WHY I AM CATHOLIC - PART 6: DO THIS

Last Supper by Pascal Adolphe Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-1929)

In our last installment we made the case for the historical authenticity of the Gospels. In short, when compared with any other ancient document, there is more evidence for the historical reliability of the Gospels than there is for the writings of Socrates, Plato, or even Shakespeare - unquestioned intellecutal pillars of classical western civilization.  So let us look at what those Gospels record.

They record, of course, the birth, life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. They also record his teachings, miracles, and directives. For our purpose - which is to evince and expound upon the reason to be Catholic - let us examine one of those teachings, his most important: DO THIS.

In fact it is more than a teaching, it is a directive, an order. And it is most important because worship is man’s fundamental duty to God, and Christ’s instruction at the Last Supper is an instruction on how he is to be worshipped, commemorated, acknowledged, remembered, and recognized. There is, for man, nothing more important.

Scripture records: on the night before he died, Jesus took the bread and said THIS IS MY BODY, EAT THIS..., and the wine and said THIS IS MY BLOOD, DRINK THIS... And then he commands: DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.

Many Christian church services have great singing, sermons, and fellowship, but only one Church fully worships God as Christ Himself instructed. Only one Church obeys, and has obeyed from the beginning, despite the fallibility and failings of its ministers, the command of Jesus Christ to DO THIS.

To be sure, many Christian communities have communion services, but the presider normally does not hold up the bread and wine and say THIS IS MY BODY...THIS IS MY BLOOD. And while it is true that some Anglican and even some Lutheran churches have liturgies in which at least the words and actions of Christ at the Last Supper are re-presented, neither religion accepts that the bread and wine REALLY are the true body and blood of Jesus Christ.

For our purposes, we need not engage the debate over whether or not the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ upon the words of the minister. We are simply looking at whether or not non-Catholic Christian churches actually do what Christ instructed on the night before he died.  Do they DO THIS?

Only the Catholic Church obeys this command and obeys Christ's command to DO THIS fully. What’s more, the Catholic Church obeys Christ’s instruction as the first Christians obeyed it: weekly and on Sunday. Acts 20:7 says “On the first day of the week they gathered together to break bread...” We know that the "break bread" is not a reference to some first century picnic because “breaking bread”, as demonstrated elsewhere in the New Testament, references the Eucharistic celebration.

So here, right in the heart of the New Testament, we see the first Christians commemorating Christ as he instructed, commemorating him weekly, and commemorating him on the first day of the week. And where is the only place on Earth where we will find that command obeyed, obeyed weekly, and on Sunday? Answer: The Catholic Mass.

Jesus did not say to sing, lecture, dance, drum, shout, shake, or read your bible in memory of me. He said DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME. And the Catholic Mass is simply the only place where the DO THIS is done and Christ is worshipped as he taught us to worship.

BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE: THE PROBLEM WITH THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ARGUMENT

Bishop Thomas Curry

As most of us know by now, the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom is being invoked by our Church leaders to challenge President Obama’s contraceptive mandate. What you probably haven’t heard is that we have no constitutional basis for doing so, and if brought before the court, we would lose such a challenge.

At least that is the opinion of Bishop Thomas Curry of Los Angeles, an historian and First Amendment scholar - an opinion of course that is completely out of step with Cardinal Dolan and the rest of the USCCB who have pinned their hopes for a wider exemption from the mandate on the basis that it violates religious freedom.

Curry opined in a recent speech given at Catholic University that the contraceptive mandate is NOT unconstitutional because it does not target a specific religion. The fact that Catholics feel targeted is simply due to the fact that the Catholic Church is the only major religion which prohibits deliberate contraceptive acts. But the Catholic Church would have no more First Amendment standing against the mandate than Jehovah Witnesses had against serving in the military during the days of a mandated draft.

As you may recall, JW’s and other conscientious objectors, while they could be exempted from military service, were not exempt from the penalty for not serving. Some were given alternative community tasks, others were assigned to non-combat duty, and still others, as in the famous Muhammed Ali case, were sentenced to prison. Under the mandate, Catholics are free to avoid the mandate by not purchasing health insurance, but they would still be liable for the penalty for not doing so as were conscientious objectors to the military draft.

Also, Catholic leaders seem to have forgotten that there is no blanket guarantee of religious liberty in America, and indeed, we may not want one. In 1878, the Supreme Court ruled that George Reynolds, a Mormon, did not have a First Amendment right to marry more than one wife, despite the dictates of his religion, and was sent to jail for doing so. The Catholic Church did not protest and today would still support the state’s right to penalize polygamists.

While the Mormon church has since changed its teaching on plural marriage, Islam has not. Islam teaches that a man can have up to four wives. Will we be expecting the U.S. bishops to demand religious liberty for American Muslims in that regard? Islam also teaches honor killings and the killing of converts to Christianity (though not all hold to it). Any calls for religious liberty here?

What about religious liberty for Wiccans and other neo-pagan religions? There is already a Wiccan shrine, built at taxpayer expense, on the grounds of the U.S. Air Force Academy, and a taxpayer funded witch ministry to see to the spiritual needs of Wiccan cadets. Do we....should we support religious liberty for the religious practices of witchcraft-related and other pagan religions? I think not, but this is where the religious liberty argument will take us, and I think that this is precisely where President Obama is allowing it - if not wanting it - to go (for the purposes of a much larger social engineering agenda).

Also Catholics seem to have forgotten that religious liberty, as an established doctrine, only dates back to Vatican II. Prior to that, Catholicism had gradually incorporated a pragmatic approach to religious tolerance, but the Church historically not only condemned and persecuted what it deemed to be heresy, it condemned and persecuted heretics as well.

It makes me wonder if Obama isn’t waiting for just the right moment to bring up the Inquisitions, the Crusades, and the decimation of native New World populations by (Spanish-Catholic) Conquistadors. And let’s not forget that for centuries Christianity did not condemn slavery but in fact commanded slaves to obey their masters. (Something that we will look into another time but has already been floated by media mongers.) I can hear Obama scoffing (with the god-like reverb that seems to accompany all his speeches): “Catholics? Religious liberty? Come on, give me a break!” - and then roars of approval and thunderous applause. Scary.

The truth about those things and how the Church actually intervened to tame the excesses of what were essentially state-sponsored ventures (at least in the case of the Inquisitions, the conquest of the New World, and slavery) won’t matter. Perception is everything, and the Church, still limping from its clergy sex abuse wound, will be blasted  out of the public arena by the Obamanites as Jew-burning, Indian-killing, Muslim-brutalizing, slavery-advocating, child-molesting, woman-subjugating, medieval pretenders to religious freedom. And we are marching right into this with signs held high!

The absolutely amazing thing  is that the USCCB’s cry for religious freedom is not even necessary. Obama, unintentionally perhaps, has already given the bishops all the exemption they need. Let’s review:

The mandate exempts religious employers and defines a religious employer as:  (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under Internal Revenue Code...

Most Catholic organizations already qualify under the IRS code, so let’s look at the others. (1) What is keeping the bishops from simply stating that all of its institutions, its hospitals, schools, clinics, orphanages, etc., have “the inculcation of religious values as its purpose”? Do we not exist first and foremost to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed?

Incredibly, one of the arguments proffered by the USCCB leadership has been that not even Jesus, since he cared for everyone, would qualify for the exemption. This amazing statement presupposes that Jesus’s primary purpose was to heal the sick, not save them! That we can even float this argument with any degree of seriousness from the official rostrum of the USCCB is an indication of just how far our commitment to social justice has gone to replace our duty to save souls.

As for (2) employing or (3) serving people who share our religious tenets we can simply say “we don’t know” and shift the burden of proof to the government. A religious employer can no more determine the level of adherence in the heart of an employee or patient to its church’s religious tenets than could a priest determine the level of adherence to Catholic religious tenets in the hearts of those who regularly attend Sunday Mass. And the government would have no means of doing so either.

In fact, this is Bishop Curry’s point. After stating that the imposition of the contraceptive mandate is not in itself unconstitutional, Curry points out that the language of the exemption in which Obama attempts to define what constitutes a religious employer is the part of the mandate that IS unconstitutional. For not only does the President NOT have the authority to define what constitutes a religious employer, he neither has the authority to measure whether or not, or to what degree, a person employed or served by a religious institution subscribes to its religious tenets.

Imagine the conundrum. A non-Catholic patient in a Catholic hospital responds to his government interrogator:  “Yes, I believe in the Trinity, that Jesus Christ is God, that he died for my sins and opened the gates of heaven, and that he established his Church on earth. It could be the Catholic Church. I’m not sure yet. I’m looking into it.” Or imagine a Catholic working at a Catholic university saying “Yes, I believe in the Catholic Church as the true Church but I don’t go along with the Church’s teaching on divorce and birth control.”

In short, the exemption is impossible to police and the USCCB, in barking about religious freedom, is simply barking up the wrong tree. But to change course and exploit the exemption the bishops would have to say that the primary purpose of every Catholic institution is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that while they would like to be able to determine the level of adherence to that Gospel by the people they employ and serve, they have no means of doing so.

By merely stating so, Obama and his contraceptive-sterility-mad matron (Sibelius) could not touch the Church. However, the fact that it appears that we have either not thought of this, or there is in fact a reluctance to claim our institutions and our work for Jesus Christ, is evidence that our Church may have bigger problems than Obama.

*****

That said, regardless of how the Church fairs in its stand-off over the exemption, the rest of us who are not directly in the employ of the Church, are already being forced to fund, through our insurance premiums, the evil that our Church condemns.

For the rest of us, our only hope is for the individual (not the contraceptive) mandate to be declared unconstitutional (the case is being heard as of this writing), and barring that, the election of a president and a congress who are committed to the repeal of the whole Obamacare monstrosity - for it contains many other such death-driven surprises.

Meanwhile, let us hope that our own Archdiocese will claim that all of its institutions have “the inculcation of its religious values as its purpose” and in so doing avoid having to fund the evil our Church rejects. The rest of us will just have to look out for ourselves. But we can at least make sure that the congressional candidate of our choosing this November is committed to the death of this whole evil edict. We shall see.

THE RECALL OF THE YOUCAT

The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, nicknamed YOUCAT, has been increasingly criticized ever since its release in 2011 and there is now a serious petition to recall it.

At first the protests seemed to be confined to issues related to the phrasing of particular entries in the Italian and German versions, but it appears that the English version contains several issues and we would do well to be advised of them.

The first problem occurs in Question 15 which reads: “How can Sacred Scripture be “truth” if not everything in it is right?” The question is awkwardly worded and could easily lead the young reader to suppose that somethings in Scripture are wrong.

The YOUCAT’s answer attempts to clarify what is meant by the question but further confuses matters by stating that the Sacred Authors were products of their culture and “dominated by its errors”.

This is a rather amazing statement since we know 1) that several of the Sacred Authors were persecuted precisely because they contradicted their culture, 2) not only were NOT “dominated by its errors” but in fact condemned those errors, and 3) while fallen men like the rest of us, were protected from error by the Holy Spirit as regards what is ultimately recorded in Holy Scripture.

A more informed and mature reader might be able to apprehend a more complex understanding of the question as regards particular challenges related to translations, versions, or even the historicity of certain events, but the young reader is simply led to believe that Scripture may contain errors - something repeatedly condemned by the Church for centuries.

Another problem occurs in Question 42 in which the reader is asked: “Can someone accept the theory of evolution and still believe in the Creator?” The problem occurs in the answer to the question which essentially answers “yes” so long as one “does not fall into the heresy of evolutionism”.  The young reader, fresh from his high school exposure to Darwinism, is not likely to understand the “heresy of evolutionism”.

The understanding of evolution within the context of revelation is extremely complex and even John Paul II’s skilled treatment of it (1996) has met with skepticism and opposition. To simply throw the whole question of evolution into a radically simplified and ambiguous entry for consumption by youth is dangerous.

But the real issue is that the entry entirely misses the ultimate qualifier for the Catholic acceptance of any theory of creation and that is that the Catholic must believe that the first man and first woman were directly created by God.

There are other problems which we do not have space to address here so we will skip to perhaps the most problematic entry of all - given the current national drama over the contraception debate.

Question 421 asks: “Why are all methods of preventing the conception of a child not equally good?” The question presupposes a graduated moral grade for different methods of birth control which is not only FALSE but a grave error when one considers the Church’s outright condemnation of deliberate contraceptive acts as “intrinsically evil”. (CCC 2370)

The question is a setup to highlight the Church’s acceptance of NFP (periodic abstinence) but grossly misrepresents it. The YOUCAT states:

“The Church recommends the refined methods of self-observation and natural family planning (NFP) as methods of deliberately regulating conception. These are in keeping with the dignity of man and woman; they respect the innate laws of the female body; they demand mutual affection and consideration and therefore are a school of love. [2370–2372, 2399]

Actually, the Church does NOT recommend NFP. As per paragraph 2370 of the official Catechism, NFP is only allowed for sufficient reason: “Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.158” (CCC 2370)

There is no recommendation here. Periodic continence is simply allowed due to its “conformity with the objective criteria of morality” and the footnote “158” provides the key to a serious treatment of this “objective criteria” which centers on the necessity for “grave reason”.

Treatment of this requires a whole other column, but in short, 158 is a footnote to a section in Humanae Vitae which itself footnotes a critical reference to a teaching by Pius XII on the necessity of “grave reason”- upon which the morality of periodic continence depends.

The official teaching of the Catholic Church commonly builds upon previous teaching,  and a single footnote can often lead to whole tomes and presumes familiarity with them. The YOUCAT, while its intent to reach the younger Catholic is laudable, tragically dumbs down critical issues and endangers its readers. Use with caution.

The Recall Petition

The Bellarmine Report: YOUCAT weak on homosexuality, contraception, euthanasia, evolution, and scripture.

Statement from Aquinas and More about discontinuing distribution of the YOUCAT

INSIGHT SCOOP- the blog of Ignatius Press which publishes the YOUCAT in defense of the YOUCAT's answer to question 421. (I do not agree with it and find it to be weak, but am providing the link so you can read their defense. Obviously the need to explain an explanation defeats the purpose of the catechism and shows its inherent weakness.)

THE REAL LOSERS

I am a professional young man in his 20's. I just met this girl and she is quite attractive. We meet to have a few drinks. One thing leads to another and, well, you know. We talk a few times after that but it just doesn't seem to be working, so I don't call her back anymore.

A few weeks later she calls me at work and says we need to talk. "What for?"

"Just meet me."

I met her at Starbucks's after work and she looks like she might have been crying. After an awkward hug and a kiss, we sit down with our drinks and then blammo...

"I am pregnant."

I paused for a moment and then said, "Ok. Why tell me?"

"Well, its your baby and I thought you would want to know. After all, you are responsible."

"Whoa, hold on there. I am not responsible for anything. This was your choice."

"It takes two, or don't you remember?"

"Sorry, but this is only your healthcare issue."

"It's not a healthcare issue, it's a baby!"

"Oh no it's not. It's a healthcare issue and not my problem. You have access to government mandated and subsidized free birth control. There was no reason for this to happen. This is entirely up to you."

"You never asked me if I was on birth control. We got caught up and..."

"I am sorry you feel this way but it is not my problem. You are responsible for your own healthcare, not me. You get birth control for free, there is no impediment to you getting it. If you choose not to use it or use it incorrectly, I can't be held responsible for that. If you have a healthcare problem now, don't blame me, blame yourself."

"It's not a healthcare problem, it's not a disease, it's a baby!"

"Sorry, not according to the government. This is a preventable health condition, the cure for which you get for for free courtesy of my tax dollars. How can I possibly be held responsible for your negligence in the prevention of a freely preventable disease?"

"Stop saying that! You can't do this! I will sue for paternity!"

"Go ahead and try. Dozens of cases just like this have already been heard around the country in the last 2 years. In each and every case the court has found that given the government mandated and pervasive free access to birth control, men have a reasonable expectation that women are able to protect themselves from this disease. You can't punish me with a baby because of your negligence. You do remember that I am a lawyer, right?"

"You are a monster!"

"Listen. It has been real. Do me a favor, lose my number."

(This story is reprinted from www.creativeminorityreport.com)

*****

Of course, I am neither in my 20’s nor the guy in the story. And the scenario is nothing new. Women have been on the losing end of the sexual revolution since The Pill first made sex without consequences possible, mostly without consequences for the male.

However, the HHS mandate, by classifying contraception as “preventative care”, has officially made pregnancy a preventable disease like smoking and diet related diseases.

In so doing, the mandate provides the basis for a legal challenge to the normal responsibilities associated with paternity, responsibilities many men already try to avoid, but soon may have the law on their side!

Even the most chauvinistic male couldn’t have planned things out this well. No, it took a genius like President Obama and HHS “Field Marshall” Sibelius, to make women officially the sexual revolution’s legal losers. And they say the Church is waging war on women??

I’m sure the guy in the story (and lots of guys like him) will be casting their vote for Obama in November.

On the HHS Mandate - Part 2, by Fr. Ivan Sciberras

(From the 2/19/12 parish bulletin of St. Peter's Church in Bellville, New Jersey, where Fr. Sciberras is the pastor. www.spnj.org)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I do not normally write two weeks in a row about the same topic, but given the gravity of the matter I wrote about last week, namely mandated birth-control coverage, and the ―compromise‖ that was offered a week ago by the Administration, I feel impelled to offer a follow-up.

Let me say from the outset that the ―compromise offered to the Catholic Bishops is nothing less than a farce. This is what the Administration had to offer: Catholic-run institutions that in conscience object to offering birth- control, sterilization and abortifacients to their employees would not be obligated to do so. The insurance company (or HMO) would, however, be obligated to provide such services free of charge to all subscribers, regardless of who the employer is. And how would insurance companies fund such coverage, since we cannot expect them to offer it from the generosity of their hearts? Only by raising the premiums paid by the employers, including those who in conscience object to offering such coverage (who are not limited to Catholic institutions, but include other employers and corporations whose religious freedom is imperiled by such a mandate).

Not only does the mandate violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but also violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was approved almost anonymously by both the Senate and Congress, and signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. The law states that only in cases where the ―furtherance of a compelling government interest‖ dictates so may the government ―substantially burden‖ a person‘s ―exercise of religion,‖ and only by using ―the least restrictive means.‖ Here it is clear that the government can use one of many different ways to promote its ―anti-life‖ agenda, other than castigate employers for disagreeing with said agenda.

When Pope Paul VI issued the Encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, he was nothing short of prophetic. The great pope predicted four consequences stemming from the widespread use of contraceptives: (1) a general lowering of morality (one does not need to be a rocket-scientist to detect it); (2) a rise in marriage break-up and illegitimacy (a quarter of marriages in the U.S. ended in divorce in 1968, compared to over 55% today); (3) the reduction of women as objects to satisfy men (pornography is now all over, with human trafficking and sex-slavery growing exponentially) and, finally (4) government coercion in reproductive matters. Those who did not want the Church to dictate what they do in their bedrooms are now happily letting Big Brother tell them whose conscience they should follow!

How right was Pope John Paul II when he said that the attacks against human life are receiving ―widespread and powerful support from a broad consensus on the part of society and that ―we are in fact faced by an objective  ̳conspiracy against life.‘‖ If we allow a president define a pregnancy (ie. human life) as a disease (hence the need to fight it through mandatory health care) rather than as a precious gift, then we only have ourselves to blame when the diabolical attack against life becomes more evident.

Maybe this assault on life and religious freedom has been providentially timed. As we enter into the Season of Lent this week on Ash Wednesday, we are all invited to make a mea culpa for the ways we have all disregarded God‘s Plan and have placed our own comforts and compromises ahead of Divine Law. May this be a season of repentance, ultimately culminating in Christ‘s victory over sin and death on Easter Sunday.

Please check the bulletin for different ways we can draw closer to Christ this Lent. I particularly call your attention to the Day of Recollection we will hold this coming Saturday, February 25. Our internationally- acclaimed speaker, Dr. Dianne M. Traflet, will definitely steer us into the right direction. Consider also attending daily Mass whenever possible, pray the Stations of the Cross with the parish on Fridays, and making a pledge to the Archbishop‘s Annual Appeal so that others may benefit from our excess.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Ivan Sciberras 

pastor@spbnj.org

On the HHS Mandate by Fr. Ivan Sciberras

(From the 2/12/12 parish bulletin of St. Peter's Church in Bellville, N.J., Fr. Ivan Sciberras, Pastor)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In last week‘s bulletin, we reproduced Archbishop Myers‘ letter to the faithful regarding the Government‘s decision about a healthcare issue that significantly affects the Catholic Church‘s ability to operate in this country. The same letter is reproduced in Spanish in this week‘s bulletin. Given the gravity of the matter, the issue was, understandably, given ample coverage especially in the secular media.

And here is the issue: the 2010 health-care law spoke in detail about ―preventive-health services‖ that employers are required to cover (when offering health-benefits to their employees) without an insurance co- payment. This included coverage for contraceptives, sterilization services and abortion-inducing pills. Leaders of the Catholic Church in the U.S. were under the impression that Catholic institutions (and others that in conscience could not agree to providing such services) were exempt from this mandate.

Just last month, the Department of Health and Human Services insisted that the exemption was limited only to Church institutions that provide services exclusively to persons of the same faith. All other Church institutions that also serve people of other faiths - such as hospitals, elementary schools and universities, and organizations like Catholic Charities – are obligated to provide such coverage. When Catholic bishops pleaded for a broader exemption, they were granted an extension of one year – to August 2013 – before being forced to comply with, or else ...

Without trying to give the impression that they are fomenting civil-disobedience, the response of the U.S. bishops has been loud and clear: ―we cannot – we will not – comply with this unjust law.‖

Unless the Administration relents from this unwise decision, which in the words of columnist Peggy Noonan has ―awakened a sleeping giant‖ (meaning the Catholic population), where does this leave Catholic institutions?

One possibility would be to restrict the activity of Catholic institutions merely to Catholics (e.g. a Catholic school would only be allowed to educate Catholic students and a Catholic hospital only be able to care for Catholic patients). This would be a surreal situation wherein the Church would not be able to function in a Catholic manner, namely, to be a beacon of hope at the service of all humanity.

Another option would be to keep the institutions open for all, but not provide health benefits to its employees, at the cost of a $2,000 fine per year per employee of the institution in question (Catholic Charities, for example, with its 70,000 employees, would be fined $140 million a year for not providing health benefits). That would mean millions less in aid to struggling families, refugees, the sick and the elderly.

Other Catholic institutions would have to shut down altogether. We have already witnessed to Catholic welfare agencies in Massachusetts being forced to shut down their operations only because they could not in conscience place babies with gay couples.

As Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute remarks, more than half of all civic institutions in the U.S. have a religious purpose or affiliation, and an undermining of their liberty ultimately undermines the freedom of each one of us.

Many Catholics, even those who have no qualms in criticizing Church leadership, have made it clear that they do not want the government to control the Church‘s activity. While ―freedom of worship‖ has not been infringed on (at least as yet) in this country, the much broader ―freedom of religion‖ is definitely being undermined in this matter. What guarantee do we have that with ―freedom of religion‖ being compromised, there will not be a day when even the ―freedom of worship‖ – including the content of the preaching and the rites of the Church themselves – will not be jeopardized?

Yes, the sleeping giant is finally awake. There are 77.7 million Catholics in the U.S. In the 2008 election, they made up 27% of the electorate. In nine of the past ten presidential elections, the Catholic vote has gone with the candidate who ultimately won the election. There is very little to gain in attacking the freedom of the Catholic Church, and so much to lose. Let us hope that ultimately, common sense will prevail in this matter.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Fr. Ivan Sciberras 

pastor@spbnj.org

The Short Memory of American Bishops by Jeffrey Fitzgerald

(Jeffrey Fitzgeral is the editor of the U Matuna, the newspaper for the Catholic Archdiocese of Hagatna, Guam)

This week, USY has run an article on the American bishops’ concern with Israel reacting against the threatening position of Iran. Anyone who has paid attention to international news has seen that the situation in and with Iran is both delicate and terrifying.

At the heart of the troubling confrontation-in-the-making of our day is the furious drive of Iran to become a fully nuclear nation. Under its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and with the support of the ayatollahs (the Shi’ite “clergy” in that country), Iran continues to develop its nuclear capability without regard for the United Nations or international political stability.

Just last month, Iran at first allowed but then refused to permit UN nuclear inspectors access to their nuclear facilities to ensure that Iran was not purifying uranium to the degree that it could be mounted as a nuclear weapon. On the whole, warn many experts, it’s just a matter of time before Iran is not only a genuinely nuclear power, but an aggressive power with nuclear weapons—one that has intimated that it would use them to achieve its theocratic goals.

What makes this especially frightening is Iran’s foreign policy and the rhetoric that points to their intentions. For over 30 years, and even more so today, Iran’s government has declared that the nation of Israel must be wiped out, all Israeli Jews annihilated. To use Ahmadinejad’s own words, “the Jews must be driven into the sea.”

This kind of talk should not be underestimated; after all, we are not talking about Denmark here. This is a government that seeks the utter destruction not only of the only truly democratic nation in the Middle East, but also of a huge portion of the Jews: a people that are our elder cousins in faith.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t put up with any of that sort of sabre-rattling nonsense. European Jewry was virtually wiped out by the Nazis before and during World War II while the rest of the world stood aside and did nothing. This seems to be the case now with our own president, European leaders, and our bishops. Since WWII, the Israeli maxim is “Never again”—a sentiment Americans likewise share when it comes to tolerating terrorists out to destroy us and our way of life. Never again will they (or we) stand there and wait to be attacked by those who say they are going to attack.

This is what makes the USCCB’s statement on the “moral problem” of Israel ordering a pre-emptive strike against Iran not only short-sighted, but also utterly stupid. It makes no sense, neither rationally nor theologically.

The USCCB’s Committee on International Justice and Peace clearly states that Iran’s probable acquisition of nuclear weapons, vociferous threats against Israel, and lack of cooperation with the international community are serious issues, but they do not justify a pre-emptive strike, i.e. a preventative war. As far as the editorial staff of USY is concerned, the committee could not be more wrong.

The bishops and the “peace and justice” crowd who seek to avoid war at all costs no doubt mean well. Nevertheless, it is not enough for these bishops to be well-meaning and carry the “high ground” of negotiation, knowing that if there is an attack, the Church “did all it could.” If Iran attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, all the good intentions in the world won’t bring back the millions of innocent men, women, and children who are annihilated in the blink of an eye. In fact, our silence, our passivity will make us guilty by our sin of omission.

The Church’s Just War Doctrine does of course say that deadly force should be a last resort. That said, if the other conditions of just war are met, it is not necessary to be attacked before defending oneself; sometimes, we have to strike lest we not live to even defend ourselves.

The bishops’ line of thinking is the same as Guam having a law that allows you to own a gun, but when an intruder comes into your house with his own gun, you cannot shoot him unless he shoots you first. Somehow, accepting that as the only moral alternative leaves us shaking our head at the complete lack of common sense.

Hopefully, cooler heads in Iran will prevail, and they will not escalate the crisis that they have created. As usual, international media is laying responsibility at the feet of Israel, demanding they show restraint when their enemies won’t. This includes Hizbollah, a terrorist organization supported by the Iranian government.

Ultimately, war is never a good thing, but sometimes it is necessary. We should not begin wars, but when aggressors are armed and threaten us and gather their armies at our border, it’s a safe bet what the next move will be. If the European powers had stopped Hitler at Munich, millions of lives would have been spared. Instead, the desire for peace at any cost wound up be costing more lives than any war in history.

Sometimes, it’s not enough to preach. Like Edmund Burke famously warned us, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” If only the bishops would remember that—not just in war, but with abortion and the other horrors of modernity that they are so shy about condemning.

Shame on them.

Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron, O.F.M., Cap., D.D. is not associated with the USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace.