Pastor's Page: June 12, 2011
“The Calf and the Young Lion Shall Lie down Together" Isaiah 11. 6
I learned debating skills when I was in high school at St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary. We had to develop reasons for or against a proposal and develop arguments in support of or negating the proposal. The Vietnam War and our involvement in it was a hot topic. As a seminarian in 1965 at age 18, when I registered for military service, I was declared 4F. This category, given to those studying for the priesthood, meant that I was ineligible.
When some of my classmates left the seminary and enrolled in secular universities, they were subject to the draft. Some of them applied for and received the status of conscientious objector.
This was a revolutionary change in church teaching. Only nine years before the Second Vatican Council took place, in 1956, Pius XII declared that conscience could not be invoked to refuse military service if the legitimate leaders of a nation declared war. This was consistent with earlier teachings of the Popes. The bishops and the Pope, at the Second Vatican Council , altered what had been the teaching of the church, when they stated that a Catholic could invoke his conscience in order to refuse to serve.
"We cannot fail to praise those who renounce the use of violence in the vindication of their rights and who resort to methods of defense which are otherwise available to weaker parties too, provided that this can be done without injury to the rights and duties of others or of the community itself." (The document on the church)
The stance of the bishops, and of the Pope in communion with them, was not a rejection of the principle of self-defense and what is termed the "just war tradition”. They simply deferred to the dignity of the person’s conscience.
"In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak to his heart more specifically: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is the most sacred core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths."
The implication is that one must obey the inner voice of God even if one were to be excommunicated by the church. Critically important, of course, is the proper development of our consciences. Here we rely on our personal relationship with Christ and the Scriptures, and the Ancient Tradition of our church and her official teachers, the Magisterium.
Peace and love,
Father Bruce
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