I've been wondering when this was going to start. Very, very sad.
Gene Branaman | 08.31.06 - 4:09 pm | #

Mark,

First, where do you derive the information that these thugs who did an evil act have abandoned the Church?

Face it, for all you know, all five men are baptized church going Catholics who fled the scene, only to repent a short time later and go to confession.

Second, where do you derive a sense that these men belong to any sort of organized anti-war movement?

Third, where do you derive any sense that these thugs do not have some sort of just war doctrine.

They are obviously NOT practioners of active non-violence in the style of Pax Christi members or Gandhi.

There is no indication that they belong to an organized secular body of anti-war demonstraters.

They obviously DO at least appear to claim to see those who participate in America's current military as "baby killers" - which would lead any reasonable person to logically infer that they very likely see the invasion of Iraq as an unjust war - as did Pope John Paul II, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, most of the Vatican curia, the USCCB, the bishops of Iraq, France, and Britain, etc....

If they happen to so strongly agree with our Pope on this issue that their emotions got the best of them, it does not mean that they don't believe in just war doctrine.

It simply means that they have poor impulse control due to the concupiscience of original sin - something that effects the best of us. I've had to pull some fellow pro-lifers aside while protesting abortion clinics to remind them to act like Christians.

Most likely, these guys are simply bullies looking for fight that is a bit more of a challenge for them than picking on a girl. There is likely no ideology at all involved, and their words come less from some conviction, and were chosen more for their ability to "sting" or "hurt".

If this theory is correct, it still says nothing about those who abandon the Church or question just war doctrine (in either a more or less restrictive direction than the Vatican).

I am not trying to defend the evil actions of these thugs.

I am a believer in very strict conditions of a just war that would make most modern war morally illicit (as Ratzinger indicated before becoming Pope Benedict).

Applying the principles of just war to this small scale conflict, the soldier was not attacking anyone at the moment of being attacked. Therefore, these thugs did evil.

Further, I do lean very strongly towards active non-violence in the style of Gandhi. Therefore, I cannot condone beating up U.S. soldiers walking into a grocery store where there is no battle taking place.

But you do wrong to try to lump these thugs in with some group of people whom you disagree with - and this is something you seem very prone to do lately. Only about a week ago, I recall you using an obviously mentally ill woman as a respresentative of the peace movement.

It is easy to build straw men and paint reality with broad strokes.

It is also, to use your own language of choice, stupid. Perhaps it is even evil at times. You should know better.

Do the harder task of thinking through what organized peace activists may really be trying to say - and what distinguishes most of us from the mentally ill, or from thugs who beat up people going into a convenience store.

I offer you this fraternal rebuke admitting that I am angered by your insuations about peace activists, but also hoping that you are a sincere enough Christian and reasonable enough person that you will accept the rebuke as a kindness. I would frankly hope to see an retraction printed on your blog.

If you want to criticize the peace movement or anti-war movement, you are capable of doing much better. Do so.

Peace!
jcecil3 | Homepage | 08.31.06 - 4:22 pm | #

First, where do you derive the information that these thugs who did an evil act have abandoned the Church?

If you want to suggest this was the local chapter of Pax Christi doing door to door evangelism, you can. Living in Seattle, I'm perfectly familiar with the buzzing cloud of nutjob leftisms that cohere around the anti-war movement and that, as often as not, hate the Church as much as they hate Bush.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 08.31.06 - 4:27 pm | #

Man I hate the word "allegedly"!

Nutjob 1: Hey lets go attack a national guardsman!
Nutjob 2: I'm in! How djwanna do it?
NJ 1: I say lets do it allegedly! That way they won't be able to pin it on us.
cricket | 08.31.06 - 4:34 pm | #

poster number 2:

how come when somebody does something dispicable but *understandable* by the left they are defended. but faithful priests, thoughtful conservatives etc get short shrift?

I served with guys who got spit on when the debarked from Vietnam,(despite haveing a history prof who said such things never happened.) A soldier risks and often gives his life for his people, and deserves our thanks, even if we disagree with the cause he fights for. (That's why we vote, to be sure that we get the cause we want--even if it doesn't alwys work.)

This activity gives comfort to the enemy, and when it becomes widespread and *justified* by politicals give aid to them by destroying the moral of the Troops. It's damned near treasonable.

I think they perps should be hung--publically.
ignorant redneck | 08.31.06 - 4:49 pm | #

Mark,

I am a Pax Christi member, and have been for years. I was arrested in 1995 trespassing on a nuclear weapons test site in protest.

I marched in DC against the invasion of Iraq. I wrote the president, Cheny, my senators, my congressional representative, gov and liutenent gov against the war in September of 2002.

In November of 2002 and 2004, I voted against everyone who supported the October authorization for war in Iraq, and I will not support anyone who supports the war in Iraq in 2006 or 2008.

The day after Bush made his ultimatum to Saddam, I wrote a check to Pax Christi cleaning out my entire savings and checkings accounts.

I am also strongly pro-life, and have participated in Operation Rescue and marched on DC many times against abortion, written letters on this, sent donations to pro-life groups, etc...

I only point this out to avoid the false dichotomy that peace activists are somehow presumably all pro-choice - which is very, very far from the truth.

I am a devout Roman Catholic with 72 graduate credits in theology who tries to pray the rosary daily, and morning and evening prayer of the divine office, and daily mass. I go to confession regularly. I volunteer regular with immigrants teaching english as a second language through a diocesan program, and I am a lector and choir member. I have a blog of my own on Catholic matters.

My IQ is above average. On the MMPI and other psycological indicators, I am sane and of sound mind.

Of course, like anyone, I sin - and pretty regularly. That's why I need to go to confession regularly.

We all sin, and I don't deny that what these thugs did in beating up a soldier walking into a convenience store could be a sin. It is certainly an evil act, though I can make no judgment of subjective culpability through a short newspaper article.

I can also examine your words in your post, and point out to you the very obvious fact that you are reading way more into this action than can be rationally deduced from the text you site.

And just because you perceive some Pax Christi types as "nutjob left[ists]" doesn't mean that all Pax Christi members are "nutjob leftists".

As a matter of fact, I am a life-long registered Republican as far as left/right polarity has classically been defined.

I am being pushed left by the very obviously immoral, unjust, unnecessary evil actions of the Bush Administration. I very likely will be giving up my Republican party affiliation.

That doesn't mean I will become a Democrat. I am deeply troubled by abortion and embryonic stem research, and too many Democrats are just as militaristic and pro-death penalty as Bush and Co.

Furthermore, I have always favored smaller government and fiscal responsibility - though I do accept, along with the Church, that the government has a role in promoting social economic justice and the common good with all proper respect to the principle of subsidiarity.

Do I hate Bush?

Emphatically not. I hate his policies - passionately.

Do I hate the Pope?

Even more emphatically not. I do disagree with him or question his rationale on some matters that have not been solemnly defined, which I admit places me in dissent with some non-solemnly defined but authoritive or authentic doctrine. There are those who equate that with heresy, but I am reasonably certain that such people are mistaken.

What am I trying to say?

I am trying to say that your paint brush is far too broad, your judgments rash, your choice of words bordering on lack of charity, and your arguments on certain specific issues are just plain silly nonsense - which seems odd coming from a person perfectly capable of writing rational and thought provoking pieces on other topics.

I am trying to appeal to your better self - which you clearly demonstrate at times.

On addressing peace activists and gays (which is admittedly off topic here) you sorely miss the mark of either rational persuasion or what common sense would dictate is charitable.

Peace!
jcecil3 | Homepage | 08.31.06 - 5:00 pm | #

jcecil3, putting a slam at the end of "peace" has the effect of making me wonder if you might beat the crap out of me until I acquiesce to whatever your version of peace is.

Also, you misspelled "Cheney."
Sean P. Dailey | Homepage | 08.31.06 - 5:06 pm | #

What the assailants did is, of course, unambiguously morally wrong, and should be unreservedly condemned.

However, I don't see that your proposed morals follow at all. First, one can of course stand outside the Catholic Church but still endorse just war theory. I would think you'd already be committed to that, since my understanding is that the Church takes just war theory to be a matter of natural law accessible to rational thought absent revelation.

Second, one can obviously have principled grounds for opposing the war in Iraq, or other wars, which are not those of just war theory. Full-fledged pacifists can, for example, be motivated by a well-thought-out ethical theory which includes an absolute prohibition on the taking of human life.
A Philosopher | 08.31.06 - 5:20 pm | #

And just because you perceive some Pax Christi types as "nutjob left[ists]" doesn't mean that all Pax Christi members are "nutjob leftists".

On the contrary, I said nothing about Pax Christi members being nutjob leftists (though many are). I was ridiculing your silly suggestion that the little knot of thugs who did this despicable deed were somehow acting with respect for the Church and Just War teaching or something.

I think what you were laboring to say, and never quite saying, was "Don't make out that all war opponents are like these people."

Give that I oppose the war, I think my readers have that concept down. But when you go past that, you inevitable wind up saying things that sound an awful lot like, "Well, can you really blame them? Just *look* at how awful Bush and Co are!"

Yes. I can blame them. I hope they are jailed for what they did. I hope they are compelled to apologize to this good man who has sacrificed so that assholes like this can ride around in SUV's bullying innocent people in their narcissistic rage at The Man.

Really, JCecil, don't try to justify what happened. These are emotion-driven goons who don't give a shit about Just War teaching, and who don't give a shit about the Church. If they did, they would never have done this.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 08.31.06 - 5:23 pm | #

How could JCecil vote at all? You mean he/she found candidates who opposed the war and were pro-life at the same time???
Suzanne | 08.31.06 - 6:11 pm | #

Mark,

Really, JCecil, don't try to justify what happened.

We both agree that these folks did an evil act. I said it multiple times above. Where do you draw the conclusion I am condoning them or trying to justify their behavior?

I said nothing about Pax Christi members being nutjob leftists (though many are)

Ok. To be fair, what you said in a sentence immediately following a reference to Pax Christi is "I'm perfectly familiar with the buzzing cloud of nutjob leftisms that cohere around the anti-war movement and that, as often as not, hate the Church as much as they hate Bush."

And int he reference to Pax Christi, you said that I equated these guys to Pax Christi, when i clearly stated the opposite: that these guys are nothing like Pax Christi.

You write:

Give[n] that I oppose the war, I think my readers have that concept down.

Actually, I do appreciate that you have come to question the war in Iraq, and it gives me hope.

You did not always question the war.

I questioned it in 2002 - before it bagan - on the basis of just war doctrine.

The entire notion of "preemptive" or "preventive" war is immoral. As then Cardinal Ratzinger put it, it isn't in the Catechism.

Of course, I understand that in March 2003, you seemed to believe that Iraq had WMDs and posed an imminent threat that might have made the invasion less "preemption" or "prevention" and instead, a defense against agression underway.

I tend to interpret the doctrine much stricter - that an actual attack must have occurred already with an ongoing imminent threat that is "lasting, grave and certain".

We can quible over that point, and I am willing to debate the point further, but if you accepted that the doctrine implies an attack must have already begun, it would be obvious our invasion of Iraq was unjust.

Thus, I was oppossed to the war from before it bagan.

But this post and a prior post made recently comparing peace activists to a sadly mentally disturbed woman on an airplane are equivalent to name calling of all peace activists.

In effect, whether you intend it or not, you imply that anyone who was oppossed to the invasion of Iraq from June of 2002 when Bush first publicly suggested invading Iraq is a lunatic or a violent thug without morals.

The implication is that if one believed in just war doctrine, one would very naturally reach the conclusion that Bush did the right thing if he believed in his heart that Iraq possessed WMDs.

The fact that there were no WMDs leads you to the conclusion that maybe Bush should have done a better job of assessing the situation. And that is the primary fault you point out to your readers in saying you are now against the war.

I basically hold a higher standard than that.

It does not matter whether Saddam possessed WMDs or not (or, for that matter Iran). If possession of WMDs is reason for regime change by military force, the U.N. should have authorized a global peace keeping force to invade and disarm the United States a very long time ago.

As a matter of fact, I do think WMDs are immoral weapons. But armed force is not the way to rid the world of them. We need to encourage voluntary disarmament, starting by setting an example ourselves.

The only action on the part of Iraq that would make a war with Iraq a just war by nation states would be if Iraq had attacked a nation state or its formal allies.

The only action that would be worthy of a U.N. intervention would be a humanitarian crisis - much more like what we see in the Sudan. In this situation, the U.N., and only the U.N. is the proper body to authorize the use of military force - since equally soveriegn powers such as nation states cannot initiate non-defensive military force against each other in a morally licit way. A high authority than a nation state must authorize a humanitarian intervention.

This was all clearly spelled out in recent Church teachings.

As "A Philospher" indicated, there are secular ethicists who accept the Church's teaching. More heartening, millions of people the world over accepted the Church's teaching and protested against Bush in countires around the globe.

And as "A Philosopher" pointed out, this should not be surprising. The Church's teaching is based on natural law.

And Church teaching in recent years has also highlighted another option: renouncing violence for the sake of the Gospel. There is room within Catholicism for those who refuse to take part in ANY war.

Just war doctrine does NOT mean that a war is morally obligatory. It means that in certain conditions, it can become a morally licit option - and those conditions are very "strict" and "rigorous" according to the CCC.

Further, as Pope Benedict indicated when he was Prefect for the CDF, there is a grave problem with all modern warfare. It is intrinsically evil to act in such a way that the direct end result of your act takes the life of an innocent human being.

Yet, most modern warfare involves the use of weapons and tactics that seem to inherently cause collateral damage to non-combatants, including babies. Thus, it would seem, as Cardinal Ratzinger explicitly indicated, that all modern war may be morally illicit.

This is a reasonable argument and a very legitimate concern of the Church. In stating the concern, Ratzinger was echoing a concern made explicit in Guadium et Spes that informs a "presumption against war" found in paragraph 2308 of the CCC and guiding our interpretation of just war conditions.

Yet, despite the reasonableness of these concerns, or the passion one might feel for defending innocent human life from the horror of war, you seem to want label peace activist as lunatics and thugs even as you criticize Bush for ultimately making a mistake in judgment rather than performing an evil act.

And maybe a few peace activist are nut jobs, but certainly Pope Benedict is no lunatic or thug despite his constant calls for peace in the recent crisis in the middle east or his well know opposition to the Iraq invasion.

You would do well to make these distinctions clearer - that if there are a few nutjobs out there, there are also people like Pope Benedict who were oppossed to the invasion of Iraq before it occurred and leaning somewhat against all modern war. And there are even some secularists out there who buy his arguments or John Paul's sharp critique of unilateralism.

Peace!
jcecil3 | Homepage | 08.31.06 - 6:19 pm | #

If you want to convince yourself that these thugs were acting out of some Higher Secular Ethical System, you can.

However, it's seem obvious to me that what we are looking at is a bunch of emotive clowns who opposition to the war is as tribal and instinctual as Sean Hannity's support of it. These guys are, to repeat my point, not acting in response to thought or revelation. They are acting on gut instinct. When you lose touch with the Catholic tradition, that's often all you have. Which was my point.
Mark P. Shea | 08.31.06 - 6:39 pm | #

jcecil,

I would argue that people who share your commitment to respect for all are few and far between in the anti-war crowd. I applaud you for yours, however.
Adolfo Rodriguez | 08.31.06 - 6:39 pm | #

Mark,

I may be wasting energy here, but I will say for what must be the fifth or sixth time that I am NOT - I REPEAT AM NOT - defending these thugs.

What I am criticizing is the way you lump these thugs in with people who either reject the Church or oppose the war or both.

Most people who oppose the war in Iraq would oppose beating up a soldier walking into a convenience store.

And nothing prevents active Catholics from doing stupid things like beating someone up. It sadly happens.

These thugs are NOT representaive of some group of people or of some culture.

As far as we know from your article, they are five individuals acting on their own who may very well been drunk or high.

This is not a movement or an organization - and you are grossly wrong to turn into a representation of anything else, which is precisely what you are doing.

And you did something similar a short time ago using an article about a mentally ill women and claiming she somehow represented the peace movement.

That is, in a word, a "stupid" thing to say even by implication - but I guess your heading gives you the right to say stupid things. It is your blog, afterall.

I just wish that with a little hindsight and maybe some fraternal correction, you would acknowledge that crazy individuals do not always represent some group of "liberals" or Catholic bashers that you don't like. Nor do crazy people represent cultural movements.

As crazy as it sounds, sometimes nutty people represent nothing but their own need for help.

Peace!
jcecil3 | Homepage | 08.31.06 - 7:59 pm | #

What I am criticizing is the way you lump these thugs in with people who either reject the Church or oppose the war or both.

I don't do that. Not all who reject the Church oppose the war. Not all who oppose the War reject the Church. But those who do both are, quite often, characterized by an emotive rather than a reflective habit of mind. And when you are governed by emotions, you sometimes do stuff like these thugs. My point, then, is to criticize people who are governed by emotion. If you want to propose that people *should* be governed by emotion, be my guest.
Mark Shea | 08.31.06 - 8:54 pm | #

This story reminds me of when my bil came home from Vietnam. He was instructed to change into civilian clothes before stepping off the plane in the U.S. for fear of something like this happening.
Maureen | Homepage | 08.31.06 - 11:27 pm | #

Wow, jcecil3. Haven't seen him in a while.

What am I trying to say?

I often ask myself the same question when I read your posts.
Ronny | 08.31.06 - 11:38 pm | #

Suzanne,

Jcecil3, at least in the last presidential election, was an ardent Kerry supporter, putting a great deal of ASCI on his blog in favor of the man and explaining away difficulties in voting for him from a Catholic perspective.
Ronny | 08.31.06 - 11:42 pm | #

Actually, jceci3, with the stuff about "poor impulse control", you are.

Five guys in a car with a gun asking a roadside stranger if he served in combat and beating the crap out of him is a plan, not an impulse.
Ed the Roman | 09.01.06 - 8:52 am | #

Ronny,

It is not true that I was an ardent Kerry supporter in the last three elections.

In the year 2000, I voted for Bush (regretfully).

I started having my doubts about Bush when he funded embryonic stem cell research in August of 2001, and when he started talking about "preemptive war" in June of 2002, I turned against him with furor.

In 2004, I criticized the Democrats during the primaries for not giving us any option for a pro-life candidate - even if only a moderate pro-lifer, or someone who would clearly say he had a plan to reduce abortions.

As Kerry emeerged as the front runner in the primaries, I criticized him strongly for his stance on abortion and the simple fact that he appeared to be an aloof snob.

But by that time, George Weigel and Deal Hudson had thrown down the gauntlet that Kerry should be denied communion, followed by a few bishops saying they would do so.

Then Bishop Sheridan indicated that anyone votes for a pro-choice candidate should deny him or herself communion, and I said, in effect, "Wait a minute. That's not good theology. No single issue, even abortion, makes one unworthy of communion."

At the time, I expressed on my blog that I am very deeply troubled by the idea that I am to vote for Bush simply because he is more pro-life than Kerry. Heck, Bush isn't even 100 perecent pro-life. He would allow abortion for cases of rape and incest, for example.

I suggested that certainly a Catholic could vote for John Kerry or any of the democrats if Kerry and crowd were running against Adolf Hitler.

Then, admitting it was poor analogy (as all analogies limp), I made some comparisons between Bush and Hitler to suggest that many Catholics who vote for Kerry might feel that an unjust war in Iraq gives "proportionate reason" to vote for a pro-choice candidate you otherwise do not agree with.

Using then Cardinal Ratzinger's language regarding cooperation with evil, I suggested that a good case could be made that our cooperation with evil as voters is more proximate to moral agency when we vote for someone who uses state power to kill than when we vote for someone who refuses to use state power to stop a private individual from killing.

At that point, I had not even made up my mind to vote for Kerry. And I said so multiple times - that I was not endorsing him at all, but criticizing the idea that a private voter should be dneied communion for voting for him.

I also turned my attention to whether Kerry, himself, should be denied communion. I concluded that based on his public and explicit statements, it is difficult to make such a judgment. Then Archbishop William Levada agreed - and he is now the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (ratzinger's old post). Theodore Cardinal McCarrick also agreed, getting blasted by many of the people who read this (Mark's) blog.

Even at this point, I made it clear I was not endorsing Kerry or encouraging anyone to vote for him. What I was doing was criticizing the crwod of Catholic bloggers who wanted to deny communion to Kerry and all who voted for him.

Of course, I also had to deal personally with the question of whether abstaining or voting third party was the appropriate option. And in my mind, the whole question of cooperation with evil played a part in that decision.

Again, if we imagine that Hitler were running against a Kerry, at what point is abstaining or voting third party the equivalent to tacit support for Hitler?

Is Bush exactly like Hitler?

Of course not. I said on my blog and I say it here again that the analogy is imperfect.

But is it an evil act to use state authority to destroy innocent human lives? Is the government acting as the moral agent to destroy innocent human lives a graver evil than private citizens destroying innocent human lives?

My hunch is that it is more gravely evil for the state to kill than for private citizens to kill, and that our degree of cooperation with evil is more proximate when we endorse such candidates.

Am I judging all Bush supporters in sin by saying this?

No. To sin, you must have knowledge and deliberation.

The very terminology I am using - which is terminology the Vatican uses - is unfamiliar to many people, including most Catholics in the pews. If I am "objectively right" in God's eyes, I doubt very much that ANY Bush voter was subjectively culabable for sin. None of you who voted for Bush deliberately seek to kill innocent Iraqis, or - assuming I am "right" - voted with full knowledge of what is meant by terms like "formal cooperation with evil" verses "remote material cooperation with evil", etc....

And I could very well be misinterpreting some key aspect of the doctrine regarding cooperation with evil. If so, I acted with invincible ignorance in the moment of decision, and perhpas God will enlighten me in the future where I went wrong.

In the end, I did vote for Kerry, but my mind was not actually made up to vote for him until I was standing in the election booth.

Did I "explain away" my difficulties in voting for the man?

I certainly did explain my difficulties in great detail - more than in this combox.

What you seem to only half acknowledge is that it WAS difficult for me to vote for Kerry - and it was the first and only time I have voted for a pro-choice candidate in my entire life (and I am 41 years old).

On my blog, even in the days right before the election, I was explicitly saying that I do not endorse Kerry, but do not believe that it is right to claim it a sin to vote for Kerry. The issues were simply too complex to make such a judgment.

But people here often like simplifications rather than acknowledging that some things are complex.
jcecil3 | Homepage | 09.01.06 - 9:59 am | #

(continued)

Mark is somtimes able to make some very fine distinctions and clarifications. He is very capable of nuanced thought.

And what I am criticizing here on this post is that he is not making the proper distinctions.

The heading to a post about five guys beating up a soldier and calling him a baby killer says "The basic trouble with a culture..."

What culture do these five guys represent?

Are they Muslims? Are they Catholics? Are they even American citizens? The article doesn't say. All we know is that they are white, so we can rule out that it was Black militants.

His title goes to say, "...a culture that hates the Church..."

Again, I ask how Mark knows these guys hate the Church?

Is it just because they so evil, they hate the Church?

Don't you do evil? Let the one without sin cast that stone.

Mark goes on "...and opposes the War..."

And that is where my blood starts to boil at Mark - not that I want to do him violence, but that I feel a certain just anger that he is lumpling these guys in with people like me who are very deeply troubled by the invasion of Iraq - and were long before Mark came around to seeing that maybe the invasion probably wasn't such a good idea afterall.

Then he goes into the body of the his post saying these guys reject just war doctrine, and I'm asking, "Mark, where do you get that?"

Most likely, this is just a stupid act of violence with no rational explanation.

If we are to take it as having some rational motive, however, the words of the thugs would indicate that they ACCEPT a just war doctrine, and believe the Iraq war is an unjust war - which would place them in AGREEMENT with our current Pontiff.

Then Mark says in the body of the post, "when you abandon Just War teaching, yet oppose the war" - which isn't clear, to say the least. Is Mark implying that that one cannot accept just war doctrine AND oppose the war?

Or is he saying that one who abandons both goes down some wrong path?

It seems the latter is his intended meaning, but again, it is not abundantly clear.

Even assuming he intends the latter meaning, where does he draw the conclusion that these particular men have abandoned Just War teaching and oppose the war? What is the evidence that the men do both?

Then he states they are governed by emotion "instead of thought or revelation" and I am very confused.

Is Mark implying that those who integrate emotion with thought and revelation will not beat up soldiers walking into a convenience store?

If so, I can agree.

But it seems that by using the words "instead of" Mark could be saying that thought and revelation would not lead to opposition to the war. Admittedly, this is an implied meaning Mark may not have intended.

But take these implications in context that only a few days back, Mark compared peace activist to a poor woman with obvious mental illeness who was literally talking jibberish when arrested for causing a racous on an airplane after claiming opposition to the war in part of her overall incoherent ramblings.

How is it that I am not to draw the conclusion that Mark seems to think that only certain critics of the war (those that come from right wing Catholics) are sane, while all others are lunatics and thugs who reject the Church and hate Bush and the Pope?

Sometimes agnostic secularist have valid criticisms of Bush. Sometimes lefties are sane people who are not thugs. Some Catholics on the right opposed the Iraq invasion from the start (i.e. - Russell Shaw). Some Catholics on the left are decent people (E. J. Dionne? ). Not all gay activists are brownshirts and Nazis (off topic again).

And very often, crazy people and thugs do not represent ANYONE else but themselves.

That last point is what I want Mark to acknowledge.

Peace!
jcecil3 | Homepage | 09.01.06 - 9:59 am | #

jcecil3, there are much better organizations to give your life savings to. I admire your conviction, though. Personally, if I didn't need money to feed, house, and clothe my five kids I'd give it all to Catholic Relief Services or Food for the Poor. Pax Christi is too closely associated with the "nutjob left."
Nerina | 09.01.06 - 10:03 am | #

C'mon, Mr. Shea. You live in the Pugest Sound area. How many anti-war protestors do you know driving around in big SUVs and packing pistols?

If this crew had jumped out of an '89 Volvo carrying cell phones and Starbuck's cups, I might think they were anti-war protestors.

These were punks, looking for trouble. To use them as an example of radical anti-war nut jobs is a departure from any clear facts.
Mark S. (not for Shea) | 09.01.06 - 11:53 am | #

jcecil3,

Longwinded protests to the contrary, you did everything but explicitly endorse Kerry in your blog leading up to the election. Sure, you often engaged in public handwringing about what a tough decision it would be, but it is interesting how every time some nettlesome problem with respect to supporting Kerry came up, you would after much verbiage conclude that -- surprise, surprise -- Kerry was your man.

Anyhow, I'm not much interested in rehashing that debate, especially since it is not terribly germaine to this thread. I was simply answering Suzanne's question as I saw your position in 2004. You can call it oversimplification if it pleases you. I call it cutting through the crap.
Ronny | 09.01.06 - 12:08 pm | #

I think it's sad that the Christian consensus seems to be that a pacifist, or "anti-war protester" is automatically a "nut-job." It might do y'all well to read a bit of Church history and find out just exactly why Just War theory was necessary in the first place, when Jesus Christ quite clearly never spoke a word justifying any such thing--and quite to the contrary.
Rob | 09.01.06 - 12:13 pm | #

I think it's sad that the Christian consensus seems to be that a pacifist, or "anti-war protester" is automatically a "nut-job."

I don't see anything near a consensus on this.

It might do y'all well to read a bit of Church history and find out just exactly why Just War theory was necessary in the first place,

Instead of a homework assignment, please briefly explain the origin of the Just War theory.

when Jesus Christ quite clearly never spoke a word justifying any such thing--and quite to the contrary

We have John telling Roman soldiers not to extort, he did not say desert and be a pacifist, we have Christ using the example generals and his army in the context of a parable. Yes, it is a parable, but Christ would not use such an example if there was something intrinsicly wrong with it. And then we have the act of cleaning out the moneychangers. These don't prove the opposite, but pacifism is hardly a slam-dunk.
Scott W. | 09.01.06 - 12:27 pm | #

"...please briefly explain the origin of the Just War theory."

In a nutshell: a Just War theory is needed when there is a need to either protect, or acquire, property through the use of force. So, such a theory became necessary when priests became formally allied with kings and/or became secular powers themselves.
Rob | 09.01.06 - 12:35 pm | #

Protestants are every bit as prone to this as are Catholics, btw, as exemplified the careers of such men as Oliver Cromwell.
Rob | 09.01.06 - 12:40 pm | #

Ronny,

You have no idea how difficult it was for me to vote for Kerry.

I stated repeatedly on my blog it made feel nauseous to vote for Kerry, and I state that again because it is the honest truth. I honestly felt like throwing up. But I knew in my heart I would have felt worse about any other choice.

Feel free to question my description of my inner experience all you want. The fact is that you cannot know anything with certainty about me other than what I explicitly tell you.

Go ahead and search my blog archives and try to find anywhere where it is clear that I was not really wrestling with the decision. There's over a year's worth of material on the subject to search, and I promise you that it is impossible to find anything that is a ringing and unqualified or enthusiastic endorsement for John F. Kerry.

You will find much that points out how very difficult it is to judge him in sin. You will find much that uses Catholic doctrinal principles to show that a sincere Catholic could, in fact, say something like what he said in public on Roe without denying the faith. And even as you read through these, you will find that every singel time, I explicitly state that I passionately disagree with Kerry and am not endorsing him.

You will find much that blasts the policies of George W. Bush as objectively evil and contrary to Church teaching. Even here, you will not find me saying it is a sin to vote for Bush. I explicitly say the opposite repeatedly. You will not see me saying that because Bush's policies are objectively evil, one must vote for Kerry - because I never said any such thing.

But I suppose it is not good enough for you that a person says explicitly and clearly the same thing over and over for more than a year. He still can't possibly mean exactly what he says and must have a hidden motive.

And it is that sort of thinking I am criticizing in Mark's post.

Mark,

You seem to have lost interest, but I'll continue to press the issue....

Why is there some sort of assumption that these five thugs have a hidden agenda of opposing the Church and Just War doctrine when there is simply no evidence of that in what the article says?

The Amish reject the authority of the Roman Catholic Church AND the doctrine of just war. They oppose ALL wars.

Somehow, I don't think anyone believes this article is about a group of Amish farmers - though had they pulled up in a buggie and beat the soldier with farm implements, that migt be a reasonable inference.

There are Hindus who reject all war and all forms of revelation that Roman Catholics accept as revealed truth - and they don't even "reason" by Western rules of logic. Is this article about Hindu pacifists?

C'mon Mark.

Admit it. You decided to side swipe some vague group of people you don't like, and chose to do it with a broad paint brush that would lump these five guys in with whoever you actually intended to target.

Trouble is, whoever the hell you intended to target is not actually mentioned in this article, and these five guys do not represent any sort of "culture" or wide-spread movement of any sort as far as we know at the present moment.

Should new evidence emerge, you may at that point be able to assign motive a little more accurately.

In the meantime, the best guess we can make is, as the other Mark S. indicated, a bunch of punks looking for trouble.

Peace!
jcecil3 | Homepage | 09.01.06 - 1:16 pm | #

The nutjob comment was specifically made in reference to Seattle-area leftists. Mr. Shea wrote:

Living in Seattle, I'm perfectly familiar with the buzzing cloud of nutjob leftisms that cohere around the anti-war movement and that, as often as not, hate the Church as much as they hate Bush.

As a fellow western Washingtonian, I can verify that Mr. Shea is right. The radical lefties out here would be funny if they weren't so pathetic.

I'm against the war (now Occupation) myself. Probably more so even than Mr. Shea. But I don't fit the profile of a typical Leftie either.
Mark S. (not for Shea) | 09.01.06 - 3:02 pm | #