Words from Bishop Gumbleton
From his homily on July 10th, 2005:
What was the reaction last week when a terrorist attack happened again? For the most part it was pretty much the same as it was before. Pay back. Get even. We’ll continue to war against them until we finally destroy them. We’re committed to meeting a violent situation with violence, instead of listening to God’s word that says violence will not bring peace; only the transforming power of love will bring peace. We’re not listening to God. We’re falling back into old patterns. We’ve failed to even look at ourselves and what we’re doing.
A couple of times this week I heard in interviews from Baghdad, Iraqi people speaking. They weren’t speaking with hate or even anger, but they said, perhaps the people of London now know what our lives are like. The U.S. military has been bombing them, destroying them, since 1991. Do we ever stop to think of what kind of terror that is? Everyone in Fallujah, a city of 250,000 people, must leave their homes and the city is demolished. We don’t even think about that. Also this past week when those Navy Seals were lost. They call for an air strike. An airplane flying at 35,000 feet drops a 500 pound bomb. It hit a village! What kind of terrorism is that? That’s how we respond. And it’s only going to bring more violence, more terrorism, more killing, more war. We have to begin to listen to Jesus.
The Group of 8 met last week. The eight richest nations is the world. Have you read what they decided? Not really much for the benefit of all the people of the earth. The United States wasn’t even willing to sign an accord to try to lessen the damage we’re doing to the environment through human activity that’s bringing a warming of the whole planet that eventually will destroy us. No, that would hurt our economy, the president said. It’s selfishness, greed. Isn’t that what Jesus says. The word falls in that kind of ground and it gets choked. We don’t listen.
I can’t elaborate any more than this. It is simple. It is plain.
Sounds similar to Saddam’s treatment of the Kurds after an ambush on his caravan.
Exactly.
I just can’t get over the notion that a desperate attack on civilians in a mass transit system (e.g. London and Madrid) is terrorism but our retaliation for such things in the form of bombs (dropped from high altitudes) is American patriotism and strength in the fight for freedom and democracy. I’m not a complete pacifist by any means, but war and death caused by war are tricky things. In the typical escapist fashion as our government embraces, I ask the following question: What exactly does terrorism mean? Doesn’t it depend on how you define terrorism?
In sampling Bishop Gumbleton’s homily, I also want to make it clear that my study of my own Catholicism and Catholicism in the global sense does not, never has, and never will mean that justice and peace are owned by Christians. Such things are universal and are a part of us all no matter who we are.