General Enrique Gorostieta Velarde (lower right) and beatified martyr José Luis Sánchez del Río (flag bearer, lower left) riding out to battle with the Cristeros of Mexico. Note the flag, a banner with the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Far be it from me to talk about just war theory when I haven’t written a doctoral thesis on it. But I do know someone who has written such a thesis, which, in fact, has been tweaked by decades of military experience and reviewed by the Department of Defense and Congress and this and that successive POTUS and so on and so forth, as the need arises.
However, I don’t think the author will be saying anything about the present oppression of religious freedom in the United States. What he’s already said is still ringing in the ears of all the above, even though they are trying not to think about it at the present moment. It’s his take on just war that they take as official policy, but, unofficially, they are wondering what to do about it in these United States.
So, in this series on the great 2012 film For Greater Glory, about the fight for freedom to practice religion in Mexico in the 1920s, I’ll just have to do my best with the rather outrageous life experience I’ve had.
The freedom fighters were led, note well, by a Freemason, the greatest general in Mexico, pictured above, who converted to the faith as he fought, seeing the great martyrs give their lives for Christ and desiring that the Catholic Church have religious freedom. The oppression was coming from a socialist-Masonic government of Mexico, which did not permit believers to have a voice in the public square nor any freedom to worship. The government armies slaughtered Catholics like the Aztecs offered human sacrifice just some centuries previously.
Human sacrifice stopped dead, so to speak, when our Lady of Guadalupe appeared. But the Mexicans began to lose sight of her Son Jesus, with some opting for Marxist “revolution.” The martyrs, the Cristeros, brought back the faith to Mexico, until recently, when many have begun to ignore Christ the King and the Virgin of Guadalupe. I think I mentioned before that there are Mexican youngsters who feel that they are grown up because they are leaving the faith for the human sacrifice of the Obama culture. Yet, I’m told by older Mexicans that, instead, the faith is very strong in Mexico, and among the Mexicans here in the U.S.A.
In this series, I would like to draw an analogy of the oppression of the Obama administration, the Obama Laws as compared to the laws of the president of Mexico at the time. Don’t be fooled. Obama’s attack on religious freedom is, he says, “only” aimed at conscience in the public square, but letting you worship in a church, but trying to force you into, for instance, formal cooperation with abortion, having you pay for that through “health” insurance. He doesn’t realize that the Body of Christ which is offered in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offended by the abortion of the members of the Body of Christ because of his death mongering. The reality is that when once conscience is outlawed and this is reconfirmed a reelection of Obama, and when once there is civil disobedience by Catholics, led by the bishops, then don’t think that there won’t also be a ban on worship. Churches closing, etc. Just like in Mexico.
But Father! But Father! It couldn’t happen here! We’re NICE!
No, we’re not nice. Even Catholics sacrifice their children in abortion and with abortifacient pills and injections and implants, just as much as non-Catholics. Some repent. And that is super wonderful. But, just to say, kids are being sacrificed by the tens of millions. This cannot go on. A persecution wrought by those who have such blood on their hands is already in the works, if you haven’t noticed already with the HHS mandate. Having such blood on their hands makes it really, really easy to take the next step against those who would proclaim the right to life, the preciousness of life, the beauty of life.
When people are being murdered in their churches and in their homes in their tens and tens and tens of thousands, do they have a right to self-defense?
Accompany me, Father George David Byers, S.S.L., S.T.D., as I begin life as a Catholic Priest-Hermit by choice. Holy Souls Hermitage is dedicated to the sanctification of my fellow priests, bishops, deacons & seminarians going through the purgatory of this life or the next. Prayer and sacrifice go up, of course, for both Benedict XVI and the next Successor of Saint Peter. 
I lived 30 miles from the Mexican border during the 1980′s. During a time when most American Catholics were… confused and luke warm, fully %80 of the population was Catholic, and I’m not talking about checking little boxes on census forms. I’m not even only talking about those who’s ancestors and family came from Mexico/Spain or South America. There were a lot of ethnic Jews who also converted to the Faith, and other scientists who had to work under unusual conditions who were also faithful Catholics.. It was the refugee’s vibrant faith and the very real reminders of persecution that probably kept minds so focused.
During that time, there was a priest in Mexico who was an activist against the persecutions. He attracted much detestation from the government. Indeed, we followed the news of his “antics” on the news for quite a while. Apparently, his brothers would dress up like a priest to confuse the Mexican Secret Service, and one of them was eventually killed because of his resemblance. In a final act of frustration, the secret service tried to kidnap him from his parish. This action was stymied by his flock, by the simple expedient of kidnapping him first.
To be fair, he was injured by gunfire, and the deacon of his church arranged for him to be smuggled across the border to get medical treatment. Rumor has it that he was so well known that even the American border patrol assisted in bringing the padre across. A parish in America hosted him as he recovered, welcoming him with open arms. He celebrated mass there, packing the church to the rafters.
However, as the good father was preparing to go back to Mexico, he received a letter from his bishop saying that he should stay in America. The local bishop sent him a letter of welcome. The priest was so alarmed that he wrote to John Paul II, begging to go back to his parish.
JP II that he greatly sympathized with him and his deep compassion for his flock, but that he should really be obedient to his bishop. He was soon made pastor of the parish that hosted him.
And yes, he did naturalize to be an American citizen, but in those days refugees were treated differently, *acted* differently than your average illegals, and were not hiding from *our* government, at least not where I lived.
One of the most common bits of graffiti one would see in the Old Town (where a lot of Hispanics lived who’d lived there since the Spaniards came to town, as well as many refugees) was “Viva Cristo Rey”. When the overall city passed a graffiti ordinance, all the local shop keepers made a big fuss and insisted–nay demanded– that the police ignore the art, and stated that each expression was a shrine to the unknown martyrs in Mexico. What might surprise you more, is that the popular movement stuck.
I also remember that there were many poor refugees who lived in caves near the dump, and would go there to find food and things to sell. My father used to take clean bottled water and sandwiches to them when we went to leave our trash.
It really is a different country now.
Wow. Thaks for sharing that with us, fontofworlds.
Thank you, Father, and @fontofworlds for sharing. Father, I know you stated you’re no expert, but if you had some time to discuss the Just War Theory, I think some (obviously myself!) would be very interested in reading. I’ve been rather perplexed at voting guides put out by Catholic organizations. Certainly, abortion and euthanasia are key voting issues and no Catholic should ever knowingly support a candidate in favor of them. I noticed that on the same list was a few other issues, including school vouchers. No where was there any mention of war–something that is not only bankrupting our country ($1 million per year per soldier in Afghanistan), but is very questionable in terms of its morality and whether its Just. I think more priests should be speaking about this and the faithful should be more closely examining.
Hello Maryam: From what I understand, a just war is not a war of aggression, but a war of defence, that is, for one’s own country against the unjust aggression of another country, or for another country which invites your country to help defend them.
Cardinal Bernadine infamously came up with what I think is a rather cynical phrase: “The Seamless Garment”. That, of course, was the Lord’s garment which the soldiers threw dice for while He hung tortured on the across above them. The Cardinal’s idea wasa that all issues have the same moral significance. That, of course, is not true. School vouchers are not the same as millions of people dying.
Politicians say one thing and do another. I don’t know the geo-aggressional significance of the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the true circumstances of the oppression they brought to the Afghan people or neighboring countries, or if they truly a hotbed of terrorism with world wide significance, etc.
Of course, one principle of the just war theory is that you can’t do more harm in the defense!
Thank you, Father. Interesting to know of Cardinal Bernandine’s phrase about the ‘seamless garment’. Based on what you’ve written about Just War Theory, and based on reading what I have of it from some of the early Church Fathers, it seems then that fighting the Taliban would not be considered a Just War, since the Taliban never attacked the U.S. Invading Afghanistan is perhaps justifiable, given that it was initially after an individual who himself claimed credit for the 9/11 attacks and who was believed to have been hiding out in Afghanistan, but I can’t see the continued military presence there and lives lost being Just. According to the same principles, Iraq doesn’t meet the criteria either, since they also did not attack us (and, even more tragically, the entire reason for invasion seems to be a deception). I guess the US dropping atomic bombs on Japan also was unjust –not that we went to war, but how we did it–because we did much more harm in the defense than the aggressor did.
This is all based on my understanding of the Just War Theory, of course I’m no expert at all, and very open to hearing other thoughts.
I realize war is evil but sometimes necessary, and unlike abortion it’s not *always* intrinsically evil. But I’d really like to hear more priests delving into it, like you just began to here. If we want a truly pro-life culture, we should seriously think about other issues that affect life, including war.
Thank you for taking the time to respond, I very much like reading your blog. God bless you and you’re in my prayers.
Hello Maryam: Where were those WMDs? I must say, however, that it was quite annoying to be living in Jerusalem during the first Gulf war. A scud missile set off a car alarm just outside where I was staying. The Kurds had also been getting slaughtered even by gas. So, Israel was justly worried that any of those missiles might have had WMDs. And then there were invasions of Kuwait, etc…. Having said that, it does seem to have been about oil, with human rights abuses being an excuse… But this is way out of my expertise. Yet, I’ll still try to say something about the Cristeros and an analogy with Obama. I hope…
Of course, we are talking tens and tens of millions of aborted people when it comes to Obama and Obamacare, as well as the forced euthanasia that it will soon bring.
Hello Father, would love to read more about your time living in Jerusalem during the first Gulf War. Did you ever write about it on your blog? I understand Israel being worried, but I also think they’re in a perpetual state of paranoia that they themselves created by going about creating their country the way they did. It’s the means that they achieved it more than the arguable need to create such a place. But this is another story.
The way I am looking at the issue of a Just War ties in very much to my beliefs about abortion. Yes, nothing in the world compares to the slaughter of millions upon millions of unborn children. I suppose the only thing that might compare is if one president was against abortion in the US but, if elected, would drop a nuclear bomb on all of China and decimate over one billion people for no reason (thus making it evil); and the other allowed abortion in the US for his four year term and would not drop a nuclear bomb on China, then it would seem one would have to vote for the leader whose party would protect the most people. A terrible choice, and one I doubt we’d ever have to make, but what do you think?
So abortion is always wrong, always intrinsically evil, and huge numbers of children are dying in the US alone as a result of it every day, to say nothing of forced euthanasia. But I guess my point is that, because abortion is a great evil and endangers/systematically eliminates the most vulnerable members of our society–doesn’t the Taliban, al Qaeda, all the other perhaps loosely defined or understood groups falling under the wide umbrella of ‘terrorism’– pale in comparison? And if they do pale in comparison, why then are we not thinking more about whether wars against such entities (not states or government) are Just and whether all the lives lost–both US and all the innocent kids, women and other civilians killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq–was okay?
It’s just something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately as I’ve been reading more about the Just War Theory. Thanks so much, Father, for covering Cristeros, would really love to see it one day!
I can’t imagine living in dhimmitude under the Taliban in Afghanistan, especially as a woman, especially as a non-Muslim. Yikes! The best one to ask about all this would be Robert Spencer at http://www.jihadwatch.org/
Ok. Someone asked where the WMDs were. I can tell you exactly where they were. Yes, they were invented, but NOT by the Former President, nor the CIA, nor some wonk in the White House to justify murder. They were invented by some poor benighted soul who had to serve under the vicious tyrant named Saddam Hussein. Remember him? The deal was, he WANTED WMDs, but did not have the resources to make them.
Everybody in the finance/technology division of the Iraqi state knew this. Saddam did not, and no one wanted to tell him. If you said no to Saddam for any reason, then you were tossed in a machine and tortured to death. If you managed to survive the experience of either nay saying or the torture, then your family was next. So they convinced him that he had them when he did not. They were so phenomenally convincing that they convinced the CIA, Israel, and and 9/10ths of the International Community.
We should not blame certain administrations for this hoax… it was simply a means for some desperate people to survive another day, that had startling international consequences.