The CatholicDiff erence
Peace movement and Church's teaching Shortl y after the war in Iraq had begun in earnest , Pope John Paul II , addressing a group of Italian military chaplains , referred to the "vast contemporary movement in favor of peace ". A week later, the Hol y See 's Permanent Observer at the U.N., Archbishop Celestino Migliore , suggested that "the extraordinary mobilization of men and women that we see almost everywhere, in these very days , indicates that the cause of peace is making great progress in the conscience of humanity. " The Pope, as usual, took a long-range historical perspective and argued that the rejection of war as a normal or ordinary means of settling international conflicts pre-dated the U.N. Charier. That is certainly true. After the slaughters of World War I , no national leader (in a democracy, at any rate) could brag, with Napoleon , lhat he could easil y afford to lose 30,000 men a month. Unfortunately, not everyone learned the same lessons from 1914-18. Indeed , the democracies ' determination not to return to the bloodletting of World War I was a major factor in the world's failure to check Hitler, when that could have been done without risking a second global conflagration. Thus another lesson was, or should have been, learned : the determination not to use military force can , under certain circumstances , make the use of armed force more likely and more lethal in the near-term future. Pope Pius XII developed the Church's thought on armed force , law, and world politics in the post-World War
II period. Against the claim that state sovereignty imp lied the absolute right to decide for war without reference to moral categories, the pope insisted that "wars of aggression " were immoral — because they could lead to disproportionate violence , and because they impeded the creation of a well-functioning international legal and political system. "Peace," in the Catholic vocabulary, meant the rule of law in internationalpublic life. Later popes, including John XXIII and John Paul II , have fleshed out this idea, teaching lhat the "peace" of order — the peace of a law-governed international community — must be informed by justice , freedom , and truth. So, yes, there has certainl y been a shift in many, many consciences in recent decades. That change in hearts has made a difference theolog icall y, and thi s evolving theology has clearl y strengthened the role of the "last resort" criterion in the just war tradition. But it is not at all clear what this welcome determination to pursue peace — the rule of law in international affairs — has to do with many of the demonstrations of recent months. In London this past February, a group of Iraqi exiles asked Jesse Jackson, master of ceremonies at the largest political demonstration in British history, to be allowed to speak about Saddam Hussein 's brutalization of Iraq . Jackson told them no, that wasn ' t appropriate , because this was about Bush and Blair, not Saddam Hussein. Which means, I submit , that Jesse Jackson wasn 't
presiding over a peace demonstration , but an H o X anti-Ang lo-American' :J.policy demonstration. Throug hout Europe , the "peac e movement " has been more of a freefor-all in which de facto support for maintaining Saddam Hussein in power has been mairied to a host of agendas: anti-globalization , anti-"racism ," antiglobal-warming, anti-homop hobia , anti-Israel , antiMcDonald' s, anti-whatever. In Ital y, rainbow-striped Pace flags marked ihe re-emergence of the hard left after years in the political wilderness. What did any of this have to do with "peace " as the Catholic Church understands the term ? That Pace and similar movements in Europe and America could not bring themselves to bring pressure on the Saddam Hussein regime — that these movements could only imagine "peace" as "no coalition military action" — meant, in reality, that these movements ended up undercutting the effort to disarm Iraq through diplomatic and political means. Things have changed. Yes, consciences have been aroused to work for peace. Now those consciences must become informed.
George Weigel
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Family Lif e
Carrying the cross but not always an angel The procession came down the center aisle toward the altar, Leading the way was my 13-year-old son Lucas, a sparkling white robe over his jeans and tee-shirt, carrying the cross. "Look, there 's Lucas!" I whispered. Gabe stood on tiptoe to get a better view of his brother. Lucas climbed the steps to the altar, turned right, set the cross in its holder, and sat down on a bench behind it. Like many middle-school students at our parish, Lucas has been an altar server since last fall. Our new priest thought it would be a good way to get young people more involved in the liturgy. Parish members love seeing them up there. "They make the service complete," said one tradition-minded woman . From the looks on their faces, though, the young people themselves aren't as enthusiastic. I' ve encouraged Lucas to try to look a bit more cheerful . "You're representing Jesus, you know," I tell him. "It wouldn 't hurt to smile." Lucas' main job is to cany the cross in and out with out dropping it or getting fingerprints on the gleaming, brass pole. It 's more complicated than it looks. He has to know how fast to walk, which way to torn, when to bow,
and how to deal with peop le who like to point out perceived mistakes. To be honest , he 's not crazy about it. But , as his mom, I love seeing him up there . When I was young, girls weren 't allowed to serve at die altar. I didn 't question it at the time. The altar- was a holy place, and the men and boys in white robes seemed far more holy than 1,1 watched the boys light candles, carry smoking pots of incense, move books and vessels from here to there. I took it for granted that I wasn't good enough to represent God. But when I was about 12, something changed. For the first time, the boys at the altar were boys I knew. Boys I went to school with. Boys I heard cussing. Boys I saw cheating on tests and beating up little kids on the playground. How could they look so angelic on Sunday s and be such jerks the rest of the week? It was one of my first crises of faith. I knew I was as good as those boys. But the church said I wasn 't. Years later, the rules changed. Women and girls were allowed to participate in the liturgy. I read the Scripture lessons, always imagining the eyes of die little girls in the
pews on me. I made a point of smiling. And I told the girl s they could read in church , too , when they were older. Seeing Lucas at the altar in his white robe has brought me full circle. As his mother, I know better than anyone that this kid is not a perfect angel. In my mind's eye, I see his messy room, hear the whining over homework and the squabbling with his brother. But I also know how precious he is, how gifted , and , if my heart is any small reflection of God's, how deeply and completely loved. God accepts us all. It's not a matter of being good enough, only of being open to God's love and grace. Male, female, rich, poor, white, black, young or old, it doesn't matter. We are all invited to carry the cross.
Christine Dubois
Sp irituality
Seize the moment — if you can Carpe diem ! Everyone wants to seize the day. But as Irish novelist , John McGahern , says: "There is nothing more difficult to seize than the day !" Wh y? Because we have a great naivete about this. For example, a young man wrote to Rainer Marie Rilke complaining that he wanted to be a poet, but his dail y life was not the stuff of poetry — too much dru dgery, too many pressures, life in a small village. How could he write poetry out of such life? He concluded by saying that he envied Rilke's life as an admired poet, living in a big city, meeting exciting people. Rilke wasn't exactly sympathetic: "If your daily life seems poor to you," he replied, "then you aren't poet enough to call forth its riches. For a poet, there are no uninteresting places, no uninteresting life." The day is there to be seized. Robertson Davies, a renowned Canadian writer, tells of receiving a letter from a young man asking him to write a letter of reference for a financial grant so that the young man, a budding writer could go to a Mexican resort to work on his next novel . Davies replied that he would not write the letter, not because he didn't want to support him, but because he felt the young man had a false fantasy as to how he might seize the moment and write his novel. Davies cautioned him: "You want to write something deep and inspirational between drinking margaritas and walking the beach." Nothing much will come of that, he
warned. Stay home and write your book there. Annie Dillard prefers to do her writing in a plywood shack with no view. For her, it 's easier to seize the moment in a quiet , hidden place than on some public perch that offers a vista of the world. We often miss the moment because we have a false notion of what that means, like the would-be writers who sought help from Rilke and Davies. How do we seize the day? I like David Steindl-Rast's answer : we seize the day by "meeting the angels of each hour." Who are these angels? They are the unique riches inherent in each hour itself. Every season, whether chronological, cultural, or religious, brings with it a certain spirit, mood , and feeling that we sometimes capture and sometimes miss. The same is true for the periods of a day. Each has its unique light, its unique impact, and its unique angels who carry its special grace. The light of the morning greets us differently than the light of the late aftern oon. The angels of sunrise impact us differendy than the angels of sunset. To seize the day is to meet these angels and let them bless us. But they can be easily missed. Who among us hasn't spoken words to this effect: "I was so busy and pressured this year that I missed spring.... I missed Lent this year. I was so preoccupied with other things that it came and went before I even realized it was here ." Many things keep us from meeting the angels of the
hour — preoccupation , tiredness , distraction , heartache, anger, daydreams, stress, hurriedness. It 's easy to miss a special season and it's even easier to miss an ordinary morning, afternoon , evening, or an entire day. What do we do so as to not miss them? We need to pray. If we don 't pray on a given morning, that omission doesn 't offend God. We don 't owe God our prayer. It 's a gift, not a debt. But , if we miss praying some morning there is the real danger that we will also miss the morning. The morning will come and go and we will not meet its angels — its unique light, mood, spirit, refreshment. Noon will catch us before we are even aware that tiiere was a morning. The noonday and afternoon sun will bring their own angels, but, having missed the angels of the morning, we are prone to miss the angels of noon and the afternoon as well. A day will come and a day will go and we won 't seize it ... and then it will not matter much, in terms of grace and joy in our lives, whether we are walking a beach in Mexico or sitting in a plywood shack.
Father Ron Rolheiser