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Monday, August 14, 2017

NORTH KOREA - CRISIS - OUR NUCLEAR WEAPONS

IN 1994 JIMMY CARTER WENT TO NORTH KOREA FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON TO STOP A THREATENED WAR OVER NUCLEAR WEAPONS.



Nagasaki post U.S. atomic bomb - 1945

The news is bad.  The news is frightening.  North Korea threatens the U.S. by building a nuclear weapon.  We are “locked and loaded” against them, as in a Times Herald 8-12-17 headline.  This news is not new.  As a sub-headline explained we’ve been so prepared since 1953.  And they had begun developing a nuclear bomb in 1994, aided by Pakistan [our erstwhile allies in our Afghan wars.]  They might now be actually able to mount one on a missile, after 23 years working on it.  I wrote an op-ed on this in the Detroit News, 6-28-1994, “North Korea: U.S. displays a nuclear double standard.”  

The North Koreans had withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty to make their own atom bombs.  They and the rest of the Non-nukes nations had been waiting since 1968, the date of the treaty, for the U.S. and other nuclear weapon possessing nations to disarm and destroy their weapons [our part of the agreement].  That was 26 years past due then, and everyone’s still waiting almost 50 years later.
 
For the first time this year, we and the other 7 nations with established nuclear capability [Russia, China, U.K., France, Israel, Pakistan, and India] did not even attend the Non-Proliferation Treaty conference which has been regularly scheduled every 5 years since 1968.  So at this recent United Nations meeting the rest of the world voted to make nuclear weapons illegal in international law.  They’ve lost patience, and more will perhaps try to go it on their own, to join the elite club of those owning thermonuclear bombs.



If we don’t feel safe at this point with just North Korea’s aspirations, what will that future bring?  The more nuclear nations the merrier?  The bombastic rhetoric is escalating with both U.S. and N.K. leaders caught in a war of words.  Most discouraging to me [believing neither wants mass destruction] is that both are promoting an arms race that will further tax their people, squandering their resources instead of giving citizens productive work to meet their real needs.  And the U.S. has never faced countrywide famine as North Korea has.
 
In the words of former President Eisenhower, “This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children…  Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Christ and the Holocaust - Chagall

I grew up in the Cold War, born 2 years after we exploded the only atomic bombs ever used in war.  We’d won WWII, but we never had enough weapons.  First there was the “Bomber Gap,” then there was the “Missile Gap.”  A glossy annual report, “Soviet Military Power” published by our intelligence services, was regularly passed out to Congress and the media.  The “madman” was then the Communist.  The Soviet Union dissolved, but we’ve always had a new madman to fill the gap.  Grandpa Kim Il Sung during the Korean War, the Ayatollah, the Sandinistas, Hezbollah, Osama bin Laden, Saddam, Assad, Kim Jong il, now Kim Jong Un, etc..  Be afraid, build more, and more deadly, weapons has been our mantra.  Weapons are the way to win we believe, and being clearly the most weaponized, this is the pre-emptive message we send to the rest of the world.

s the dominant military power on earth, it is incumbent upon us to lead in disarmament.  “Do as I say not as I do” will not work.  We must be not afraid to disarm.  “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul.”  With the great excess of nuclear firepower on our planet, to do otherwise does risk destruction like the world has never seen.  Someone will make a mistake, which will cause certain climate change and global warming precipitously, and unimaginable suffering.

For Christians we are given assurance many times by Jesus, “Be not afraid.”  We must be “wise as serpents and gentle as doves.”  We have to learn that “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” Matt. 26:52  We must not be afraid to love even our enemy; to do unto all others as we would have them do unto us.
 

We face a N. Korea shakedown threat engendered by both parties.  The most definite effect: increase of our [and their] peoples’ onerous taxing investments for military industries.  The U.S. has a perpetual “be afraid” budget.  There is a constant fear-mongering, lobby marketing of our weapons of mass destruction [$100 billion now dedicated to their “modernization”].   We hear a constant counter-message to Jesus’ repeated admonition, “Be not afraid.”  Can we not listen to His words, this Good News, and believe?

Sunday, March 19, 2017

THE QUESTION OF A MARRIED CLERGY - AS ASKED IN 1965



Now that Pope Francis has begun to open the door again to increased possibilities for married men to also be priests [see 3-10-17 NYT article], lets examine the history of the married and celibate priesthood, within our Catholic church.   I offer my term paper that I wrote in 1965, as a first year college seminarian at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit for some points of information.  This issue has been much discussed, for 2000 plus years.  Celibacy did not become the church law requirement for priesthood until 1123 at the First Latern Council.

After that one year my vocation eventually led me to medicine, and the wonderful challenges of married life.  It has been sad to have known many others who continued to feel the call to both marriage and priesthood but were unable to fully answer.

As I wrote to a local priest for whom I've great respectIn giving you that paper I wrote at Sacred Heart, you should know that I am edified and encouraged by the vocation of celibacy for our priests, and that I used the Seminary library for all the research.  My hope is still that more married deacons, and sometime soon, married priests, will be able to join them in the harvest where laborers are too few.

Harvest - section of painting by Bruegel

Our mounting problem in the USA is that we are becoming ourselves a mission church, inundated and diminishing in a culture which adores financial wealth, material possession, and political power--more than anything else.  The existence of a loving God is an afterthought, extraneous and unimportant as we pursue these other rewards.  Our country thirsts for more living examples of that courage, humble service, and holiness, that our priests are meant to be--leadership disciples, followers of Christ who was open to all.  We should be welcoming these priest candidates from all walks of life.  Training them well, proving their character, supporting them in their quest for service and justice, but welcoming the married and unmarried, trusting in the Holy Spirit as a guide to a more complete and evangelical church.

There follows photo copies of the term paper.  You might print & enlarge [esp. the references at end if desired].  Please read, just as an initial stepping stone to what, on the level of our church leadership, might be accomplished in a renewal, an "opening of doors & windows," [as begun by St. Pope John XXIII] in our U.S. Catholic church.   Let me know what you think; please pass on and discuss with others.




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 From 4th Century Roman sarcophagus--Christ, the Good Shepherd.






Man with a Hoe - by Edwin Markham

Monday, March 6, 2017

AS GOES THEIR REFUGEE BOAT, SO GOES OUR SHIP OF STATE


The current mood in our country, as typified by our President Trump, is in direct opposition to the spirit of President Reagan’s, “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall.”  Instead we have a rabble rousing, “Citizens, let’s build up these walls—and tear down the Statue of Liberty while we’re at it?”  We are a nation of immigrants, all of us, except the remnant of indigenous still surviving our European conquest.  Many of us immigrants were fleeing wars, famines, religious persecutions.  And this continues to the present day, much of it now caused in great part by our own exercise of global power and military might.

Aren’t these newcomers dangerous, in this world of War on Terror?  The Cato Institute is a very conservative Libertarian think tank.  The 2-11-17 Port Huron Times Herald cited a recent report by them: "… out of more than 3 million refugees admitted to the U.S. from 1975 to 2015, three committed terrorist acts that killed Americans. They were [anti-Castro] Cuban refugees in the 1970's."

What should be the response of Christians who strive to follow the Gospel?  Today’s New York Times hints at a resurrection of the 1980’s civilly disobedient Sanctuary movement, which welcomed the refugees of our Central American wars of the time.   Some of our immigrants no longer want to stay here, no longer feel safe, and are leaving north to more stable Canada.   The U.S. administration is threatening the five or so major cities that have stated they would be sanctuaries for refugees, with cut-off of federal funds.
At the same time detention of immigrants is becoming a for-profit industry--over 60% are being held in private facilities.

The reaction of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to the Jan. 27, 2017 executive order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations to the U.S. was this:  “It is our conviction as followers of the Lord Jesus that welcoming the stranger and protecting the vulnerable lie at the core of the Christian life. And so, to our Muslim brothers and sisters and all people of faith, we stand with you and welcome you.”

Archbishop Garcia-Siller of San Antonio added this in his formal statement “While being promoted as a response to safety concerns in this country, these are unprecedented announcements that will punish the majority of immigrants who want to come to America -- the land of the free -- for a better future.
In a letter sent to President Trump prior to his inauguration, Pope Francis wrote, “Under your leadership, may America’s stature continue to be measured above all by its concern for the poor, the outcast and those in need who, like Lazarus, stand before our door.”

In this moment of our political history we should read again Luke’s account of the rich man , and Lazarus who lived at his gate.  The gate and wall in this world, become the chasm between heaven and hell in the next.

The Gospel reading from today's mass was from Matt 25, the Last Judgment scene, “Whatsoever you did for the least of these…”  This is the criteria for our collective and individual salvation.

Illumination by Kathy Brahney

Sources

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, a Democrat, pledged cooperation if public safety was threatened, but “what we will not do,” he said, “is turn our N.Y.P.D. officers into immigration agents.” ...
Studies show that crime rates among unauthorized immigrants are lower than those among native-born Americans.
A sign of what could happen nationally emerged last month in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott canceled $1.5 million in criminal justice grants to Travis County, whose seat is Austin, the state capital. This was after the county sheriff renounced cooperation with immigration officials seeking deportations.


On Wednesday, the immigration and refugee clinical program at Harvard Law School issued a report stating that Mr. Trump’s executive orders on immigration made the United States “not a safe country of asylum” for people fleeing persecution and violence.