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Fr. Stratman writes: “We think with Cardinal Faulhaber that Catholic moral theology must in fact begin to speak a new language, and that what the last two Popes have already pronounced in the way of general sentences of condemnation on modern war should be translated into the systematic terminology of the schools. The simple preacher and pastor can, however, already begin by making his own words of the reigning Holy Father (Pius XI), ‘murder,’ ‘suicide,’ ‘monstrous crime.’”


“But we are at war,” people say. “This is no time to talk of peace. It is demoralizing to the armed forces to protest, not to cheer them on in their fight for Christianity, for democracy, for civilization. Now that it is under way, it is too late to do anything about it.” One reader writes to protest against our “frail” voices “blatantly” crying out against war. (The word blatant comes from bleat, and we are indeed poor sheep crying out to the Good Shepherd to save us from these horrors.) Another Catholic newspaper says it sympathizes with our sentimentality. This is a charge always leveled against pacifists. We are supposed to be afraid of the suffering, of the hardships of war.


But let those who talk of softness, of sentimentality, come to live with us in cold, unheated houses in the slums. Let them come to live with the criminal, the unbalanced, the drunken, the degraded, the pervert. (It is not decent poor, it is not the decent sinner who was the recipient of Christ’s love.) Let them live with rats, with vermin, bedbugs, roaches, lice (I could describe the several kinds of body lice).


Let their flesh be mortified by cold, by dirt, by vermin; let their eyes be mortified by the sight of bodily excretions, diseased limbs, eyes, noses, mouths.


Let their noses be mortified by the smells of sewage, decay and rotten flesh. Yes, and the smell of the sweat, blood and tears spoken of so blithely by Mr. Churchill, and so widely and bravely quoted by comfortable people.


Let their ears be mortified by harsh and screaming voices, by the constant coming and going of people living herded together with no privacy. (There is no privacy in tenements just as there is none in concentration camps.)


Let their taste be mortified by the constant eating of insufficient food cooked in huge quantities for hundreds of people, the coarser foods, the cheaper foods, so that there will be enough to go around; and the smell of such cooking is often foul.


Then when they have lived with these comrades, with these sights and sounds, let our critics talk of sentimentality.


Our Catholic Worker groups are perhaps too hardened to the sufferings in the class war, living as they do in refugee camps, the refugees being as they are victims of the class war we live in always. We live in the midst of this war now these many years. It is a war not recognized by the majority of our comfortable people. They are pacifists themselves when it comes to the class war. They even pretend it is not there.


Many friends have counseled us to treat this world war in the same way. “Don’t write about it. Don’t mention it. Don’t jeopardize the great work you are doing among the poor, among the workers. Just write about constructive things like Houses of Hospitality and Farming Communes.” “Keep silence with a bleeding heart,” one reader, a man, pro-war and therefore not a sentimentalist, writes us.


But we cannot keep silent. We have not kept silence in the face of the monstrous injustice of the class war, or the race war that goes on side by side with this world war (which the Communist used to call the imperialist war.)

Read the letters in this issue of the paper, the letter from the machine shop worker as to the deadening, degrading hours of labor. Read the quotation from the missioner’s letter from China. Remember the unarmed steel strikers, the coal miners, shot down on picket lines. Read the letter from our correspondent in Seattle who told of the treatment accorded agricultural workers in the North West. Are these workers supposed to revolt? These are Pearl Harbor incidents! Are they supposed to turn to arms in the class conflict to defend their lives, their homes, their wives and children?


Last month a Negro in Missouri was shot and dragged by a mob through the streets behind a car. His wounded body was then soaked in kerosene. The mob of white Americans then set fire to it, and when the poor anguished victim had died, the body was left lying in the street until a city garbage cart trucked it away. Are the Negroes supposed to “Remember Pearl Harbor” and take to arms to avenge this cruel wrong? No, the Negroes, the workers in general, are expected to be “pacifist” in the face of this aggression.


Perhaps we are called sentimental because we speak of love. We say we love our president, our country. We say that we love our enemies, too. “Hell,” Bernanos said, “is not to love any more.”


“Greater love hath no man than this,” Christ said, “that he should lay down his life for his friend.”


“Love is the measure by which we shall be judged,” St. John of the Cross said.


“Love is the fulfilling of the law,” St. John, the beloved disciple said.


Read the last discourse of Jesus to his disciples. Read the letters of St. John in the New Testament. And how can we express this love–by bombers, by blockades?


Here is a clipping from the Herald Tribune, a statement of a soldier describing the use of the bayonet against the Japanese:


“He (his father) should have been with us and seen how good it was. We got into them good and proper, and I can’t say I remember much about it, except that it made me feel pretty good. I reckon that was the way with the rest of the company, by the way my pals were yelling all the time.”


Is this a Christian speaking?


“Love is an exchange of gifts,” St. Ignatius said.


Love is a breaking of bread.


Remember the story of Christ meeting His disciples at Emmaus? All along the road He had discoursed to them, had expounded the scriptures. And then they went into into the inn at Emmaus, and sat down to the table together. And He took bread and blessed it and broke it and handed it to them, and they knew Him in the breaking of bread! (St. Luke, 24, 13-35.)


Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing, it is the laying down of one’s life for one’s friend.


Hear Fr. Zossima, in the brothers Karamazev: “Love one another, Fathers,” he said, speaking to his monks. “Love God’s people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on earth ... And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly he must recognize that. Else he would have no reason to come here.


“When he realizes that he is not only worse than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained. For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. For monks are not a special sort of man, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears ... Each of you keep watch over your heart and confess your sins to yourself unceasingly ... Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the materialists, and I mean not only the good ones–for there are many good ones among them, especially in our day–hate not even the wickedness. Remember them in your prayers thus: Save, O Lord, all those who have none to pray for them, save too all those who will not pray. And add, it is not in pride that I make this prayer, O Lord, for I am lower than all men...”


I quote this because that accusation “holier than thou” is also made against us. And we must all admit our guilt, our participation in the social order which has resulted in this monstrous crime of war.


We used to have a poor demented friend who came into the office to see us very often, beating his breast, quoting the penitential psalms in Hebrew, and saying that everything was his fault. Through all he had done and left undone, he had brought about the war, the revolution.


That should be our cry, with every mouthful we eat, “We are starving Europe!” When we look to our comfort in a warm bed, a warm home, we must cry, “My brother, my mother, my child is dying of cold.


“I am lower than all men, because I do not love enough. O God take away my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh.”

We want to share with you the powerful statement from Palestinian Christians to western churches, having heard the truth and love it expresses. We lament with them the ongoing unfolding tragedy in the Holy Land. We pray that our faith may be as strong and clear as theirs. We recognise the terrible history of European Christian anti-semitism and the catastrophe of the Holocaust which mean Europeans can never self-righteously stand in judgement on the Jewish people, but only hang our heads in shame and penance and pray for the wisdom, perception and courage to do everything we can to stop such things from ever happening again to anyone. The letter has been edited for reasons of space. For the full version see: indcatholicnews.com/news/48298


Open letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Christians


We, the undersigned Palestinian Christian institutions and grassroots movements, grieve and lament the renewed cycle of violence in our land... some of us [have] lost dear friends and family members.


Words fail to express our shock and horror with regard to the on-going war in our land. We deeply mourn the death and suffering of all people because it is our firm conviction that all humans are made in God’s image. We are also profoundly troubled when the name of God is invoked to promote violence and religious national ideologies.


Further, we watch with horror the way many western Christians are offering unwavering support to Israel’s war against the people of Palestine. While we recognize the... voices that have spoken... for the cause of truth and justice in our land, we write to challenge western theologians and church leaders who have voiced uncritical support for Israel and to call them to repent and change.


We come alongside fellow Christians in condemning all attacks on civilians, especially defenceless families and children. Yet, we are disturbed by the silence of many [Christians] when... Palestinian civilians... are killed. We are horrified by the refusal of some western Christians to condemn the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, and [their] justification of and support for the occupation. Further, we are appalled by how some Christians have legitimized Israel’s... indiscriminate attacks on Gaza... These attacks have resulted in the wholesale destruction of entire neighbourhoods and the forced displacement of over one million Palestinians. The Israeli military has target[ted] civilians [by] the use of white phosphorus, the cutting off of water, fuel, and electricity, and the bombardment of schools, hospitals, and places of worship.


We categorically reject the... distorted Christian responses that ignore the wider context and the root causes of this war: Israel’s systemic oppression of the Palestinians... since the Nakba, the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the oppressive and racist military occupation that constitutes... apartheid.


Moreover, Israel’s cruel blockade of Gaza [for] 17 years has turned the …. Strip into an open-air prison for more than two million Palestinians—70% of whom belong to families displaced during the Nakba... The brutal and hopeless living conditions... under Israel’s iron fist have regrettably emboldened extreme voices of some Palestinian groups to resort to militancy and violence as a response to oppression and despair. Sadly, Palestinian nonviolent resistance, which we remain wholeheartedly committed to, is... reject[ed], with some western Christian leaders even prohibiting discussion of Israeli apartheid as reported by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem, and as long asserted by both Palestinians and South Africans.


Time and again, we are reminded that western attitudes... suffer from a glaring double standard that humanizes Israeli Jews while insisting on dehumanizing Palestinians and whitewashing their suffering. This is evident in general attitudes towards the... Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip that [has] killed thousands of Palestinians... and the killing of more than 300 Palestinians including 38 children in the West Bank [earlier] this year.


Although many Christians in the West [continue] the theological legitimization of war, the vast majority of Palestinian Christians do not condone violence—not even by the powerless and occupied. Instead, [we] are fully committed to the way of Jesus in creative nonviolent resistance (Kairos Palestine, §4.2.3)... We reject all theologies and interpretations that legitimize the wars of the powerful. We strongly urge western Christians to come alongside us in this... God is the God of the downtrodden and the oppressed... Jesus rebuked the powerful and lifted up the marginalized.


Finally… with a broken heart, we hold western [Christians] who rally behind Israel’s wars accountable for their... complicity in the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians... remembering that God “will judge the world in justice” (Acts 17:31). Our... steadfastness is anchored in our just cause and our historical rootedness in this land. We... continue to find our courage and consolation in the God who dwells with those of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa 57:15) [and] in the solidarity [of] the crucified Christ... We find hope in the empty tomb. We are... encouraged and empowered by the costly solidarity and support of many [Christians] around the world... We refuse to give in... steadfast in our hope [we] continue to be committed to the Gospel of faith, hope, and love, in the face of tyranny and darkness. “In the absence of all hope, we cry out our cry of hope. We believe in God, good and just. We believe that God’s goodness will finally triumph over the evil of hate and of death that... persist in our land. We will see here ‘a new land’ and ‘a new human being’, capable of rising up in the spirit to love each one of his or her brothers and sisters” (Kairos Palestine, §10). Your Kingdom come!


List of signatories:
Kairos Palestine
Christ at the Checkpoint
Bethlehem Bible College
Sabeel Ecumenical Center for Liberation Theology
Dar al-Kalima University
Al-Liqa Center for Religious, Heritage and Cultural Studies in the Holy Land
The East Jerusalem YMCA
The YWCA of Palestine Arab Orthodox Society, Jerusalem
Arab Orthodox Club, Jerusalem
The Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches
Arab Education Institute Pax Christi, Bethlehem


This article was originally published in the Autumn 2023 issue of the London Catholic Worker newsletter.

1. Christianity has nothing to do

with either modern Capitalism

or modern Communism,

for Christianity

has a Capitalism of its own,

and a Communism of its own.


2. Modern Capitalism

is based on property

without responsibility,

while Christian Capitalism

is based on property

with responsibility.


3. Modern Communism

is based on poverty through force,

while Christian Communism

is based on poverty through choice.


4. For a Christian,

voluntary poverty is the ideal

as exemplified by Saint Francis of Assisi,

while private property

is not an absolute right,

but a trust,

which must be administered

for the benefit of God's children.