intended) with Americans in particular. Really, though, there are plenty of things that we as Americans are okay with, or at least uncomfortable discussing, but that we as Catholics must NOT be okay with, and need to begin discussions on. Nuclear weapons are definitely one of those topics. Add it to the list of issues that the Church needs to raise its “prophetic voice” about!
Oh, also, with regards to the last paragraph – I think you have a good point there too, but your last sentence disserves you. Most people reading this aren’t particularly militant against nuclear weapons, and many of us do think that homosexual acts are sinful, but I don’t think it’s fair to insinuate that we’re gay-bashing *instead* of opposing nuclear weapons – after all, isn’t your whole point that we should be doing things consistently, i.e. opposing both things? Even if not, insulting your readers by insinuating that they’ve maliciously abandoned the fight against nuclear weapons in favor of an “easier target” is not the best way to get your readers to be concerned about nuclear weapons. Instead, it’s a good way to create combox wars with comments like this one. And your goal is the former, not the latter, isn’t it?
Nuclear weapons are bad things. Abortion is a bad thing. Nerve gases are bad things. And so the list can continue.
But should not the discussion be about the manner in which the use of these bad things can be avoided, rather than merely banning them? Pandora’s box has been opened.
Before the 1914/18 War there was a movement to ban the use of airplanes in wartime. But as Chesterton pointed out, if one side agrees not to use airplanes, will the other side also agree? Dorothy L. Sayers pointed out that the pacifist movement of the 1930s left the better side much weakened.
Let us have the weapons. Then we can decide whether and how to use them. Hiroshima and Nagasaki did bring to an abrupt halt a war that had been going on for 60 years, and likely saved many more from being killed in the death throes of the Japanese empire.
Ned Rorem, in his Quaker fashion, asked does innocent civilians mean guilty soldiers?
“But sorry, I’m also not going to stop commenting on what the denigration of Catholic discourse over the past few years – and yes, much of the recent disproportionate and historically unprecedented Catholic reaction to Obama stems from this source. And no, I’m not talking about the bishops — you can count the number of episcopal bandwagon jumpers on one hand).”
Sorry not buying Morning Minion. I am perhaps more disappointed in this post than all the others you have done
Your concern is not nuclear weapon or some how being in line with Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church is opposed to other issues. You just want to bash the whatever is supposed called the right wing.
It is amazing. You say Cathlolics must be 100 percent on what a Pope said on Nuclear weapons but on gay marriage we are bigots!!!
Amazing!!! The Pope is is being accused of being a homophobe and no comment but gosh catholics that agree with the Pope premise and we are haters
Time for a little honesty.
A little self reflection. What IF I am, one of those males that perhaps suffred a tad of same sex attraction in my earlier years. Am I am a gay hater!!!
Where are you speaking for me that attempts to speak for the gospel of our LOrd Jesus Christ
Be real careful when you say that people that oppose SSM have no objections
Speak if you will but beware an honest discussion where a person sexuality is not so a private matter and affects a ton of people
(“:But sorry, I’m also not going to stop commenting on what the denigration of Catholic discourse over the past few years – and yes, much of the recent disproportionate and historically unprecedented Catholic reaction to Obama stems from this source. And no, I’m not talking about the bishops — you can count the number of episcopal bandwagon jumpers on one hand).”
The same Mornning Minion that will base ultimate
alliegeance on some Bishops statement on Gun Control decades ago
Sorry Minion you wanted to make a arguement on a arguement on nuclear weapns and somehow you made a arguement that implied all that us that opposed gay marraige were bigots
If you want to have credibility on a issue then stick with it. Don’t accuse others of hate of defendnding Christ’s position on gay marriage and making one bigger than the other. If you want to talk about gay marraige deal with it don’t try to come through the back door on it
That seems very Un Catholic
JH, I oppose gay marriage too. I’m merely pointing out the tendency to play up sins that have nothing to do with us, and play down those that do.
Gabriel, that sounds an awful lot like a consequentialist position. Even if what you say is true about lives saved, it cannot justify such a grave evil. That’s what intrinsic evils are all about.
“oppose gay marriage too. I’m merely pointing out the tendency to play up sins that have nothing to do with us, and play down those that do. ”
As the traditional Catholic teaching goes I could sin on a desert Island and it affects all of us
Gay marraige and more important the threats to religious liberty are huge. The Iowa Supreme Court decision was frightening
I would say that a side-effect of the “feel good” pop Gnosticism is that one is quick to denounce sins that one cannot relate to personally.
I wanted to let this one pass, but that line is just too rich! Abortion and homosexuality are hardly foreign to the experience of Catholics who are dismayed by the devastations wrought by the Sexual Revolution. In fact, often their concern is motivated by the sad experience of family members who bought into the “feel good” ideology that has been shamelessly promoted by the political left in this country since the ’70s.
But once again MM is doing the pot-kettle number. Because the only “sins” so many on the left recognize are the failings of “society” (usually discussed in the corporate sense but sometimes personified in George W. Bush), they feel free to lobby for “social change” or “social justice” without recognizing their own complicity in the evils they decry. So the political foes of climate change do not blush to drive SUVs and air-condition their mega-mansions. And for all their rhetoric about the greed of corporations and financiers, they gladly accept funding from the likes of George Soros.
Is it good that President Obama has called for a nuclear-free world? Sure. I pray he moves us in that direction. But I doubt he will. Nuclear weapons protect the interests he represents just as surely as they protected the interests of his immediate political predecessors, and Obama did not get where he is by crossing the people who lifted him so high.
Well, Ron, I largely agree with your second paragraph. Anybody who reads this blog knows exactly where I stand on SUVs, McMansions, and the whole God-given right of Americans to consume more than their fair share of the planet’s resources.
In your first, I would make 2 points. First, what’s with “homsexuality”? The Church teaching is that all sexual activity outside of a legitimate marriage between a man and a woman that sunders the unitive from the procreative intent is to be condemned. As we all, homosexual activity is a small subset of this group. And this is exactly my point – it’s so easy to condemn gays, but not the serial adulterers and the contraceptors.
Your comment about the “feel good” attitide of the political left is a good one. But is is mirrored exactly on the right, with the glorification of the free markets, guns, the mocking of global warming etc. It is all cut from the same liberal cloth. The huge mistake of the babyboomer Catholics was to react to what extremes of the political left by embracing the equally depraved political right. That sums up so much of what I am trying to say on this blog.
Morning
I think what we are seeing is not “gay bashing” bit the fact of gay marriage is about to have a huge chilling effect on Christians if this happens.
I would say that a side-effect of the “feel good” pop Gnosticism is that one is quick to denounce sins that one cannot relate to personally.
So let me get this straight. You oppose those nasty right-wingers because they’re always talking about the “sins” of other people (gay marriage, abortion, etc.)
But you’re different from them, right? Thus, when you talk about the “sins” of owning SUVs, stockpiling nuclear weapons, owning guns, etc., those are all YOUR sins. Right? Surely you’re not guilty of the same “pop Gnosticism,” whatever the heck that is.
I think what we are seeing is not “gay bashing” bit the fact of gay marriage is about to have a huge chilling effect on Christians if this happens.
jh,
What kind of “chilling effect”? And are you saying there are no Christians in favor of same-sex marriage?
Morning’s Minion writes:
“Gabriel, that sounds an awful lot like a consequentialist position. Even if what you say is true about lives saved, it cannot justify such a grave evil. That’s what intrinsic evils are all about”.
I confess that “consequentialism” seems to have become a philosophic term after I graduated from college.
But the point criticised appears to be that the grave evil of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was worse than the number of deaths that were prevented by the use of the bombs. What I find curious is the lack of application of these terms to the bombings of Tokyo – which are said to have caused many more deaths. These were prudential decisions.
As a moral matter, I believe that the Church teaches that one unjust death is as grave as several hundred thousand.
The Church also teaches that death is not the absolute end of us.
So my comment got deleted? I was just pointing out the obvious irony of you complaining exclusively about other people’s sins (driving SUVs, etc.), even while somehow believing that the difference between you and conservatives is that they spend too much time worrying about other people’s sins.
Never mind, what an idi0t, I missed my own comment up there.