U.S. Catholic Bishops: Please Call on Catholic Soldiers to Leave Iraq

          As members of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker we are compelled by the Gospel to make an urgent appeal to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops regarding the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
           We commend the Pope and the USCCB position opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the war. The Pope said: "No to war. It is always a defeat for humanity. International law, dialogue, solidarity between states, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences..." However, since the
U.S. invasion of Iraq, we have been appalled by the Church's support of U.S. Catholic
soldiers going to war in Iraq and participating in an illegal occupation of that country.
           Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, head of the Military Archdiocese of the U.S., publicly stated: "it was the opinion of the USCCB that given the complexity of the countless elements and arguments on either side, people of good faith could arrive at differing conclusions as to the moral justification of our armed interventions." He declared that it is permissible for Catholic soldiers to wage war against Iraq. Given the fact that the Vatican declared that this war is unjust, how could the USCCB or Archbishop O'Brien ever suggest that going to war against Iraq be morally justified? In light of public disclosures that the Bush Administration misled the public about the main reason for going to war—the existence of weapons of mass destruction and their threatened use—this war must be unequivocally condemned as immoral!
           Tragically, due to the USCCB moral ambiguity about the Iraq war, Catholic soldiers are faced with the choice to kill or be killed. They are put in a situation where they have to obey orders to torture and kill Iraqis—orders that violate Divine and international laws. U.S. torture of Iraqi prisoners and the U.S. attacks of Fallujah are just some of the atrocities U.S. soldiers have been ordered to commit. Meanwhile, the death toll continues to mount. According to a report by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 100,000 Iraqi civilians may have died as a result of the war. Also nearly 1,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed and well over 10,000 wounded.
All life is sacred. Thus, God commands us "Thou shalt not kill." And Jesus commands us to love our enemies. These are absolute commands. This is the basis for our opposition to all war and killing. Therefore, we appeal to the USCCB, in a spirit of love, to uphold God's law and the teachings of Jesus and call on all U.S. Catholic soldiers to lay down their weapons and refuse to fight and kill their Iraqi brothers and sisters. We urge you, with all our hearts, to call for an immediate end to the immoral and illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq. We also implore you to oppose the Bush Administration's policy of preemptive war. And we ask you to call for the release of Camilo Mejia, a Catholic conscientious objector who is serving a one year prison sentence for his refusal to fight in Iraq. Please act now to avert the death and suffering of more of God's children.
           For more info contact the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 202-882-9649.