[Announce] Rescuing the episcopal ministry of the Church from the Evil of Violence

[Robert Waldrop]

Below is the latest essay from Fr. Emmanuel McCarthy, an Eastern Rite Catholic priest.  RMW

Rescuing the Episcopal Ministry of the Church and Those Commissioned to It from the Evil of Violence

Since Catholics are forbidden to support an unjust war, it becomes the duty of Catholic spiritual leaders to proclaim the injustice of a morally indefensible war. I shall not comment on the implications of this thesis except to say that up to the present time it has played no part in the history of war. 

-George N. Shuster


To justify an evil is to become complicit in that evil. It is to motivate and encourage that evil. It is to make that evil good in the minds of those who believe you. It is to make one's self a sine qua non in all the evil done and endured by those who believed you. If the sheep are lost because of the shepherd, can the shepherd be saved? Would the shepherd even want to be saved possessing such an awareness?

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy


It was thought by many, many Catholics and Protestants in the U.S. that what the Catholic Archbishop of the U.S. Military Archdiocese, Edwin O'Brien, was doing-when he was running around the U.S. giving "Jesus' support" to the U.S. government's War on Iraq, as well as, "Jesus' support" to those in the U.S. military doing the hands-on killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and the hands-on maiming of millions of others in this blatantly unjust war-was a gross abuse of the episcopal ministry. They thought that this, along with the pseudo-evangelization of the Reverends Jerry Falwell, James Hagee, Pat Robertson, James Dodson, Charles Stanley, etc., in relation to this big-time, big-money, murder-incorporated operation in Iraq,was about as far as Church leaders could go in delivering the Church of Jesus Christ over to the local economic and political muscle-to the snake.


Then along comes news of Alexei Rideger, Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow, and his forty years of work for the KGB, under the code name DROZDOV, while a priest and a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church during the Communist era. This was followed by news of his citation from the KGB in1988 for his "good work." And now we hear of his continuing Czarist-era abuse of the Patriarchal-Episcopal ministry in order to garner vast amounts lucre from the State by canonically, spiritually, psychologically and physically crushing deacons, priests and bishops who opposed the activities of those in power in Russia, whom the Patriarch is in bed with politically and economically.


Now onto the Christian scene pops the Bishop of the Catholic Military Diocese of Great Britain, Thomas Burns, on the fifth anniversary of this colossal, absolutely morally unjustified destruction of human life in Iraq. He utilizes the episcopal ministry, not in accordance with the Great Commission of Jesus to the Apostles to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey all I have commanded you" (Mt 28:20), but instead to become a political shill for military recruitment of the young and for more tax money for the military:


We have just marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. The politics behind that fateful decision have been well-rehearsed. My view is that the reason for the invasion has been disgraced since no weapons of mass destruction were ever found.


However, the controversy around the origins of the war must not obscure the remarkable job being done by our armed forces in Iraq and also Afghanistan. In both countries, young men and women are risking their lives trying to create stability and the chance of a better future for Afghans and Iraqis. Their sacrifice, and the cost their families pay, can be obscured by the seemingly never-ending debate about politics with the tragic result that sometimes these remarkable young people can be the scapegoats for unpopular government decisions over which they have no control. Our service people do their duty and they have a right to expect us to support them in return.Day after day they have brought about changes for the better: an educational system functioning again, a coast guard squadron re-built, a village restored, markets re-opened, Taliban and Al Qua'ida put to flight, security improved, normalization resuming, hearts and minds won over, oh so slowly, but surely. Iraqis are beginning to deliver an Iraqi solution. Here in Britain, home-coming marches through city streets have brought huge pride as bystanders tumbled out of shops and offices to shout spontaneously: Well done! We're proud of you...To avoid disillusionment, there is still room to re-enforce trust and confidence so that any credibility gap is closed more and more between perceived budget needs in Whitehall and actual combat needs in Basra or Kandahar. A hard-nosed Major says his abiding memory of Iraq will be: "The dedication of my young soldiers; it was an eye-opener to me. They just got on with the job. I shall remember them forever with gratitude. If only others of their generation could be similar examples too. These young people deserve our prayers and our support."


As with Edwin O'Brien and Alexei Rideger, this is an egregious activity for Thomas Burns, a legitimate successor of the Apostles, to be involved in. If any of the above mentioned bishops has any doubt about what an Apostolic successor of Peter, James John, etc., should teach by word and deed, they should simply read section 18 of the Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation (Dei Verbum) of Vatican II, along with what the Apostles taught as recorded definitively in the Gospels, which present the authentic and truthful teaching of Jesus for the salvation of all people.


I suppose Thomas Burns, if he were a bishop in 1925 would give a similar "Tallyho," "Good show," and episcopal blessing to the patriotic men of the Royal Air Force who dropped more than 150 tons of bombs on India that year. How could the words he uses as a bishop to praise and support and bless the actions of the young men and women in the British military who are doing the killing in Iraq not but be the same words he would have used to praise and support and bless the activities of those engaged in the mass murdering of the people of India on behalf of the British establishment in 1925: 


"The controversy around the origins of the war must not obscure the remarkable job being done by our armed forces in Iraq and also Afghanistan (READ: India). In both countries (READ: India), young men and women are risking their lives trying to create stability and the chance of a better future for Afghans and Iraqis (READ: for the people of India)."


"Remarkable job," killing in an unjust war? "Controversy around the origins of the war"- does it make no moral difference under Christian Just/Unjust War Theory if its standards are not met, e.g., if the war is initiated on the basis of lies? "Remarkable job," obeying orders to participate in a gravely intrinsically evil act (unjustifiably taking human lives)? Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, millions more maimed in body, soul and mind is a "remarkable job?" "Remarkable," by whose standard? Satan's? Churchill's (1925)? Blair's? Bush's? Jesus'?


O'Brien, Hagee, Dodson, Robertson, Rideger and Burns, and only God knows-and He does know-how many other Church leaders, have abused the trust placed in them by Jesus and by their people, to truthfully "teach them all I (Jesus) have commanded," and to help them "obey" these commands, rather than obey the commands of any person, spirit, theology or ideology which is logically contradictory to what Jesus unequivocally taught , namely, the Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies. Only God knows how many bishops and leaders of all Churches have manipulated that trust, and in the name of Jesus have taught their people, as if it were Jesus' teaching on violence and enmity, what is not Jesus' teaching on violence and enmity. Only God knows how many bishops and Church leaders have encouraged those placed in their spiritual care to obey commands to do what would be unthinkable for Jesus to do: to obey commands that Jesus would never obey, to issue commands that Jesus would never issue, to follow human beings and spirits that Jesus would never follow. Only God knows how many bishops and Church leaders have become beloved chaplains to the economic and political elites by throwing God's "anawim"-who always bear the brunt of the killing and being killed, of the maiming and being maimed-overboard to some political school of piranhas and the cadaverous spirits of war lurking within these schools. The respect and the largess of the economic and political crème de la crème is purchased by agreeing to the process of ceaselessly assuring the "anawim" that by killing other human beings, even other Christians, upon the orders of the local high muckety-mucks, they are being good Christians and doing God's will as revealed by Jesus. 


Let us at this point be clear about something. Nothing of what is being said here concerns the personal sinfulness or sinlessness of any or all of the U.S. Catholic bishops or any Church leader. Delving into the private lives of public figures in order to slur, destroy, manipulate, silence, or blackmail them is the vile modus operandi of diseased politics, the FBI, CIA, KGB, MI 5, the Mafia, the Mossad and their media footmen, as well as the corporate kahunas who own them. It is as contrary to the Way of Jesus as capital punishment. Also, nothing being said here has anything to do with the breaking of criminal or civil laws. This essay is about the public misuse of a public Apostolic Church ministry, i.e., the ministry of bishop, the ministry of being a public successor of the Apostles. It is about the public non-compliance, indeed public abuse, of a public ecclesial ministry that by the direct command of Jesus Himself is required to explicitly "teach them to obey all that I have commanded you" (Mt 28:20).


Logically this farewell command of Jesus to the Apostles encompasses all the others and is a twofold command. It first requires the Apostles and their successors to "teach them all that I have commanded you." Second, it requires the Apostles and their successors to "teach them to obey all that I have commanded you." A person cannot obey what he or she does not know. Therefore teaching accurately what Jesus taught the Apostles and what the Apostles' taught is step #1 in fidelity to this Church ministry. If being a legitimate successor to the Apostles does not intrinsically require teaching what the Apostles had to teach in order to be faithful to their Apostolic commission and ministry, and teaching what the Apostles had to teach in order to be faithful to the One who created this ministry, then what does it mean incarnationally?


It cannot possibly mean to "teach them the opposite of what I have commanded you" or, to "teach them only a portion of what I have commanded you." It cannot reasonably mean to "teach them to obey the opposite of all I (Jesus) have commanded you," or to "teach them to obey only some of what I have commanded you." It is the gross public betrayal of this Church ministry-by so many who hold and have held it-with which this reflection is concerned, not the state of soul of any person who exercises this ministerial position 


The ecclesiastical ministry of bishop does not exist for a human being to employ as he wishes, regardless of the detriment to the Church and its members he is causing by his non-culpable ignorance or culpable disobedience. The public ministry of bishop is not someone's to exercise in a way that contradicts the expressed teachings of Jesus. A bishop who tells his people that "X" is what Jesus taught, when Jesus in fact explicitly taught "not-X," should not be permitted by the Christian Community to continue misinforming or misleading Christians placed in his spiritual care about what Jesus taught-and said to obey. The Church, not just the hierarchy, has the responsibility of overseeing its overseers, not in their private spiritual and moral lives, but in their exercise of a public Apostolic ministry of the Church. Admittedly, this can be very difficult, especially if the overseers have become, de facto, overlords, who have at their disposal the same levers of dominative power that the State possesses, to impose their will by threat and the infliction of pain and suffering. Nevertheless, when a bishop or Church leader is proclaiming that while Jesus explicitly taught "X", that "not X" is really the same as "X," then the Christian and the Christian Community do not have the moral option of remaining silent. Infinitely too much is at stake to permit this, uppermost being the eternal salvation of human beings individually and collectively.


The misguided and misguiding episcopal activities mentioned above are simply contemporary examples of a long-running Church abortion of a truth of Jesus Christ to which she was commissioned to give birth and life. This public pandering to men and women of great violence and wealth by so many in the episcopal ministry for so long, this selling of the Body of Christ to the local cash-cows for their anti-Gospel personal use and profit is a commonplace, yesterday and today, in practically every denomination of Christianity at every place on the planet. Since the overwhelming majority of those who are led down the primrose path of "Jesus' supported war," and who are destroyed physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually in war, and who destroy others, are young men and women, this is but another example of the Churches being actively complicit in and indifferent to child abuse. (A child being defined as a human being whose brain is not fully developed.) The difference is that in this case the abuse of the young does not involve hundreds or thousands, but rather tens of millions of "little ones" that the overseers and elders, bishops, priests and ministers are supposed to protect from evil and from evil doers. For a bishop to tell a young person-even by calculated episcopal silence-that he can stick a bayonet into another person's eye in order to kill him if certain conditions are met, or that she can burn another woman's face off with a flame thrower if ordered to do so by a military "superior," and that in doing so they will be following Jesus, is a level of abuse of the episcopal ministry and an example of "leading these little ones astray" so severe that one would be better-off to tie a stone around his neck and throw himself into the sea rather than engage in it.


I can only speak from direct experience of the situation of the Catholic Episcopacy in the U.S. today. It is a most sorrowful Christian body to observe, as it exhaustingly tries to dodge and distractingly pirouette around the clear teachings of Jesus concerning his rejection of violence and enmity, in order to ingratiate itself to the powers that run the United States. These powers-for which it is selling-out Jesus-are erroneously and fatally assumed to have the capacity to provide significant assistance for the maintenance, advancement and survival of the Catholic Church in the United States and in the world. From an outside observer's post, it appears to me that the situation is every bit as sorrowful in all the other mainline and Evangelical Churches. Fear for the survival of their Churches-placed in their minds by "the Father of lies, who is a murder from the beginning,"-has brought the various episcopacies to cuddling-up with the moneyed and the politically powerful, who, however, will only embrace bishops and Church leaders who agree to lead their people down a way that Jesus rejected as the Way and Will of God.


But, again, there is nothing new here. Since the days of Constantine (d.337) the politically powerful and wealthy have been big on Christianity when Christianity has validated their pursuit and possession of power and wealth. Or perhaps more accurately, as is the case in the United States today, the politically powerful and the wealthy have been lavishly supportive of that form of Christianity that imparts and nurtures, under the auspices of Jesus, those values, attitudes, and beliefs that serve their economic, political, psychological and spiritual interests. Indeed, it could be said that since Constantine this willingness to validate the political and economic elite of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Evangelicalism, along with their ways and means, has almost become a binding non-canonical prerequisite for episcopal ordination or leadership status in all the mainline Churches. The saying that "The road to hell is paved with miters," is about as old as the Constantinian alteration of Christianity. It is of course a statement that does not have a scintilla of evidence to support it. But, it is not a statement without meaning, when the history of the episcopacy in the various violence-justifying Constantinian Churches of Christianity is known.


Constantine the Great is referred to as the "Equal of the Apostles," in many Churches to this very day. As mistaken, vain and sad as this title is, there is an honesty to it, for it does highlight which of the Apostles these Churches feel they are the incarnational successors of. Many other Churches de facto follow the Apostle Constantine, but interestingly, cringe from assigning him this public designation. Why? There is no Apostle other than Constantine that they could be the incarnational successors of, since of all the Apostles, only Constantine teaches and practices what these Churches teach and practice about violence and enmity, namely it is a way of following Jesus. All the other Apostles are Nonviolent Apostles. The Apostles found after the Resurrection in the Gospels, teach and practice exactly what Jesus taught and practiced in relation to violence and enmity, which is as far removed from the Christianity of the Apostle Constantine as the cross of nonviolent redemptive love of friends and enemies is from the sword of violence. If a person claims to be ontologically a legitimate successor of the original Nonviolent Apostles, e.g., Peter, James, John, etc., but incarnationally teaches by word and deed as the Way of Jesus what the Pseudo-Apostle of great violence, Constantine, taught by word and deed as the Way of Jesus, what is he as a bishop? A wolf in shepherd's clothing? A co-conspirator of wolves in sheep's clothing? A facilitator of wolves in sheep's clothing-wolves who are preying on the very sheep he is supposed to be shepherding and protecting? A moral validator for those Christians who choose to be the moral equivalent of paid wolves in sheep's clothing? A kept, faux-chaplain for wolves in sheep's clothing?


If the sheep are lost because of the shepherd, can the shepherd be saved? Would the shepherd even want to be saved possessing such an awareness?

(Rev.) Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
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