[Announce] Bob "with hair on fire" rants at another archbisdhop . . .

[Robert Waldrop]

I sent the email below to the Archbishop for 
Military Services.  It is self-explanatory.  If 
anyone reading this happens to have something 
along the lines of a "prayer for the families of a 
soldier killed in battle", I need it.  I tried to 
write one, and failed.

RMW

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Robert Waldrop
To: Archbishop at milarch.org
Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2009 12:13 AM
Subject: A prayer for the families of a soldier 
killed in battle

I know someone who just (earlier today) was 
notified that his son was killed in battle in 
Afghanistan.

So I thought I would send him a prayer for the 
family of a soldier killed in battle.

I thought, where would I find such a prayer?  A 
google search actually turned up not much at all.

So then I thought, well, let's look at the website 
of the Archdiocese for Military Services. Surely 
they will have some online pastoral resources. 
But a search of your website finds nothing along 
the lines for either a "prayer for a dead soldier" 
or a "prayer for the family of a dead soldier 
killed in battle".  I tried a link to a couple of 
sites linked on your site, and still found 
nothing.

So if you could maybe take some time from your 
material cooperation with the objective evil of 
unjust war, maybe you could think about providing 
some pastoral resources at your website to help 
people dealing with the grief and sorrow of the 
murder of their sons in battle in an unjust war 
that has nothing to do with peace and everything 
to do with greed for resources and imperial 
dominion. . . well, that would be a nice and 
pastoral thing for you to do.

But I am not surprised that your website is not at 
all helpful in this regard.  To people at your 
level, men like my friend's son who was just 
killed in battle aren't even human persons. 
That's why you continue to send them to battle in 
an unjust war.  If you really thought of the 
soldiers in your care as human persons, you would 
have a care for their souls, and you would teach 
them the truth about the unjust wars the US is 
presently waging, the truth taught by Pope John 
Paul II. But you don't do that, do you?  Our 
troops are nothing to the American political, 
economic, and religious aristocracy. That's why we 
treat them like dirt when they are wounded, or 
when we have squeezed the last bit of service from 
them and then we discard them like used toilet 
tissue. cf the Walter Reed scandal, the scandals 
of dishonorably discharging Iraq and Afghan war 
veterans for trumped up charges (that way we don't 
have to pay for their care through the VA), the 
abandonment of families -- the lack of attention 
to the detail of pastoral resources at the 
Archdiocese for Military Services website is but a 
small aspect of the shameful way we treat our 
soldiers and the people who care for them.

You are a scandal and a disgrace to the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ.

"Sow not in furrows of injustice, lest you reap a 
seven-fold harvest."

"The road to hell is lined with the skulls of 
bishops."  St. John Chrysostom

Robert Waldrop
Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House
Oklahoma City
http://www.justpeace.org/warresponse.htm