s i g no f p e a c e SPRING 2007 VOLUME 6.1 Journal ...

s i gno f p e a c et h e SPRING 2007 VOLUME 6.1

Journal of the Catholic Peace Fellowship

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Journal of the Catholic Peace Fellowship

SPRING 2007 VOLUME 6.1

The Life andWitness ofBen Salmon

Fr. Emmanuel CharlesMcCarthy on Benedict XVIand God’s “way of being”

An Air Force veteran onCatholics killing Catholics

CPF goes to Rome

A scientist looks at theethics of recruiting practices

s i gno f p e a c e

The remarkable story ofa husband, father andCatholic resister of theGreat War

I am 20 years old and was honor-ably discharged from the Navy onFebruary 12t h as a conscientiousobjector (CO). My beliefs about warcrystallized while on deployment. Ididn't have very many resources atmy disposal to go about applying forCO status. However, I was able tofind websites like yours that offeredinvaluable support and information.

I...have begun looking at a possi-ble vocation as a priest in theChurch. I admit I wasn't a verystrong or devout Catholic beforegoing through the often-confusingstruggle of trying to find what Ibelieve in. I now feel I have beenbrought closer to God and the teach-ings of Jesus more than ever. Thankyou for all that you are doing in andout of the Church….God Bless.

-Daniel Baker

I was impressed by Mike Griffin’sarticle, “A Soldier's Decision” inAmerica magazine....We should starta petition to pressure the bishops toadd a section to the Catechism mak-

ing it clear that soldiers have theright to selective conscientiousobjection and... must evaluate thejustice of each war for themselves.

-Charles McCarthy

I began listening to Warcast forCatholics a couple of weeks ago,and was pleased to hear JoshuaCasteel on the last installment. LikeJoshua, I am a member of I r a qVeterans Against the War.Although I have not applied for COstatus since returning from Iraq (I'mdue to retire in two months anddon't want anything to slow theprocess), my experience of this warhas caused me not only to leave themilitary and to speak out againstthis war and its corporatism, but italso has led me to join the SecularFranciscans and work for peace andjustice within our faith.

-Andy

Please send letters to our P.O. Box orto [email protected]

4-5 Peace Briefs News compiled by the CPF staff.

6-8 Friendly Fire Jonathan Lace, a conscientious objector from the U.S. Air Force, reminds us of the oath we take when baptized into the Body of Christ.

9-16 The Life and Witness of Ben Salmon The CPF staff tells the story of one of only four Catholic American conscientious objectors during the First World War.

17 The Cardinal’s Letter Backs War From the Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Cardinal Gibbons’ letter to President Wilson offered full support for the war effort.

18-19 Ben Salmon and The Catholic Worker Excerpts from Salmon’s letter reprinted in the controversial January 1942 issue of the periodical.

20 Remembering Dad An interview with Ben’s daughter, Sr. Elizabeth Salmon, MM.

21 Ought a Husband, a Father...? Ben Peters reflects on Salmon’s decision and his duty as a family man.

22 Informed Consent? John Caraher compares the “all volunteer” military recruiting practices to the standards used in the ethical conduct of scientific research involving human subjects.

23 Coming Home A poem of American mourning, by Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr.

24-25 Benedict XVI Hails Nonviolence Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy offers his thoughts on the pope’s Angelus Address.

26 CPF Goes to Rome Michael Griffin, managing editor of The Sign of Peace,outlines CPF’s objectives as he, Iraq War vet Joshua Casteel, and CPF co-founder Tom Cornell prepare to meet Vatican officials.

s i gnof p e a c eED I T O RMichael J. Baxter

MA N A G I N G ED I T O RMike Griffin

ASSOCIATE EDITORSBrenna CussenDavid GriffithMary Margaret C. NussbaumBenjamin PetersMargaret PfeilJoel SchornMichael Schorsch

EDITORIAL BOARDFrederick C. BauerschmidtTom CornellJim ForestMichael GarveyKelly JohnsonJeremy LangfordBill OfenlochPatrick O’NeillShawn T. StorerJulianne WileyMark and Louise Zwick

WEB TEAMJim BilekNate Wills, cscJustin Wozniak

The Sign of Peace is publishedperiodically throughout the year.Subscription is $5 per issue. To submit letters to the editor, address changes, manuscript submissions, or questions, contact:

The Sign of PeaceBOX 4232SOUTH BEND, IN 46634TEL: 574.232.2811Email:[email protected]

Cover art by Fr. William HartMcNichols, with permission.

Visit us at www.catholicpeacefellowship.org

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S P R I N G 2 0 0 7 · V O L 6 . 1

letters

contents

The most recent results of the Yearbook of American Churches have just been pub-lished. The Yearbook marks the rise in numbers for the mega-churches acrossthe land, yet it reports that there still really is only one mega-church.

Catholics in the United States grew another two percent in 2006 and now numbernearly seventy million. The second largest religious group, the Southern Baptists,came in at just over sixteen million.

And it doesn’t stop there. Other statistics show that Catholics are over-represent-ed at some of the highest levels of power. Five of nine Supreme Court Justices areCatholic. The Congress, the Administration, and the military also teem with sons anddaughters of Rome.

Has this ushered in the long-awaited “Catholic moment” when the Church’s wis-dom finally coincides with U.S. policies?

No, it’s business as usual here in America. The number of children slaughtered inabortion is holding steady, the country’s death chambers are in regular use, and wehave passed yet another anniversary (March 19, Feast of St. Joseph) of an aggressivewar that the Vatican has labeled “illegal, immoral, and unjust.”

Yet that war could not have been launched without the massive cooperation of Catholics. We are close to one-third of the military, over thirty percent of military brass. And that brass has its own kept Catholic theologians,who did their duty by telling us to rally behind the push for war in Iraq.

To be sure, many Catholic voices did raise concern. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops raised “grave moralquestions” and lobbied the Bush Administration, and the U.S. Cardinals visited Condoleeza Rice and supported thelast-minute plea by Cardinal Pio Laghi to President Bush.

All of these were fine efforts to exercise Catholic influence. Yet the moment has come to say that in times suchas these, our only real power lies in our ability to say “No”; in our ability to say, “Not with our bodies will you pur-sue your agenda of violence and greed.”

So why the reluctance of so many Catholics to speak such a “No” at this critical point?

There is a great story that Tom Cornell tells from his younger years that might shed some light on this question.He knew a landlord who happened also to be a Communist. The fellow was charging exorbitant rents. Tom chal-lenged him: “How can you square your actions with your rhetoric of social equality for all people?’

“Oh, that’s for when the revolution comes,” replied the Communist. “But it’s not here yet.”Many of us Catholics act in the same manner. “Sure, peace is the mark of the Kingdom of God, but the Kingdom

is not here yet.” This view reduces the Sermon on the Mount and its hard sayings to a marginal ethic that is notmeant to be practiced here and now.

“Say ‘no’ to warmaking in a risky way?” we ask. “That’s for when the Kingdom comes.”It is clear that Christ anticipated our response—He constantly reaffirmed that the Kingdom of God is at hand;

the Kingdom of God is within us, among us, in our midst—here, there, now, and then. Let us live it!

Ben Salmon—the central figure in this issue of The Sign of Peace—is a shining example of one who chose to livein the Kingdom now. So great was his commitment to the Kingdom, he referred to himself as a member of “thearmy of Peace.” Following Salmon’s lead, the Catholic Peace Fellowship has adopted the ancient Christian militarysymbol, known as the chi-rho (pictured above left), in its new logo. Originally associated with the EmperorConstantine’s victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 313 AD, we hope to claim this symbol as the standardof a different army—the army of Peace, the army of Christ—and to follow Christ's example of waging war on anyform of evil. And in the words of Salmon, “The surest way to overcome the Evil of War is by the Good of Peace, asteadfast refusal to ‘render evil for evil.’” We urge you to reflect on Ben Salmon’s great “No,” and to take his exam-ple of holiness to heart.

—The Editors

The Theology of “No”

4 T H E S I G N O F P E A C E · S P R I N G 2 0 0 7

Judge Declares Mistrial in CO Court MartialThe February 7th court martial of Lt. Ehren Watada,

the first commissioned officer to publicly refusedeployment to the Iraq War and occupation, came to anabrupt halt when the military judge nullified theStipulation of Facts accepted by the prosecution and thedefense a week before the trial commenced. The judgegranted the prosecution's motion for a mistrial, with anew trial set for March 19, 2007—the fourth anniver-sary of the resumption of declared war in Iraq.According to Eric Seitz, Lt. Watada's attorney, “The mis-trial is very likely to have the consequence of endingthis case because double jeopardy may prevent the gov-ernment from proceeding with a retrial.”

Military judge Lt. Col. John Head had gone toextraordinary lengths to try to keep Watada from

achieving his objective of “put-ting the war on trial,” ruling thatWatada's motivations for refus-ing to deploy with his unit were“irrelevant” and that no witness-es could testify on the illegalityof the war.

Prosecutors wanted Lt. Col.Head to find that Watada hadagreed to pretrial stipulationsthat he had violated his dutywhen he refused to show up formovement to Iraq in June 2006.Though Watada acknowledged

that he failed to deploy with his unit, he made clear thathe believed his duty, under his oath and military law,was to refuse to participate in an illegal war. The judge,realizing there was confusion, declared the mistrial, say-ing “the stipulation amounted to a confession” althoughWatada had “intended to plead not guilty.”

Even though faced with the issue of double jeopardy,which prohibits a person from being tried twice for thesame crime, the prosecution is free to go forward on thecharges it set aside in the now-nullified agreement. In anew trial, however, Watada might be allowed to explainhis motivations to a jury.

Catholic Workers Try to Shut DownGuantánamo: Declare Int’l Day of Action

On January 11, 2007, the fifth anniversary of thefirst prisoners being brought to Guantánamo, two hun-dred men and women dressed in hoods and orangejumpsuits, representing the prisoners of Guantánamo,joined by three-hundred supporters, marched throughthe streets of Washington, D.C., winding a path from

the Capitol to theSupreme Court andending at the U.S.Federal DistrictC o u r t h o u s e .Throughout themorning, othersentered the court-house to file habeas corpus petitions and await the pres-entation of the prisoners.

After filing a motion with the Chief Judge of theFederal Court, activists gathered inside the atrium ofthe courthouse and began reading the litany of prison-ers. Many dropped banners reading “Shut DownGuantánamo” from the balconies overlooking the atri-um. Forty people representing detainees tried to enterthe courthouse for their “day in court.” They weredenied access and proceeded to block the entrance tothe building, which they occupied for several hours. Atotal of ninety activists were arrested.

There were over one hundred protests held through-out the world to mark the day. The protests were organ-ized by Witness Against Torture, a group of Christiansthat marched to Guantánamo prison in December 2005.

Iraq Veteran, Prisoner of ConscienceAgustín Aguayo, a 35-year-old Army medic and con-

scientious objector (CO), was convicted on March 6,2007 of desertion and missing movement. Although hefaced a maximum of seven years in prison, Agustín wassentenced to eight months in the brig for following hisconscience and refusing to participate in war.

Nearly three years ago, Agustín applied for a CO dis-charge from the Army and later served a full year inIraq, all the while refusing to load his weapon. NowAgustín's wife, mother, and two eleven-year-old daugh-ters are leading a grassroots campaign for justice andfreedom for him and all GI war resisters.

“I don’t think it is acceptable to God for humans todestroy each other in this senseless war,” said Aguayo ina press conference before he turned himself in toauthorities. “Some people would call me a coward, but Ican tell them that I was there, and I did my job, and Iwas not afraid. But I cannot be there anymore. I cannotsupport the destruction of life.”

Vatican Says Death Penalty Violates GospelTeaching of Forgiveness

The Holy See says that it is difficult to justify the useof the death penalty today and warns that the practice

Peace BriefsNews Compiled by the CPF Staff

Watada

is an affront to human dignity and “the evangelicalteaching of forgiveness.” The declaration was issuedduring the course of a world congress on the deathpenalty in Paris in February.

The paper stated, “The Holy See takes this occasionto welcome and affirm again its support for all initia-tives aimed at defending the inherent and inviolablevalue of all human life from conception to naturaldeath,” and said every decision to use the death penaltycarried “numerous risks,” including “the danger of pun-ishing innocent persons” and the possibility of “pro-moting violent forms of revenge rather than a truesense of social justice.”

It also noted concerns raised in many parts of theworld over “recent executions,” likely referring to thehanging of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein andother former officials of Iraq.

A capital execution, it said, is “a clear offense againstthe inviolability of human life” and can contribute to “aculture of violence and death.”

GI Rights UpdateJanuary 2007 was one of the busiest months yet for

CPF's branch of the GI Rights Hotline, which takes callsfrom Indiana, Ohio, and parts of Michigan and Illinois.During one stretch, we received calls from fifteen totwenty distinct callers each day, far more than usual.

The last few months have also seen an increase in therate of inquiries about conscientious objection (CO).However, few of these service members actually com-plete applications for CO dis-charges. This is in partbecause the applicationprocess is so arduous, and inpart because many of thesesoldiers are opposed to fight-ing only in unjust wars,which makes them selectiveconscientious objectors (SCOs), and disqualifies themfrom being discharged under current regulations. Thoseinterested in promoting national legislation to protectthe rights of SCOs should contact the Center onConscience and War (www.centeronconscience.org).

Over 1,000 GIs Sign ‘Appeal for Redress’1,270 active-duty and reserve members of the U.S.

military have petitioned Congress to withdrawAmerican troops from Iraq. “Just because we volun-teered for the military doesn't mean we volunteered toput our lives in unnecessary harm and to carry out mis-sions that are illogical and immoral,” says Marine Sgt.Liam Madden, who helped found the organizationcalled ‘Appeal for Redress.’

The appeal calls for a full withdrawal of the troopsfrom Iraq: “As a patriotic American proud to serve thenation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political lead-

ers in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of allAmerican military forces and bases from Iraq. Stayingin Iraq will not work and is not worth the price.”

A 1995 law, the Military Whistleblower Act, enablesmilitary personnel to express their opinions in protect-ed communication directly to Congress.

U.S. Religious Leaders Travel to IranFrom February 17-25, a delegation of Christian lead-

ers from the United States visited Iran to meet withIranian religious and political leaders in the hope ofimproving relations between Iran and the U.S. The del-egation, which consisted of leaders from from UnitedMethodist, Episcopal, Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical,Quaker, and Mennonite traditions, believe that militaryaction is not the answer to current problems.

During the visit, delegates met with Iranian citizens,various Muslim and Christian leaders, and governmentofficials, including former President Khatami and cur-rent President Ahmadinejad. The meeting withPresident Ahmadinejad was the first time an Americandelegation had met in Iran with an Iranian presidentsince the Islamic revolution in 1979. PresidentAhmadinejad insisted that Iran has no intention toacquire or use nuclear weapons. “I have no reservationabout conducting talks with American officials if we seesome goodwill,” he said.

The American delegation calls on its government towelcome a similar group of Iranian religious leaders tothe United States. They also call upon both the U.S. andIranian governments to immediately engage in direct,face-to-face talks, to cease using language that definesthe other using “enemy” images, and promote morepeople-to-people exchanges that include religious lead-ers, members of Parliament/Congress, and civil society.

Iraqi Catholics Making More SacrificesChristians in Iraq have been asked by their bishops to

witness to the peace of Christ in their behavior and atti-tudes and to add Lenten sacrifices to the daily priva-tions they already experience as an offering to God.Such privations include lack of drinking water, food,medicines, and electricity—a direct result of the twoU.S. invasions and the twelve years of sanctions placedon Iraq, both of which targeted civilian infrastructure.

“We have asked our faithful to offer. . .[their] difficul-ties to God so that he will keep present the fate of Iraq,its children, its sick, its elderly, and peace and security,”said Auxiliary Bishop Warduni of Baghdad.

Because of danger, masses are no longer celebratedregularly. For Lenten celebrations, the prelate said, “Wehave asked our faithful to meet in homes to do littleStations of the Cross, to pray the Rosary or Vesperswith the help of a committed layman or subdeacon.”

Nevertheless, the Church in Iraq is “full of hope inthe Lord,” he said.

T H E S I G N O F P E A C E · S P R I N G 2 0 0 7 5

As a theologian, a veteran, and a conscientiousobjector, I believe that Catholics should refrainfrom military service because such service allows

for the idolatrous possibility of Christians violatingtheir Baptismal oath by killing other Christians. Howdid I come to this conclusion? To answer this question,let us look at Baptism as it is described in the NewTestament and early Christian literature.

Family TiesAt Baptism, Catholics confess their faith in the

Trinitarian God and pledge their loyalty to Jesus asLord. They become “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, aholy nation...the people of God” (1 Peter 2). As twenty-first century Americans living in a democracy, we some-times miss the political overtones these statementswould have carried to those who first heard them. In asingle sentence, with enormous political implications,Paul tells the Philippians that their “citizenship is inheaven” (3:20). The second century Letter to Diognetusconfirms this radical understanding of Christian identi-ty: “They live in their own countries, but only assojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens,and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every for-eign country is a fatherland to them, and every father-land is foreign” (5:5). Such language downplays tradi-tional and modern ideals of patriotism. For this reason,most Romans looked upon Christianity with suspicionand initially classified it as a religio illicita (an illegalcult); it appeared to be a subtle form of treason whichthreatened the stability of the empire by relativizing allother commitments. After all, Christianity’s Foundertaught that loyalty to him ran deeper than familybonds: “He who loves father or mother...son or daugh-ter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:37).People who subscribed to such radical claims wereunderstandably seen as spreading a hubris that threat-ened the “family values” of Greco-Roman culture, not tomention the status of Caesar as “Lord.”

In addition to pledging loyalty to Christ, at Baptism,Catholics become members of the Church and one

another. In the New Testament, the metaphor of theChurch being the “body of Christ” is used by St. Paul.According to him, followers of Christ are existentiallyinterwoven into each other’s lives: “...there may be nodiscord in the body...the members may have the samecare for one another. If one member suffers, all suffertogether; if one member is honored, all rejoice together”(1 Cor 12: 25-6). This image of the body has a directconnection to the Eucharist: “Because there is onebread, we who are many are one body, for we all partakeof the one bread” (1 Cor 10:17). St. Augustine makesthis member-Eucharist connection in his sermonaddressed to catechumens: “If, then, you are Christ’sbody and his members, it is your symbol that lies on theLord’s altar—what you receive is a symbol of yourself”(272). According to this line of thinking, the utmostreverence given to the Eucharist by Catholics at Massshould be given to each other; we become what we eat,the body of Christ.

Understood in the light of the loyalty to Christ andunion with other Christians, the Baptismal oath tran-scends, though does not terminate, all other loyalties,relationships, and measures of justice.

What This Means TodayLast year, the Lebanese Catholic community

expressed concern at the American support for theIsraeli offensive in Lebanon. The U.S. Bishops repeated-ly appealed to the Bush Administration to call for acease-fire; in addition to the general humanitarian crisisit created, the Israeli offensive was destroying the livesand livelihood of Catholics. Cardinal McCarrick, retiredarchbishop of Washington, described a “lesson in frus-tration.” After his August meeting with two Muslimleaders from Beirut was cancelled to due to warnings ofan impending Israeli attack, he said, “Lebanon has thelargest Christian population in the Middle East andwe’re losing that. . . .The people are going to leavebecause they cannot work. There is no gas for the cars;there isn’t food to eat. We don’t know how they aregoing to open the schools” (Catholic News Service, “U.S.Cardinal describes ‘lesson in frustration’ in Lebanonvisit” August 10, 2006). Indeed, the wars of recent yearsand decades have hurt the Church not only in Lebanon,but throughout the region, leading to an unprecedentedexodus of native Catholics from the Middle East.

That there are Catholics in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine,

On Catholics killing Catholics

Friendly FireB Y J O N A T H A N D . L A C E

Jonathan Lace teaches Theology at Seton Hall Preparatoryschool in New Jersey. He is an Air Force veteran, honorably dis -charged for conscientious objection. He has an M.T.S. fromEmory University, and was received into the Catholic ChurchEaster 2006.


and elsewhere in the Middle East should not be news tomost Catholics in the United States. However, the factthat American Catholics have inadvertently aided in thedestruction of native Middle Eastern Catholic commu-nities should at least be scandalous to most Catholics.The fact that it is not is a sure sign that the Baptismaloath has in some way been compromised; an illusionmade harder to discern by the terrorist attacks of Sept.11th. It seems that mutual “Eucharistic” reverenceinherent in Catholic identity has been superseded bysecular loyalties which ought to be secondary to theBaptismal oath: an elusive idolatry.

The teaching of the Church does not sufficientlyaddress the possibility ofCatholics killing otherCatholics in defense of whattheir respective states con-sider to be their own “com-mon goods.” This is my cri-tique of the “Just War”teaching contained in theCatechism. As a strategywhich prioritizes the mini-mum use of force, the JustWar theory is a remarkablecontribution to theadvancement of interna-tional policy-making andmilitary planning.However, Church teachingseems to assume that thisdoctrine is compatible withthe Baptismal oath anddoesn’t question whether ornot such a measure of jus-tice can be reconciled with amore specific theologicalunderstanding of theChurch as a sacramentallyunited society in its ownright. Paul rebuked theCorinthians for daring tosettle their disputes beforesecular courts: “To have lawsuits at all with one anotheris a defeat for you” (1 Cor 6:7). What would he sayabout them killing each other to promote a “commongood?”

Does the Catholic responsibility to promote the com-mon good trump the Eucharistic call to be “members ofone another?” If so, Catholics have inadvertently madean idol of the state by allowing it to relativize theirBaptism. The priority of the Baptismal oath is preciselywhy early Christian thinkers, such as Irenaeus, Origen,Hippolytus, and Tertullian, found it difficult to recon-cile military service with membership in the Church:pledging loyalty to the defense of a system which doesnot have a universalized concept of “neighbor” couldjeopardize the oath itself.

Citizens of HeavenEarly in the third century A.D., the aforementioned

Origen of Alexandria responded to charges made seven-ty years earlier by the social critic, Celsus, who claimedthat Christians neglected the public welfare of theRoman empire. He criticized Christians, declaring “...ifall were to do the same as you [Christians]...the affairsof the earth would fall into the hands of the wildest andmost lawless barbarians...” (Against Celsus, IV.68).Origen’s response? If everyone acted like Christians,there would simply be no barbarians. To the critiquethat Christians did not serve the common good throughmilitary service, but should, Origen’s response deserves

a full rendering:

“And to those ene-mies of our faith whorequire us to bear armsfor the commonwealth,and to slay men, we canreply: ‘Do not thosewho are priests at cer-tain shrines and thosewho attend on certaingods, as you accountthem, keep their handsfree from blood, thatthey may with handsunstained and freefrom human bloodoffer the appointedsacrifices to your gods;and even when war isupon you, you neverenlist the priests in thearmy. If that, then, is alaudable custom, howmuch more so, thatwhile others areengaged in battle, thesetoo should engage asthe priests and minis-ters of God, keeping

their hands pure, and wrestling in prayers toGod on behalf of those who are fighting in arighteous cause. . . .We do take our part in pub-lic affairs, when along with righteous prayerswe join self-denying exercises and medita-tions, which teach us to despise pleasures, andnot to be led away by them. And none fightbetter for the emperor than we do. We do notindeed fight under him, although he require it;but we fight on his behalf, forming a specialarmy—an army of piety—by offering ourprayers to God’” (Against Celsus, IV.73).

For Origen, Christians did work for the commongood—by keeping their hands free from bloodshed (like

Icon of Jesus’ Baptism, Constantinople, c. 1050-1100


all good pagan priests)and praying for the suc-cess of “just” militarycampaigns. While hisdefense was more con-cerned with bloodshed ingeneral and notwith-standing whatever elsemay be said about hisaccount of promotingthe common good, twothings are clear: 1) byavoiding military service,Christians avoid blood-shed and therefore thepossibility of killing eachother and 2) theBaptismal oath tran-scends other measures ofjustice, relativizing them without denying their necessi-ty in the world. Origen did not deny the fact that theRoman legions could undertake “just” campaigns, buthe refused to allow the justice of such efforts to rela-tivize the sacramental union of Christians.

Living Our BaptismThe Baptismal oath made by Catholics to follow

Jesus as Lord and live as members of one another tran-

scends (not terminates) all other loyalties, relation-ships, and measures of justice. Thus, a Catholic maylive as a citizen of his or her respective nation, but notto the extent that doing so violates the Baptismal oath.At the very least, being members of one another andconfessing Jesus as Lord means that Christians shouldnot kill each other in service to the state, a possibilityfor which military service allows. Promoting the com-mon good as understood politically is, indeed, a goodthing. But it is not so good when doing so comes at theexpense of the common good of the Church.

According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishopsin their 1968 letter Human Life In Our Day, some teach-ings of the Church are “noninfallible” and there are“Licit Norms Of Dissent” from those teachings. Thecurrent Just War theory is one example of noninfallibleteaching and an example of how the Church’s leader-ship is still slow to (using the Holy Father’s word) “real-ize” the priority of the Baptismal oath in the promotionof the common good. And it is the lack of considerationof this matter in current Just War teachings that isproblematic to Catholic identity. Do nations have anatural right to military force to ensure security andjustice? Yes. Does the Church recognize this? Yes—but not at the expense of her allegiance to her Lord inher members. The Church may not be able to stopnations from attacking each other, but it should at leastbe able to prevent its own “dismemberment.”

Now you can advertise books, events and resources in The Sign of Peaceat affordable rates. Contact us for details.

Does the Catholicesponsibility to promote the commongood trump theEucharistic call to be“members of oneanother?” If so,Catholics have inadver-tently made an idol ofthe state by allowing itto relativize theirBaptism.


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Two Letters

On April 6, 1917, PresidentWilson declared war onGermany and the Central

Powers. On the following day, thepresidential war declaration was rat-ified by Congress, so bringing thenation into the First World War, or,as it was called at the time, theGreat War.

On April 18, 1917, JamesCardinal Gibbons, Archbishop ofBaltimore and de facto head of theCatholic Church in the UnitedStates, sent a letter to PresidentWilson declaring that Catholicswould support the war effort (seepage 17). “Moved to the very depthsof our hearts,” he wrote, “by the stir-ring appeal of the President of theUnited States and by the action ofour national Congress, we accept

wholeheartedly and unreservedlythe decree of that legislative author-ity proclaiming this country to be ina state of war.” “We stand ready,”Gibbons assured Wilson, “we and allthe flock committed to our keeping,to cooperate in every way possiblewith our President and our nationalgovernment, to the end that thegreat and holy cause of liberty maytriumph, and that our beloved coun-try may emerge from this hour oftest stronger and nobler than ever.Our people, as ever, will rise as oneman to serve the nation.”

On June 5, 1917, Ben Salmon, aCatholic layman, a husband, and afather of three children, also sent aletter to President Wilson; butSalmon was stating his refusal tosubmit to conscription. “Regardlessof nationality,” he wrote, “all men

are my brothers. God is ‘our fatherwho art in heaven.’ The command-ment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is uncon-ditional and inexorable.” “Both byprecept and example,” Salmonexplained to Wilson, “the lowlyNazarene taught us the doctrine ofnon-resistance, and so convincedwas He of the soundness of thatdoctrine that he sealed His beliefwith death on the cross. . . . This let-ter is not written in a contumeliousspirit. But, when human law con-flicts with Divine law, my duty isclear. Conscience, my infallibleguide, impels me to tell you thatprison, death, or both, are infinitelypreferable to joining any branch ofthe Army.”

Here we have two different let-ters, written by two differentCatholics, stating two different


A WORD ON OUR SOURCESOnce the subject of national dispute, the case of Ben Salmon faded from memory until it was recalled in

the pages of The Catholic Worker: first, in 1937, in an article on conscientious objection, then again in 1942,when the paper published Salmon’s letter to President Wilson dated October 19, 1919 (see pages 16-17).

Salmon’s letter was read by sociologist Gordon Zahn, whose studies of German Catholics during WorldWar II, such as Franz Jägerstätter, have provided inspiration for Catholic peace activists. Zahn himself wasa World War II conscientious objector, performing alternative service at Camp Simon in New Hampshire.Needless to say, Zahn took moral support from Salmon’s witness.

In 1983, Zahn passed on Salmon’s “An Open Letter to President Wilson” to a graduate student by thename of Torin Finney at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. At Zahn’s urging, Finney dug up thearticles in The Catholic Worker, from which he learned that Salmon had a wife and three children. Finneymanaged to contact Salmon’s son, Charles, a priest in the Archdiocese of Denver, and two daughters—Elizabeth (born Geraldine), a Maryknoll sister, and Margaret, of Wheat Ridge, Colorado.

Mr. Finney then wrote Unsung Hero of the Great War: The Life and Witness of Ben Salmon (Paulist Press,1989). His sources also included the thick file on Salmon located in archives of the American Civil LibertiesUnion in Princeton, N.J., and the autobiographies of Ammon A. Hennacy and Howard W. Moore, a consci-entious objector who was imprisoned with Salmon during WWI. The facts of the story presented in thisarticle are taken largely from Mr. Finney’s fine book, which we heartily recommend. We also draw onRobert Ellsberg’s popular book All Saints, a daily reflection on the lives of 365 holy people (Crossroad, 1997).Finally, we also found a great source of family photos in Elaine Sugent, whom we thank.

The Life and Witness of Ben SalmonB Y T H E S T A F F O F T H E C A T H O L I C P E A C E F E L L O W S H I P

Ben Salmon (far right) at Fort Douglas, Utah in1919, along with other COs (left to right) MayerBernstein, Thomas Shotkin, and Jacob Schneider.

stances toward the nation’s entryinto the Great War, leading to twodifferent stories of faith and action,service and sacrifice, life and death.

Two StoriesThe story that began with

Cardinal Gibbons’ letterto President Wilson con-tinued in the months tofollow with the foundingof the National CatholicWar Council. The purposeof the War Council was tomobilize the Catholic pop-ulation to perform “warwork,” as it was called atthe time. The tasks takenup by the NationalCatholic War Councilincluded recruiting priestsfor the military chaplain-cy, establishing war coun-cils on the diocesan andparish levels, foundingCatholic chapters of theBoy Scouts of America,raising money for the wareffort, tending to thegraves of fallen soldiersoverseas, sending socialworkers overseas for post-war “relief work,” and amassing acomprehensive documentary recordof Catholic war and relief work forposterity (which can still be found ina basement room in Mullen Libraryat the Catholic University ofAmerica). Eventually, after a seriesof transformations, the War Councilbecame the National Conference ofCatholic Bishops and the UnitedStates Catholic Conference, thepredecessor organizations to theUnited States Conference ofCatholic Bishops which now oper-ates in Washington, D.C. For thisreason, the story of the foundingand work of the War Council is oftentold as a prelude to the rise of pro-gressive Catholicism in the UnitedStates, indeed, as a turning point inU.S. Catholic history, when theChurch made a crucial step towardentering into the mainstream of thenation.

But rather than tell the story of

Gibbons and the War Council, whichhas been told by many historians ofU.S. Catholicism, in the followingpages we tell the little-known storyof Ben Salmon. In doing so, we relyheavily on the biography written byTorin Finney, aptly entitled UnsungHero of the Great War: The Life and

Witness of Ben Salmon (Paulist Press,1989) [see box]. And we do so forsome of the same reasons thatFinney wrote his excellent biogra-phy: as he writes in the epilogue, totell a story that “challenges us totake a closer look at our own willing-ness—or unwillingness—to obeythe call of God in our lives.” In otherwords, our purpose in re-telling thestory of Ben Salmon is not only toprovide information about anexceptional life in the past, but alsoto provide inspiration and encour-agement in the present, so thatCatholics and others of this day andage may be inspired and encouragedto follow Salmon’s lead by resisting,out of loyalty to God and con-science, the nation at war.

Early LifeFirst, some facts about his early life.Benjamin Joseph Salmon was born

in Denver, Colorado in 1889. Hewas the third of four children, withan older sister, Mary, an olderbrother, Jack, and a younger broth-er, Joe. His parents were Irish-Canadian immigrants, bothCatholic. It was his mother,Catherine, who took him to Mass

every Sunday at HolyFamily Roman CatholicChurch, enrolled him inCatholic schools, and pro-vided him with an exam-ple of faithfulness thatinfluenced him in hisyouth. His first exposureto the military was duringthe Spanish AmericanWar, when he and hisbrother nursed a woundedveteran who was housedin the Salmon home. Likemost boys, he reveled inthe war stories he heard,but his mother was knownto have a dim view of mili-tary life which may haveaffected him. In any case,in his early teens, Salmon(and this is taken from his

own written recollec-tion) “began to wonderhow the Catholic Church

reconciled war with the command,‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

In 1907, after attending nightschool for a few years, Salmon tooka full-time job as an office clerk withthe Colorado and SouthernRailroad. It was during these yearsthat he was gradually transformedinto a labor “agitator” (his word).Colorado had been the site of bitterlabor struggles connected with theformation of the WesternFederation of Miners in 1892. Thestate militia was frequently dis-patched to break the strikes.Strikers, strike-breakers, and law-men alike were killed. The mostnotorious clashes occurred inTelluride, Colorado in 1901, andCripple Creek, Colorado in 1904,not long before Salmon first went towork. Moreover, at this time thecountry was being swept by the sin-gle-tax movement, as conceived byHenry George in his widely popular

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Ben is first row, far left, with brothers John and Joe, his sister Mary and cousin Ellen.

and revolutionary book Progress andPoverty (1879). Starting with thepremise that land is the true sourceof all wealth and productivity,George and his followers held thatthe cure for economic injustice layin eliminating all taxes except landtax. The details of single-tax theory(which, in the age of cyber-space,seems quaint at best) are not impor-tant for our purposes. What isimportant is that Salmon wasdeeply involved in the single-taxmovement, and he embraced theradical economic vision of its leader-ship and also, coupled with this, asharply critical view of the statewhich, as he saw it, exercised itsauthority in order to enforce theeconomic injustices of the statusquo. His view was gruesomely con-firmed on Easter Night in 1914,when striking coal miners wereattacked by the National Guard inLudlow, Colorado, leaving a dozenminers dead, plus thirteen of theirchildren and one pregnant woman.The Ludlow Massacre, as it wascalled, left Salmon outraged. In1915, he stepped up his activism forthe union, which cost him his job,and for the single-tax, which ledhim to run for the Colorado Statelegislature (he lost). Both efforts hesaw as part of the struggle for jus-

tice. But these were but a prelude tothe struggle to come.

The Great War in AmericaMany Americans voted for

Woodrow Wilson in 1916 becausethey regarded him as the one presi-dential candidate who would keepthe United States out of the war.Therefore, many Americans wereshocked when Wilson declared war afew months after his election. Yetdespite the formidable opposition,on May 18, 1917, the SelectiveService law was put into effect,requiring all able-bodied menbetween the ages of twenty-one andthirty-one to register at local induc-tion centers within thirty days. Animpressive array of liberal and radi-cal leftist groups rose quickly tooppose the draft and the war, butthese groups were quickly and effec-tively silenced. For one thing, thepresident’s description of the war asan effort “to make the world safe fordemocracy” generated quick andwidespread support. For another,the Wilson administration formedthe Committee for PublicInformation (CPI) in order tomanipulate the press and generatepopular support for the war. (Soonafter the war, the head of the CPI,

George Creel, recounted hisagency’s work in a book entitledHow We Advertised America). Andthen, on June 15, Congress passedthe Espionage Act, which imposed afine of $10,000 and/or twenty yearsin prison on anyone engaging inactivities “detrimental to the wareffort,” such as making public state-ments against the war, distributinganti-war literature, or promotingdraft resistance. Hundreds werearrested. Thousands were moni-tored and harassed. A number ofanti-war newspapers were censored(including The Masses, a monthlymagazine which employed a youngjournalist by the name of DorothyDay). In 1918, the legality of thesemeasures was upheld by theSupreme Court, which found thatfreedom of speech may be curbedwhen, in the memorable phrase ofJustice Oliver Wendell Holmes, itposes a “clear and present danger”to national security.

Salmon Takes His StandSalmon was one of those who

voted for Wilson to keep the nationout of the war. And he was one ofthose bitterly disappointed by thepresident’s declaration of war, byhis “change of colors,” as Salmonput it. So it is not surprising thatwhen Salmon registered for thedraft on June 5, 1917 (complyingwith the deadline set a few weeksbefore), he wrote the president a let-ter of protest that same day. Notlong after, he stepped out of hisleadership role in the single-taxmovement and took on a new roleas secretary of the Denver branch ofthe People’s Council of America forDemocracy and Peace, a nationalanti-war organization led by leftistactivists and intellectuals. He wrotemore letters to President Wilson,gave speeches from soap-boxes, anddistributed anti-war pamphlets,including one entitled “Ours Is theLand of Tyranny and Injustice,”which was censored by thePostmaster General in the fall of1917. That same fall, he marriedElizabeth Smith, whom he had met

T H E S I G N O F P E A C E · S P R I N G 2 0 0 7 1 1

Ben is on the left side of photo, standing behind his mother Catherine.

nine years before while working forthe railroad, but a conventionalmarried life was not in store for thenewlyweds. Salmon was acquiring areputation as a radical activist, notonly around Denver, but nationallytoo. On November 6, 1917, TheNew York Times described him as a“spy suspect,” probably on the basisof his letters to Wilson which thePostmaster had forwarded to thepapers. Then, on Christmas Day, hereceived the Army Questionnaireasking for information needed toprocess his draft registration. Hereturned it to his local Draft Boardthe next day with a letter stating hisrefusal to fill out the form. His let-ter concluded: “Let those thatbelieve in wholesale violation of thecommandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’make a profession of faith by joiningthe army of war. I am in the army ofPeace, and in this army I intend tolive and die.”

Arrest, Trial, ConvictionOn January 5, 1918, two Denver

policemen came to Salmon’s hometo arrest him. Members of the localDraft Board, some of whom knew ofhim and his beliefs, told him it wasin his best interest to complete theArmy Questionnaire. Salmonrefused. He was arrested andreleased on $2500 bond, pending

trial. The next day, Salmon distrib-uted a tract he wrote entitled“Killing the Wrong Men.” The gistof the article was captured in thetitle. “If killing has to be insistedupon,” he contended, “thoseresponsible for wars—kings, presi-dents, Kaisers, etc.,—should bemade to fight each other and notdrag millions of innocent youthsinto a game where they would becompelled to slaughter each other.”

The letter earned him expulsionfrom the Knights of Columbuschapter of his parish. The episodewas reported in a newspaper articledescribing him as a “slacker,” thestandard epithet for draft resistersat the time. Salmon had quicklybecome Denver’s most publicizedopponent of the war. On January 7,he sent a telegram to the NationalCivil Liberties Union in New YorkCity explaining his refusal to complywith the draft law and asking forassistance. Three days later camethe reply: “Supreme Court has heldconscription constitutional. No usefighting.” He fought anyway.

Salmon’s trial was held on March30, 1918. His attorneys argued thatthe Army Questionnaire was uncon-stitutional because it violated theirclient’s First Amendment right tofree exercise of religion. The argu-ment was to no avail. He was con-victed and sentenced to nine

months in the Denver County Jail.He appealed and was released againon $2500 bond, paid by a friend. OnMay 16, 1918, Salmon received adraft notice out of the blue, requir-ing him to report for training threedays later. He protested, claimingthat his case was being adjudicatedin the courts and that he had adependent wife and mother. TheDraft Board conceded that the situ-ation was fraught with “irregulari-ties,” but insisted that he mustreport on May 20. Salmon refused,and sent a messenger to inform thedraft board of his decision. Thatafternoon, he was arrested by theDenver municipal police. With noopportunity to consult with hisattorneys, he was immediatelyturned over to military authoritiesand placed in solitary confinementat Fort Logan, Colorado.

Prison and Court-MartialOn the morning of May 21, 1918,

Salmon was roused out of his celland dragged before the post com-mander. The commander demand-ed that Salmon join the work crewon the base. Salmon refused, insist-ing that he was not a soldier. Hewas put back into the guardhouseand all his belongings were taken.That evening, as Salmon wasbrought into the mess hall, the newrecruits chanted, “Get a rope! Get arope!” One of the guards handedhim a copy of a newspaper in whichnew inductees were quoted as say-ing that if he ever appeared inDenver again, they would “tieSalmon by the neck to the next trainto Fort Logan.” The next day,Salmon was put on a military trainto Camp Funston, Kansas. Afterabout two weeks there, he wasinformed that he would be tried bycourt-martial for “desertion andpropaganda.” Salmon protestedthat he had never actually beeninducted, but his argument fell ondeaf ears. On June 12, he wastransported to Camp Pawnee,Kansas, where he was placed indetention for three weeks. Fromthere, on July 2, he was transferred


Ben is on the far right, seated. The others in the picture (left to right): Ben's mother, CatherineReardon Salmon, brother Joe, father Michael Anthony, brother John (standing).

to Camp Dodge, Iowa, where heappeared before a ReviewBoard assigned to hear theclaims of all conscientiousobjectors in federal custody.The Board found him sincereand offered him a farm fur-lough and commutation of hissentence in Denver, if he wouldcooperate with military author-ities. Encouraged by the rul-ing, Salmon neverthelessrefused to cooperate with themilitary in any way.

On July 24, at Camp Dodge,Salmon was court-martialed.With no legal counsel available,Salmon presented his owndefense by arguing (1) that hehad been inducted illegally, (2)that he was responsible for adependent wife and mother,and (3) that conscription vio-lated the First and FifthAmendments of theConstitution. The court lis-tened and then, without taking arecess, found him guilty of desertionand propaganda: “desertion,” forrefusing to report for training, and“propaganda,” for distributing hisJune 5 letter to President Wilson tosome Hutterite Brethren also beingheld at the camp. He was sentencedto death, but then, without explana-tion, the sentence was commuted totwenty-five years of hard labor atFort Leavenworth, Kansas.

However, in late August, Salmonwas offered a position as first-classsergeant and legal clerk at CampDodge. If he accepted, he was told,his twenty-five year sentence wouldbe reversed. When he received thisoffer, he wrote to his wife telling herthe news. On September 6, shereplied, telling him that she hadgiven birth to their first son,Charles. She closed her letter bypleading with him to accept theoffer. Needless to say, her news andher plea sent him into deep conflict.After weeks of inner turmoil, hedecided not to accept the military’soffer, on the grounds that such non-combatant service would entailcooperating with an institution thatwas “antithetical to Christianity.”

Soon, he was transferred to a fifthplace of federal incarceration, FortLeavenworth, to begin his sentenceof twenty-five years at hard labor.He arrived at Leavenworth onOctober 9, 1918, his first weddinganniversary. Just over a monthlater, on November 11, Armisticewas declared and the war in Europewas over. But Ben Salmon’s prisonsentence was just beginning.

More Refusals, HardshipsAt Leavenworth, Salmon was

placed in the post guard-house with several hun-dred conscientious objec-tors. Initially, he workedin the prison commissary.But after several weeks ofreflection, he determinedthat he would not continueworking, so as not, as helater put it, “to aid thekilling machine.” Forrefusing to work, and fororganizing a protest of themisappropriation of fundsthat he discovered whileworking on the kitchenfinancial records, he wasplaced in the solitary con-finement cellblock, dubbedby prisoners as “the Hole.”This was on December 13,1918.

“The Hole” consisted ofseveral rows of small, five-by-nine-foot cells locatedover the prison sewer sys-

tem. The cells were damp and dark.Many lacked a bed or blankets.There were no toilets, only openingslocated at one end of the cell floor.The diet was restricted to bread andwater. At night, the prisoners werevisited by bedbugs and rats. Thestench from the flow of sewage wasconstant. Salmon suffered physical-ly. He suffered emotionally too, forin January of 1919, he learned ofthe death of his brother Joe amonth or so before. While Joe hadbeen traveling to visit Ben inLeavenworth, he got caught in ablizzard and contracted pneumonia.Ben spent more than five months inThe Hole, until April 29, when heand the other “absolutists,” as thetotal resisters were called, weremoved into regular cellblocks.

On June 23, 1919, the FortLeavenworth absolutists were hand-cuffed, loaded on to a military train,and sent to Fort Douglas, Utah. Thefort consisted of ten acres of long,wooden barracks surrounded byseven-foot-high barbed-wire fences,with towers at four corners andguards manning the towers withloaded machine guns. In mid-August, these 142 remaining abso-

“Let those that believe inwholesale violation of thecommandment ‘Thou shalt notkill’ make a profession of faithby joining the army of war. Iam in the army of Peace, andin this army I intend to live and die.”


Ben in Washington D.C. on July 11, 1921.


lutists were ordered to work. Only ahandful complied. The rest wereplaced in solitary confinement witha bread-and-water diet for twoweeks. Salmon was among them,for which his sentence was extendedanother eighteen months.Conditions at Fort Douglas wereharsh: “starvation, beatings, coldbaths in zero weather, bayoneting,were the order of the day,” Salmonlater recalled, belittling them as“petty persecutions.” In October, hewrote “An Open Letter to PresidentWilson,” detailing the mistreatmentof conscientious objectors in prisonand calling on Wilson to release theobjectors still being held, nowalmost a year after the end of thewar (see pages 16-17). In earlyDecember, a request for clemencywas submitted to the WarDepartment by John Salmon onbehalf of his younger brother, Ben.The request was refused. Salmonspent another Christmas in prison.

Hunger StrikeIn the early months of 1920,

Salmon spent much of his time writ-ing letters. He wrote one to theSecretary of the War Departmentdenouncing his incarceration. Hewrote another to an attorney inWashington, D.C., seeking assis-tance in applying for a writ ofhabeas corpus. He wrote yet anoth-

er to the American Civil LibertiesUnion (ACLU) in New York, tellingthem of his refusal to work and hisfailed legal efforts up to thatpoint—and of his plans to refusepreparing and eating food, as hesaw even these acts as forms of tacitcooperation with the military sys-tem he abhorred.

Salmon began his hunger strikeon July 13, 1920. Four days later,he wrote a letter to the Secretary ofWar, Newton D. Baker, among oth-ers, stating, “I have missed mymeals for four days, and I will con-tinue to starve until released by adischarge from prison or by death.”He went on to insist, “I am notdemented, but I tell you that unlessyou relieve me of the assistance thatmy imprisonment gives to mili-tarism, you will thereby cause mydeath from starvation, for I cannothonestly continue to support Mars[the Roman god of war] as I have inthe past, since I now fully realizethat even the tiny bit of assistancethat I was rendering in the way ofaccepting your food, was too much.”He contended that “Christ’s doc-trine to overcome evil with good”stands as “the most effective solu-tion for individual and societary illsthat has ever been formulated. It isa practical policy, because Christ isGod, and God is the supreme per-sonification of practicality.” Afterstoutly decrying the way he andother conscientious objectors werebeing treated by the military, hedeclared, “My life, my family, every-thing is now in the hands of God.His will be done.”

The hunger strike continued asthe days turned into weeks and theweeks turned into months. On July18, Salmon received a letter fromhis mother pleading with him to eat.On July 23, Salmon, believing thathe was near death, sent for a priest,but the priest refused to hear hisconfession, or give him communion,or anoint him, claiming that hisrefusal was suicidal and thus a mor-tal sin in the eyes of God and theChurch. Salmon responded that hisrefusal was no different than that ofthe Irish hunger strikers in British

jails, but the priest demurred. Thenext day, two priests came from SaltLake City to hear his confession andgive him communion. One dis-agreed with him nevertheless andsaid so. The other supported him,and was transferred to Oregon afterhis sympathies became known. OnJuly 25, Salmon was transferred tothe infirmary and force-fed. OnJuly 28, he was taken to Ogden,Utah. And on July 31, he was trans-ferred once again, this time toWashington, D.C., and was placed ina wing of St. Elizabeth’s CatholicHospital for the Insane.

Hospitalized and ReleasedBy the time Salmon was taken to

Washington, his case had beentaken on by the ACLU, which sentprotest appeals to the WarDepartment and contacted thepress. On August 4 and 5, a story onSalmon appeared in The New YorkTimes, and, in the weeks to follow, itgained national attention. TheACLU contacted prominent church-men, including Monsignor JohnRyan of Catholic University, whoagreed to see what he could do. OnOctober 2, his health deteriorating,Salmon was presented with anapplication for a writ of habeas cor-pus. On October 19, his case wasargued in the District of ColumbiaSuperior Court, but on October 27,the application for the writ wasturned down. He resolved to takehis case to the Supreme Court. Atthis point, Salmon’s cause waschampioned by several papers andgroups, including, remarkably, someof the members of the Knights ofColumbus chapter that had had himexpelled. On November 13, Salmonwas moved from St. Elizabeth’s toWalter Reed Government Hospital,where his mail was censored, his vis-itors were barred, and he was notallowed to use the phone to contacthis attorneys. Letters continued topour into the War Department, andin mid-November, Monsignor Ryanspoke directly with the Secretary ofWar. On November 24, the situa-tion was resolved. The War

“Christ’s doctrine to overcome

evil with good” stands as

“the most effective solution for

individual and societary ills

that has ever been formulated.

It is a practical policy, because

Christ is God, and God is the

supreme personification of

practicality.”

Department granted pardons tothirty-three conscientious objectorsremaining in federal custody. OnNovember 26, the day afterThanksgiving, Salmon gathered hisbelongings, signed his releasepapers, was handed a DishonorableDischarge from the Army, andwalked out of Walter Reed Hospitala free man.

The AftermathWhen Ben Salmon was released

in late November of 1920, his storywas featured in almost every majornewspaper in the country. It was aremarkable story indeed: from thetime he had taken his initial standin June of 1917, Salmon had beenarrested, tried, and convicted in acivilian court; he had been convictedby a military court as well, eventhough he had never been properlyinducted into the military, he hadbeen sent to military prison, wherehe had endured serious hardshipsfor refusing to cooperate with hisimprisonment, including extendedperiods of solitary confinement; allof this culminated in a hunger strikethat dragged on, due to a regime offorced feeding, for 135 days. It wasthe hunger strike, and the adversepublicity it brought for the WarDepartment, that led to Salmon’seventual release. Not that all thepublicity was in favor of Salmon; tothe contrary, several veteransgroups, particularly those located inhis hometown, promised retaliationagainst “Denver’s notorious slack-er,” as he was often called in thepress. The threat of further hostili-ty kept Salmon away from Denver.Moreover, his relationship with hiswife was strained, owing apparentlyto his decision years before not toaccept the military’s offer of releasein return for taking on non-combat-ant duties. At any rate, Salmondecided to move to Chicago, wherehis older sister Mary lived, and to goto work for the American FreedomFoundation, which was affiliatedwith the ACLU. Sometime the fol-lowing year, in 1922, his wifeElizabeth, and their son Charles,

joined him in Melrose Park, Illinois.The next year, their second child,Margaret, was born, and a couple ofyears after that, they had their thirdchild, Geraldine. By this time,Salmon went to work at theLindbergh Airport in Chicago—nota great job, but the best he could dowith a Dishonorable Discharge formthe Army. When the GreatDepression hit in 1929, the Salmonfamily’s economic difficulties wors-ened. Late in the year 1931, Bencontracted pneumonia, and, like hisbrother Joe, never recovered. Hestayed at home. On February 15,1932, attended by his wife and threechildren, Ben Salmon died.

A Faithful CatholicBen Salmon was a faithful

Catholic. He was baptized as aninfant and he grew up fortified bythe Sacraments. As a youth, he wasplaced in Catholic schools. As ayoung man, he joined the Knights ofColumbus in his home parish (untilhe was expelled for war resistance).When he wrote to President Wilsonto announce that he would be resist-ing military conscription, he citedthe commandment “thou shalt notkill,” and the teaching and exampleof Jesus. At his arrest, trial, andconviction, he defended his stand byreferring to his duty to keep thecommandments and to follow theteachings of Christ. In militaryprison, he understood his sufferingsto be a share in the sufferings ofChrist. He received priest-chaplainswho visited him in prison, even ifthey were there only to try to talkhim out of his war resistance. Hewas released from federal custody atthe urging of Church leaders. Forthe remainder of his life, he prayedhis daily prayers, stayed close to theSacraments, and kept the Lentenfast each year, including a three-dayfast at the Easter Triduum. His chil-dren were educated in Catholicschools. Finally, he was buried inthe Church after a Mass for theDead. His wife, for her part,remained a faithful Catholic untilher death, as did the Salmon chil-

dren, one of whom, Charles, becamea priest in Denver, while another,Geraldine, became a Maryknoll sis-ter, taking for her religious nameElizabeth (in memory of her moth-er). Again, he was a faithfulCatholic.

For Salmon, being a faithfulCatholic meant allowing the Light ofChrist to guide every aspect of hislife, particularly, of course, when itcame to the command of Christ tolove our enemies and to conquer evilwith good. And this meant chal-lenging the teaching of the Churchwhen it came to the morality of war.What is remarkable about Salmon isthat he investigated and challengedChurch teaching so thoroughly andconscientiously, with such intellec-tual honesty and seriousness. Thesequalities marked Salmon’s thinkingand acting throughout his ordeal,but nowhere were they so clearlydemonstrated as in the 200-pagestatement (single spaced) that hewrote while held at the insane asy-lum at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital inWashington, D.C. in October of1920.

The purpose of Salmon’s state-ment was to give an account of hisordeal since he had declared hisresistance to the war more thanthree years before. He opens with areview of his original stand, hisarrest, trial, and conviction, his sub-sequent incarceration, his refusal tocooperate with military authorities,and his encounters with the priest-chaplains who tried to dissuade himfrom his course. Then he launchesinto a lengthy intellectual defense ofhis conscientious objection to thewar, based on political, humanitari-an, and religious grounds.Regarding the political and humani-tarian grounds, he was rehearsingfrom memory many of the argu-ments he had developed before hisincarceration. But when it came tothe religious arguments against thewar, Salmon was able to workdirectly with several texts. He obvi-ously had access to scripture, for hisstatement includes direct quota-tions from Daniel, Matthew, andRomans. But he was also able (with


the help of one of his guards at thehospital and two secretaries of theKnights of Columbus) to gain accessto the article, “War,” from T h eCatholic Encyclopedia. Written by aFather Macksey, S.J., Professor ofEthics and Natural Right at theGregorian University in Rome, thearticle presents the standardCatholic teaching on the morality ofwar. Salmon quoted the article atgreat length (more than nine, sin-gle-spaced pages worth, meticulous-ly numbering the lines—496 linesin all), and then methodically, yettortuously, rebutted every impor-tant tenet of Macksey’s article, anexercise that took scores of pages of

single-spaced typescript. Salmon’s rebuttals are too

detailed to go into at length, but hiscentral claim is that just war theo-rists do not take seriously the teach-ing of Christ. “Man is anterior tothe state,” he wrote at one point.And “since God has forbidden himto kill, the State cannot confer theright to kill, and therefore thepower to order its citizens to slaugh-ter their fellow men is not vestedwith the State. God alone can issuesuch an order. Either Christ is a liaror war is never necessary, and veryproperly assuming that Christ toldthe truth, it follows that the State iswithout (and here he quotes fromFather Macksey) ‘judicial authority

to determine when war is neces-sary,’ because it is never necessary.”

While his argument might becontested by just-war theorists, it isbased on two uncontested Catholicpremises: that Christ taught us notto kill, and that the state has noright and thus no power to issue acommand to the contrary of Christ’steachings.

To state this argument in posi-tive terms, Christ has provided uswith all the means necessary toovercome evil. We are, in the wordsof St. Paul, to “overcome evil withgood” (Rom. 12:21). And Salmonwent on to explain the “philosophy”entailed in Paul’s teaching in a pas-sage that is worth quoting at length:

“In ordinary affairs of life,we apply this philosophy. Forinstance, we do not attempt toovercome lying with lies; weovercome it with truth. We donot try to overcome curses withcurses, but we overcome withsilence or with words of friend-ship. . . . Sickness is not over-come with sickness; it is over-come with health. If I cut myfinger, the remedy is not to cutanother finger, but to succorthe original wound. Anger isovercome with meekness, prideby humility. And the successfulway to overcome the evil of waris by the good of peace, a stead-fast refusal to ‘render evil forevil.’”

This is the argument of a manout of step with his times, at oddswith a nation at war, and at oddswith his Church’s support of thatwar. But it is at the same time,unquestionably, the argument of afaithful Catholic.

Ben Salmon, ConfessorBut this argument is more than

the argument of a faithful Catholic.It is also the argument of a “confes-sor.” This term is often associatedwith the persecution of the Churchin ancient times, as a way to desig-nate, not only those who had actual-

ly died for the Faith—martyrs, inother words—but also those willingto die for the Faith whose sentenceswere not carried out and who thenunderwent great suffering for theirwitness—the seizure of property,imprisonment, exile. With thisunderstanding, Salmon surely quali-fies as a confessor. Originally sen-tenced to death, his sentence wascommuted to twenty-five years inprison, two and a half years of whichhe served before being released—alldue to his unswerving commitmentto Christ.

We believe it is important to tellthe story of Ben Salmon for thesame reason the stories of confes-sors of ages past are told by theChurch: to serve as an inspirationfor Christians in this day and age, toembolden those now seeking to fol-low Christ, to point out a path thatmay be taken.

In introducing Unsung Hero of theGreat War, Finney describes BenSalmon as “a vivid character in thedrama of ‘the war to end all wars.’”Needless to say, the drama of warswaged to end war continues. AsSalmon wrote in his statement ofOctober 1920, “Today, we find thescene that preceded Christ’s deathreenacted. When He began tobecome unpopular, His prophecythat all would be scandalized cametrue. One denied Him, anotherbetrayed Him, nearly all of the disci-ples fled. And so it is today in thequestion of wholesale murder.” Inlight of Cardinal Gibbons’ letter toPresident Wilson pledging Catholicsupport for the war effort, Salmon’scritique was not unfounded.

Nor, regrettably, is it unfoundedtoday, when Catholic prelates andlay people cast their support for thisnation at war. But along withSalmon’s stinging critique comes hisencouraging example, showing usthat we are not fated to reenact theroles of Peter, Judas, Pilate orCaiaphas, disclosing the possibilitythat we ourselves can follow the wayof the cross, and become, like BenSalmon, confessors of the Faith.


In light of Cardinal Gibbons’ let-

ter to President Wilson pledging

Catholic support for the war

effort, Salmon’s critique was cer-

tainly not unfounded.

Nor, regrettably, is it unfounded

today, when Catholic prelates

and lay people cast their support

for this nation at war.

The Cardinal’s Letter Backs War


From the Archives of the Archdiocese of BaltimoreApril 18, 1917

Mr. President:

The Archbishops of the United States, at their Annual Meeting in the Catholic University atWashington, April the eighteenth, unanimously resolved to address to you the following letter, signedby all the Archbishops who were present, the six remaining Archbishops being unavoidably absent fromthe meeting.

Standing firmly upon our solid Catholic tradition and history from the very foundation of thisNation, we reaffirm in this hour of stress and trial, our most sacred and sincere loyalty and patriotismtoward our Country, our Government and our Flag.

Moved to the very depths of our hearts by the stirring appeal of the President of the United Statesand by the action of our national Congress, we accept whole heartedly and unreservedly the decree ofthat legislative authority proclaiming this Country to be in a state of war.

We have prayed that we might be spared the dire necessity of entering the conflict. But now that warhas been declared, we bow in obedience to the summons to bear our part in it with fidelity, with courageand with the spirit of sacrifice which, as loyal citizens we are bound to manifest for the defense of themost sacred rights and the welfare of the whole nation.

Acknowledging gladly the gratitude we have always felt for the protection of our spiritual liberty andthe freedom of our Catholic institutions under the flag, we pledge our devotion and our strength in themaintenance of our country’s glorious leadership in those possessions and principles which have beenAmerica’s proudest boast.

Inspired neither by hate nor fear, but by the holy sentiments of truest patriotic fervor and zeal, westand ready, we and all the flock committed to our keeping, to cooperate in every way possible with ourPresident and our national Government, to the end that the great and holy cause of liberty may tri-umph, and that our beloved country may emerge from this hour of test, stronger and nobler than ever.

Our people, now as ever, will rise as one man to serve the Nation. Our priests and consecrated womenwill once again, as in every former trial of our Country, win by their bravery, their heroism and theirservice, new admiration and approval.

We are all true Americans, ready as our age, our ability and our condition permit, to do whatever isin us to do, for the preservation, the progress and the triumph of our beloved country.

May God direct and guide our President and our Government, that out of this trying crisis in ournational life, may at length come a closer union among all the citizens of America, and that an enduringand blessed peace may crown the sacrifices which war inevitably entails.

James Cardinal Gibbons, Chairman.William Cardinal O’Connell, Archbishop of Boston.John Ireland, Archbishop of Saint Paul.John J. Glennon, Archbishop of Saint Louis.Sebastian G. Messmer, Archbishop of Milwaukee.Henry Moeller, Archbishop of Cincinnati.Edward J. Hanna, Archbishop of San Francisco.George W. Mundelein, Archbishop of Chicago.


The following excerpts are taken from Ben Salmon’s “AnOpen Letter to President Wilson,” originally published bythe Baltimore Amnesty League in 1920, and reprinted inThe Catholic Worker in January 1942. Salmon wrote theletter on October 14, 1919, while he was still in prison,after the war had ended.

“Consider...the case of conscientious objectors.They have taken precisely the same positionthat you took in several addresses. ‘The

example of America must be a specific example ofpeace,’ you said immediately after the sinking of theLusitania. On February 2, 1916, at Kansas City, yousaid: ‘We can show our friendship for the world and ourdevotion for the principles of humanity better and moreeffectively by keeping out of this struggle than by get-ting into it.’ On September 3, 1919 you said at St. Louis:“The seed of war in the modern world is industrial andcommercial rivalry. This war was a commercial andindustrial war. It was not a political war.’ In these state-ments you have voiced the opinions and convictions ofconscientious objectors. . .

“Religious objectors are such through their faithin God. They believe the best way to preservethe nation’s honor is to avoid dishonoring

God; the best way to conquer an enemy is to treat himas God prescribes. The religiousobjector helps hiscountry more inone hour than aregiment of mil-itary men couldin a hundredyears, for Godholds the destinyof nations in thepalm of His hand.To serve Him is toensure the coun-try’s future. . .

“Ido notbelong to areligious sect

whose ministersoppose war, but Ibelong to one whose

Creed forbids its members from participation in war.Clergy and laity will dispute this declaration now, butsome day will admit that my attitude is correct andpractical. I am a Catholic, or as some would have it, aRoman Catholic; not an apostate, but what is known inthe Church as a “practical Catholic.” I am a member ofSt. Catherine’s parish, Denver, Colorado, and was amember of the Knights of Columbus until expelled forpublishing an article against war. Expulsion from theKnights of Columbus does not in any manner affectone’s communion with the Church.

“My religious stand is based on God’s command,‘Thou Shalt Not Kill.’ Some argue that ‘in olden timesGod commanded men to slay the enemy.’ Well, God maycommand us to do one thing at one time and anotherthing at another. That is His affair. But there has beenno command from Him for thousands of years that per-mits deviation from the command ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill.’Christ reiterated this command on many occasions.

“The Catholic who tries to justify the taking ofhuman life by quoting from the Old Testament, as dothe compilers of the Catholic Encyclopedia in the case ofcapital punishment, might with equal force argue infavor of divorce. But though the Old Testament sanc-tions divorce the Catholic Church properly insists that

Christ’s prohibition takesprecedence. So consis-tent Catholics will notlet Old Testament quo-tations lead them intothe war game.

“In Matthew 7:12,we are told, ‘All thingsthat you would thatmen do unto you doeven so unto them,for this is the Lawand the Prophets.’Do we want othernations to wage waragainst us?Suppose ourstatesmen err, dowe want othernations charitably

to show us the errorof our ways, or do we want them to

annihilate us because our representatives, rather, ‘mis

In its famous stand against the ‘Good War,’ The Catholic Workerinvokes the ‘Great War’ objector

Salmon and The Catholic Worker


representatives,’ blundered? Christ tells us not to resistevil. Should we obey or ignore Him? If His policy is cor-rect then war is wrong. If ‘overcome evil with good’ isnot a practical method for handling national and indi-vidual ruptures then Christ is wrong and the Temple ofChristianity falls.

“When the government orders me to do what isrighteous, I will obey with pleasure. But when I amordered to do what is iniquitous it is my duty to dis-obey. If the state requires a citizen to violate God’s lawhe must ignore that state. Loyalty to God is loyalty toyour country. The trailblazers of Christianity flauntedthemselves in the face of pagan emperors and openlypaid homage to the living God. The religious conscien-tious objector, ignoring pagans, refuses to yield to mili-tarism’s decrees. . .

“We conscientious objectors thought of theverdict of conscience and followed it. Theresult was that we were not only sneered

at, but we were imprisoned and tortured. And a toolarge percentage of our group were actually murdered inthe process of wreaking vengeance upon us for havingaccepted ‘the verdict of a conscience.’

“We have been called cowards who make a subterfugeof ‘conscience.’ You are aware of facts which show thecontrary. You know that we were offered safe bomb-proof positions in non-combatant branches of theArmy. On our refusal of these we were offered farm fur-loughs. We declined because acceptance would havemade us nonetheless participants in the killing game.Personal safety was no attraction. . .

“In our military prisons ruined health is a certain-ty and death is highly probable. Disease andemaciation registered a hundred percent toll

among conscientious objectors. Many lost their minds.The percentage of deaths was greater than in the Army.The Army was the safest place for the man ‘afraid tofight’. . .

“The ‘war to end war’ has been won. . . .We weretold the war would crush militarism. We find

the world super-militarized. In place of disarmament,nations are armed to the teeth and expending largersums than ever for preparedness. There is but one solu-tion to the war problem: an uncompromising refusal tokill, and a willingness to suffer anything, even death,rather than kill God’s children. The conscientious objec-tors have led the way. Time will tell how many have thewisdom and courage to follow. . .

“When I was in solitary confinement at FortLeavenworth, my brother Joseph came3,000 miles to visit me but was not per-

mitted to do so. As I stood in that dark hole, I thankedGod for religion, for nothing else restrained me fromseeking an opportunity to murder Colonel Rice. Joewent to Chicago and wrote to Colonel Rice, again askingpermission to visit me. I was told that unless I went towork permission would be denied me. Joe came anywayand after several unsuccessful attempts was finallyallowed to see me for ten minutes on Christmas Eve.The strain of that long and needless prohibition weak-ened him. He contracted a cold in the severe storm thatraged as he came to prison for the last time. He died tendays later. Through his intercession may God be merci-ful to those who so wickedly and so unnecessarily perse-cuted the men whose only crime was a steadfast refusalto commit wholesale murder.

“When Frank Burke, one of our conscientious objec-tors, became sick a few months ago, he was told at thehospital: ‘If you were not a CO you would get decenttreatment.’ Two days later he paid the supreme penaltyfor godliness. He died in terrible agony. . .

“Mr. President: If you have the tiniest flameof chivalry and justice within your breast,you will consider the godliness of the

move and declare a general amnesty.

The Sign of Peace Interviews Sister Elizabeth Salmon, MM

Remembering Dad On January 10, CPF got in contact with Sr. ElizabethSalmon (born Geraldine Salmon in 1925, five years afterher father Ben’s release from military custody.) Sr.Elizabeth is now a Maryknoll sister based in Nicaragua.

Sign of Peace: Tell us a little about family life growingup. Would you say you were a “typical” Catholic family?

Sr. Elizabeth: Yes, I think I'd say we were a typicalCatholic family. My Mother had greatfaith and it surely rubbed off on us.We said the Rosary as often togetherin the evenings as we could. Not oftenenough, though, for our mother! Weremembered our dad each time inprayer and for what he stood.Although at the time we didn't under-stand what he stood for—other thanjustice and peace (which I say now)—but then it was, for what Daddy did!Our mother didn’t explain too much,since she was quite persecuted by herown brother and three sisters and shedidn't want us to have to undergo anyof that. Our youngest brother hadbrain damage at birth, so of course weremembered little Johnnie also, alongwith the litany of other needs. Iremember being sad at not having afather as all our friends had, but ourmother surely made up for that inmany ways.

SOP: Your brother became a priest, right? In an order?

Elizabeth: Yes. Although he had gone to the Jesuits inRegis, Denver (graduated summa cum laude), he enteredthe diocesan. He was rather young, only twenty-fouryears old, to serve in many parishes around Denver.Then he served out in Crook & Ilif, Colorado. The lastthirty years he was a Chaplain at the Gardens of St.Elizabeth for Senior Citizens in north Denver.

SOP: Do you trace your own vocation to your dad?

Elizabeth: Although I was already at Maryknoll when Iwent down to the Catholic Worker there in New York tofind out from the letters that our Dad had written toDorothy Day, just what he was up to—I'm sure hisdetermination and deep faith influenced us all as my

mother prayed about him and for him.

SOP: Over the years, how did your mom rememberyour dad’s objection and the sufferings that followed?

Elizabeth: As I said, our mom had been so criticizedand downgraded by her family, except her kindly father(Samuel Charles Smith) who was, I think, the only onewho understood what our father’s reasoning and

actions meant. Because of that sheremained quiet about her own suffer-ings but upheld our father's positionstrongly. Her family wanted her todivorce our dad and she opposed thevery notion of this.

SOP: Were you old enough toremember how your dad reflected onwhat happened?

Elizabeth: Sorry, I was not. I onlyremember sitting on his lap singingto him, “When It's Springtime in theRockies,” a song he loved, when I wasmaybe six years old. We were at ourhome in Melrose Park, west Chicago.He was with another visitor who Ilater learned was the second of thefour Catholic conscientious objectors(COs) who had been imprisoned(first sentenced to death) for theirobjection. I'll bet our mother kept in

touch with the other CO, but I have no other clue excepta surmise. It was our cousin Paul (next to Margaret inthe picture) who remembered the other CO who alsolived in Chicago after being let out of prison.

SOP: Did your dad ever talk about his ouster from theKnights of Columbus?

Elizabeth: That I wouldn't know, but I heard that heused the K of C stationery in jail to write his life storyand about his bitterness toward all war!

SOP: Did he ever seek to rejoin?

Elizabeth: I think he did not as they prevented hisreturn to Denver after being let out of prison. He hadto settle down in Chicago, where his sister Mary livedand where my sister and brother and I were born.


Ben with his hands on his daughterMargaret’s shoulders

Benjamin Joseph Salmonwas exceptional. One ofonly four Catholic consci-

entious objectors who refusedparticipation in the UnitedStates military in World War I,his refusal to enlist in the armybegan with his December 26,1917 letter to his local draftboard in which he declared,“Let those that believe inwholesale violation of the com-mandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’make a profession of their faithby joining the army of war. I amin the army of Peace, and in thisarmy I intend to live and die.”Exceptional words, thoughsadly uncommon words.

Yet as a man, Ben Salmonpossessed a quite ordinary andquite common “state in life”:he was a husband and father.Just before his imprisonment,Salmon’s wife gave birth to ababy girl. Knowing this madehis many refusals all the morepainful. When Salmon refusedto take the offer of non-com-batant status, it was against thepleas of his wife. He knew thathis young family would alsosuffer from his refusal.

Even more difficult was hishunger strike. Again, Salmon’sfamily begged him to changehis mind. Hearing such pleasand knowing he could end themsurely was more torturous thanall the forced feedings. Sittingalone in his cell, he ponderedhis family.

When we realize his familyresponsibilities, Salmon’srefusal touches us more deeply,yet at the same time makes us

more uncomfortable—especial-ly for those of us with youngfamilies of our own. Looking atSalmon from the view of thenormal American life of dailybut “necessary” cooperationwith evil, his radical insistenceto only return good for evil doesnot seem rational—rather, itseems like the fanaticism of azealot, who would forsake evenhis family for the cause.

This was how Salmon wasviewed by most in his day, andhow he could be viewed today.

Yet Salmon’s witness isrational when viewed withinthe long tradition of Christianswho have given up everythingto follow Jesus. It is rational inthe view of the Gospels, whorecord the call to give up every-thing to take up the Cross withthe Lord. It is rational in theview of the first Christian mar-tyrs, many of whom were mar-ried, and who knew that mar-riage is a school to acquire holi-ness, not to avoid it. And it isrational in the view of laterobjectors, like FranzJägerstätter in Nazi Germany.Pressed by reminders of his wifeand three daughters,Jägerstätter insisted that it wasbetter for their father to be amartyr than to be a liar.

Indeed, Ben Salmon wouldnot respond to compromisedmorality with more compro-mised morality: “We do notattempt to overcome lying withlies; we overcome it with truth.”The truth was, and is, that thesoul belongs to God. We giveour hearts, our bodies, and ourlives to one another in mar-riage, knowing all the whilethat, ultimately, we are claimedfor God.

Ought a Husband, a Father. . . ? B Y B E N J A M I N P E T E R S

Ben Peters is a Ph.D candidate atthe University of Dayton. He andhis wife Liza will soon be the par -ents of two.


Ben with Elizabeth Smith Salmon on their wedding day.

from Ben’s Letter to President Wilson

“I could have obtained a fourth class clas-sification by answering the questionnaire,for I had dependents—a wife and widowedmother. Such classification was tantamountto exemption. . .”

“I was sentenced on August 10, 1918 totwenty-five years at hard labor inLeavenworth. Execution of the sentencewas delayed from day to day. Finally, onSeptember 5, I was offered remission of theentire sentence and a first class sergeantcyin non-combatant service as clerk in the19th Train Headquarters. My wife was inthe hospital and begged me to accept theoffer. Baby Charles was born the followingday. I wanted to please my wife. Moreovershe and the baby and my widowed motherwere dependent on me for support. I assureyou, Mr. President, it was not cowardicethat caused me to choose twenty-five yearsin prison in preference to the safe and easycourse.”

The principle of informed consent is central to theethical conduct of scientific research involvinghuman subjects. The World Medical Association

Declaration of Helsinki, paragraph 22, begins, “In anyresearch on human beings, each potential subject mustbe adequately informed of the aims, methods, sourcesof funding, any possible conflicts of interest, institu-tional affiliations of the researcher, the anticipated ben-efits and potential risks of the study and the discomfortit may entail.” This sounds like a very reasonable stan-dard by which to judge whether a subject has the infor-mation required to be a true volunteer for some poten-tially hazardous treatment. It is instructive to apply thiskind of standard to assess the “informed consent” givenby members of the “all-volunteer” Armed Forces.

Even with an honest recruiter, it is exceedinglyunlikely that “the anticipated benefits and potentialrisks” of military service “and the discomfort it mayentail” receive much attention beyond signing bonuses,educational benefits and promises about advancedtraining that might lead to civilian careers. Yes, mostrecruits have some notion that being in the militaryinvolves elevated risk of death or injury. But how manylearn that they are more likely to become psychologicalcasualties than to die in combat? How many learn howmuch more likely they are to lose a limb than their life?How many are told what the divorce rate is in militaryfamilies?

Compare the standard for military recruiting underwhich so many Americans are content to say, “They vol-unteered—they knew what they were signing up for,” tothe one we would apply to a volunteer in a medical orpsychological study. Every research institution hassomething known as an Institutional Review Board(IRB). The IRB reviews proposals for research involvinghuman or animal subjects, with a strong emphasis onensuring that the experiments meet the institution’sethical standards. This includes vetting the consentform human subjects must sign in order to volunteerfor a study.

Imagine a psychology researcher interested in the

effects of military training proposing to duplicate “bootcamp” in a study. Wouldn’t a typical IRB consider expos-ing subjects to these often-severe psychological stressestoo unethical to approve the study at all? At the veryleast, the consent form would be a lengthy, fascinatingdocument! And this only scratches the surface of therisks of military service.

How would we react if a leading university routinelyenticed human subjects into participation in hazardousresearch without fully informing them of the risks?Would we say, “They knew this was experimentalresearch. When they signed up for the study and the$500 check they should have thought of that.”

There is no doubt that unanticipated harms mayresult from an experimental procedure. Provided theresearchers conscientiously informed volunteers of theforeseeable risks, who would condemn them for occa-sional surprise adverse outcomes?

But if researchers routinely failed to inform volun-teers of the known hazards, including some estimate ofthe likelihood and severity of each hazard, we wouldrightly condemn their actions as deeply unethical, per-haps even criminal. And we would place the burden ofinforming volunteers squarely on the shoulders ofthose researchers. They are the ones with the expertiseand information. The volunteers necessarily trust thoserecruiting them for any required information. They can-not be expected to guess all the “right questions” to askin order to know about the most significant risks. Acomprehensive list of the potential risks and benefits ofstudy participation, including details of the likelihoodand personal ramifications of each outcome, is the veryleast the researchers must provide volunteers in orderfor us to regard their participation as reflectinginformed consent.

Why do we not hold military recruiters to a similarstandard? Is not informed consent a necessary condi-tion for a military whose members have truly “volun-teered”? It is not hard to understand the pragmaticarguments against having something like a comprehen-sive “consent form” for our military recruits to sign. Butif we cannot maintain an “all-volunteer” military underconditions of informed consent, should that not be anoccasion for us to reconsider the size, composition,nature, and use of the military, rather than an excuse tomaintain it at the expense of our trusting youth?

Debunking the myth of an “all-volunteer” military

Informed Consent?B Y J O H N C A R A H E R

John Caraher is an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomyat DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, where he recent -ly taught a Winter Term course, "War and Conscience." He cur -rently resides in Crawfordsville, IN, with his wife, Lynn, andtheir sons Jim and Brian.



Coming HomeB Y M A X W E L L C O R Y D O N W H E A T , J R .

“Intelligence gathered by this and other governmentsleaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possessand conceal some of the most lethal weapons everdevised.”

George W. Bush President of the United States

State of the Union Address January 28, 2003

In catacombs of military transports destined for Dover Air Force Base, loves, beliefs, ideals, plans: Hancock Community College, University of Miami, New York Police Academy, weddings, children, barbeques, baseball, bass fishing— All lidded down inside caskets carefully, caringly covered with The American Flag

25-year-old Marine Corps Corporal St. George, Maine. Sailor, rock climber, stargazer. On dance floor, “. . . like a magnet.” Loves lobsters, mussels— All lidded down inside casket carefully, caringly covered with The American Flag

30-year-old Army Private First Class Tuba City, Arizona. “. . . young, a single mother and capable.”Her boy, 4—her girl, 3.Woman proud of her Hopi heritage—All lidded down inside casketcarefully, caringly covered with The American Flag

20-year-old Marine Corps CorporalLa Harpe, Illinois.High school football, basketball player,

lifeguard at health club pool,lifts weights,going to be a physical trainer.Joins Marine Corps Reserveto pay for studies at Southern Illinois University—All lidded down inside casketcarefully, caringly covered with The American Flag

21-year-old Marine Corps CorporalGallatin, Tennessee.Nurses dying mother with his humor,dresses in clown costume for nieces’ birthdays.History buff, reads fat books about generals,presidents, the Revolutionary War—All lidded down inside casketcarefully, caringly covered with The American Flag

24-year-old Coast Guard Petty OfficerNorthport, New York. Wife, three months pregnant.Wants to be a policeman like his father.“. . . the kind of person that you fall in love withthe minute that you meet him,” a friend says—All lidded down inside casketcarefully, caringly covered with The American Flag

A father, a mother grieve for their only son, an Army Specialist.“He wanted to be an engineer,” the father remembers.“He wanted to set up his own business when he gotout.And I says, ‘Amigo, I’m waiting for you to get outso we can put up our own business.’And all that, well, you know, is history.”

The Major General carefully, caringly folds The American Flag,places the nation’s ensign into the mother’s hands

Benedict XVI Hails NonviolenceB Y F R . E M M A N U E L C H A R L E S M C C A R T H Y

Pope Benedict XVI is recognized as an eminent the-ological scholar by his academic colleagues,regardless of their denominational association. In

his Angelus Address, “On The Revolution of Love,” hesuperbly crafts a statement on Jesus’ teaching on thenonviolent love of friends and enemies and on its being“the nucleus of the Christian revolution,” and hence,central to a correct understanding of the Gospel. Forthose who spend the time with it that it deserves, it willbe an illumination of a truth hidden or obscured, per-haps since their Baptism.

Consider Benedict’s words on how nonviolentChristlike love operates: “The revolution of love. . .changes the world without making noise.” At one levelthis could mean that the Gospel revolution of Christlikenonviolence and love of enemies changes the worldwithout the noise of war or violent revolution—both ofwhich are always suffused with the noise of weapons,the noise of propaganda, the noise that drowns out dia-logue, the noise that overrides the voice of conscience,the noise that numbs the faculty of empathy. Such anintepretation would be acceptable.

But, “the revolution of love…which changes theworld without making noise,” reaches infinitely beyondthis interpretation. It proceeds to the very core of whoJesus was and the revolution He started, and in whichHe invites us to participate, namely, the revolution thatthe Pope says “is not afraid to confront evil with theweapons of love and truth alone.” In Benedict’s address,“the revolution of love. . . which changes the world with-out making noise,” is a direct reference to the counter-violence, revolutionary Hymn of the Suffering Servant(Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; 52:13-53:12), the summitof salvific nonviolent love in the Hebrew Scriptures:

“Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth righteousness to the nations,

Not crying out, nor shouting, not making his voice heard in the streets.A bruised reed he shall not break,

and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,Until he establishes righteousness on earth;

the coastlands will wait for his teaching” (Isaiah 42:1-4).

Below are some excerpts from the writings of therenowned Catholic Biblical scholar, Rev. John L.McKenzie, on the Hymn of the Suffering Servant thathelp reveal its intimate connection with Jesus and HisWay:

“The number of allusions to this passage[Hymn of the Suffering Servant] in the NewTestament is difficult to count. But they areenough to establish the thesis that this pas-sage had a central position in the proclama-tion of Jesus. The early Church attributed theproclamation of this theme to Jesus himselfand no convincing reason has been urged toshow that it should be attributed to another. Itis as deeply embedded in the Gospels as any-thing else; to repeat what I have said in otherconnections, if this theme is not the work ofJesus himself then we know nothing of hiswords or his person.”

“It is remarkable that the words at the baptismof Jesus (Mt 3:17; Mk 1: 11; Lk 3:22) arealmost an exact quotation of Isaiah 42:1.”

“It remains true that Jesus demands that his


Image by Rita Corbin

Emmanuel Charles McCarthy is a priest of the Byzantine Rite ofthe Catholic Church. A co-founder of Pax Christi-USA, Fr.McCarthy was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his life'swork on behalf of peace within and among people.


disciples identify themselves with him as theSuffering Servant.”

“As Suffering Servant, Jesus experiencednothing, we have noticed, which is not part ofthe human condition. And he thus placed hisachievement within the reach of all people.”

“The Suffering Servant theme is the peak offaith in the Old Testament, the supreme affir-mation of God’s power. When we meet thetheme of the Suffering Servant as proclaimedin the New Testament, we are at the very cen-ter of the Christian revolution.”

The purpose of these quoted reflections on the OldTestament theme of the Suffering Servant and its rela-tion to the New Testament proclamation of Jesus is totry to insure that the momentousness of what PopeBenedict is proclaiming, regarding Gospel nonviolenceand love of enemies, is not recklessly brushed-off withthe usual well-nurtured flippancy, “Oh, that stuff isonly spiritual cotton candy, a bit of unrealistic piety.”Let me assure my readers, first, that a full year’s doctor-al level university theology course could be built aroundthis address. Secondly, if this is an easily dismissiblepiece of sweet theological fluff, it is the first such piecethat the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, twenty-five-year Prefect of the Congregation of Doctrine and Faith,has presented for public consumption in the last fourdecades!

Do give this address much thought and prayer. In aworld where the tools of violence and enmity are thetools of choice for ushering in a “better future,” wherethese tools have been so technologically honed that afew people can generate degrees of destruction and des-olation that in the past would have required thousandsof people years to inflict, where the production and sell-ing of these tools is the most lucrative business on theplanet, and where practically all of this is done with“God” as its source and/or supporter, is it not time forChristians and their Churches to teach what Jesustaught and to struggle to live what Jesus struggled tolive in relation to violence and enmity? Has not the full-ness of time arrived for one of the world’s major reli-gions to say an absolute and never-ending “No” to vio-lence and enmity, on the basis that they are in radicalopposition to the Way and Will and Reality of God? Is itnot time for Christians and their Churches, inBenedict’s words, to choose as their “way of being, theattitude of one who is convinced of God’s love andpower, who is not afraid to confront evil with theweapons of love and truth alone?” Why shouldChristians and their Churches be the first to so witnessto this truth about God by choosing this “way of being”?Because their Founder, their Lord and Savior, so wit-nessed to this truth about God and His Way by this verysame “way of being.”

Below is a translation of the address Benedict XVIdelivered on Feb. 18, 2007, before reciting the middayAngelus in St. Peter's Square.

* * *Dear Brothers and Sisters! This Sunday’s Gospel

has one of the most typical, yet most difficult teach-ings of Jesus: Love your enemies (Luke 6:27). It istaken from the Gospel of Luke, but it is also found inMatthew’s Gospel (5:44), in the context of the pro-grammatic discourse that begins with the famousBeatitudes. Jesus delivered this address in Galilee, atthe beginning of his public ministry: It was somethingof a “manifesto” presented to everyone, which Christasked his disciples to accept, thus proposing to themin radical terms a model for their lives.

But what is the meaning of his teaching? Why doesJesus ask us to love our very enemies, that is, ask alove that exceeds human capacities? What is certain isthat Christ’s proposal is realistic, because it takes intoaccount that in the world there is too much violence,too much injustice, and that this situation cannot beovercome without positing more love, more kindness.This “more” comes from God: It is his mercy that hasbecome flesh in Jesus and that alone can redress thebalance of the world from evil to good, beginning fromthat small and decisive “world” which is man’s heart.

This page of the Gospel is rightly considered the “magna carta” of Christian nonviolence; it does notconsist in surrendering to evil—as claims a false inter-pretation of “turn the other cheek” (Luke 6:29)—butin responding to evil with good (Romans 12:17-21),and thus breaking the chain of injustice. It is thusunderstood that nonviolence, for Christians, is notmere tactical behavior but a person’s way of being, theattitude of one who is convinced of God’s love andpower, who is not afraid to confront evil with theweapons of love and truth alone. Loving the enemy isthe nucleus of the “Christian revolution,” a revolutionnot based on strategies of economic, political or mediapower. The revolution of love, a love that does notbase itself definitively in human resources, but in thegift of God, that is obtained only and unreservedly inhis merciful goodness. Herein lies the novelty of theGospel, which changes the world without makingnoise.

Herein lies the heroism of the “little ones,” whobelieve in the love of God and spread it even at thecost of life. Dear brothers and sisters: Lent, whichbegins this Wednesday, with the rite of the distribu-tion of ashes, is the favorable time in which allChristians are invited to convert ever more deeply tothe love of Christ.

Let us ask the Virgin Mary, the docile disciple of theRedeemer, to help us to allow ourselves to be con-quered without reservations by that love, to learn tolove as he loved us, to be merciful as our heavenlyFather is merciful (Luke 6:36).

A Pilgrimage of Conscience

CPF Goes to RomeB Y M I C H A E L G R I F F I N

As we go to press, I am preparing to help lead aCatholic Peace Fellowship (CPF) journey toRome. The next issue of The Sign of Peace will

include a more comprehensive review of our efforts. This “pilgrimage” was initiated with the desire to

share with Church officials our experience working withconscientious objectors and to push for even strongerecclesial support for them and their opposition to war.

The delegation also includes Tom Cornell (who withJim Forest co-founded CPF in 1964) and JoshuaCasteel, Iraq War veteran and Catholic conscientiousobjector.

While in Rome, we will mark with prayer andmourning the anniversary of the opening phase—“Shock and Awe”—of the Iraq Invasion, launched onthe Feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 2003. We will haveseveral meetings with Vatican officials as well as withleaders of lay movements likeSant’Egidio. And we will travelto Assisi to help lead a peaceconference.

As we go, we rememberDorothy Day, who made a pil-grimage to Rome during theSecond Vatican Council. We willask the Congregation for theCauses of Saints to rememberher, too, when we drop by theiroffices for an update on hercause and that of Franz Jägerstätter, the Catholic lay-man who refused to fight for Nazi Germany whendrafted.

We travel with four objectives:

• To ask for even clearer public statementsthat conscientious objection is a central toolthrough which the Church can resist war andbe a sign of peace.

• To ask for a future addendum to theCatechism section on war, making clear thatjust war doctrine is more than “a tool forstatecraft” and can be applied by soldiers.

• To address problems that arise when thechaplains are supposed to act both as agentsof the military and as ministers of theChurch.

• To urge Church leaders to call for the legalprotection of selective conscientious objec-tors. Absent such protection, we will urgethat the Church advise pastors and youthleaders to counsel extreme caution towardenlistment, as that would mean giving one’sconscience over to the state.

The mission of CPF has never been extractible fromthe mission of the Church. We are unapologeticallyecclesial. Our hope is where the hope of the Church is:in Christ Jesus. On this we should be clear. When wepromote the rights of conscience, this is no attenuatedsecular notion of “getting to do what I feel like.”Rather, we take as our own the words of the SecondVatican Council: “Deep within his conscience man dis-covers a law which he has not laid upon himself but

which he must obey. Its voice,ever calling him to love and to dowhat is good and to avoid evil,sounds in his heart at the rightmoment” (Gaudium et spes, 16).

We also recall the words ofJohn Paul II, addressing the wayof conscience in a sin-sick societyaccustomed to violence: “Whenconscience, this bright lamp ofthe soul (cf. Mt 6:22-23), calls‘evil good and good evil’ (Is 5:20),

it is already on the path to the most alarming corrup-tion and the darkest moral blindness” (Evangeliumvitae, 24).

So in a sense we go to Rome simply to make con-crete that which Rome has already pronounced—andpronounced much more eloquently than we have.Again, John Paul II in Evangelium vitae: “And yet all theconditioning and efforts to enforce silence fail to stiflethe voice of the Lord echoing in the conscience ofevery individual: it is always from this intimate sanctu-ary of the conscience that a new journey of love,openness and service to human life can begin” (24).


Warcast for CatholicsA podcast dedicated to a discussion of

war and peace in the Catholic tradition.

found at www.catholicpeacefellowship.org

We thank the Sponsors of The Sign of Peace

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of The Sign of Peace, please contact usat [email protected] or at (574) 232-2811.

The Barnidge FamilyTom Beaudoin, Santa Clara University

Harold BerlinerWill Bogdanowicz

Daniel and Sidney CallahanRichard and Ann Cussen

Paula Dodd AielloFairfield University Campus Ministry

Fr. Anthony GallagherMark Holloway

Susan Lee, Oklahoma CPFAnonymous donor

Helen LiguoriJim Lodwick

Brother Robert LudwigTim and Beverly Musser

Martin and Melissa NussbaumThe Sacramento Catholic Worker

St. Edward’s Univeristy Campus MinistryJohn Seddelmeyer

Josie Setzler Kathy Tabatowski

Jeremy Wells, Brazos BooksAnonymous donor

2007 ST. MARCELLUS AWARD The fourth annual St. Marcellus

Award will go to CPF’s cofounders JimForest and Tom Cornell. The awardreads as follows:

In grateful recognition of theircreative and energetic leadershipin founding the Catholic PeaceFellowship in 1964, and of theirencouragement and guidance inre-founding it in 2001. Steadfastin their commitment to resistingwar, clear-sighted in their convic-tion to the peace of Christ and toseeing Christ in others, especiallythose discerning their con-sciences, never afraid to take thearduous course of direct actionwhen necessary—they also tookup the equally arduous task ofeducation and counseling, and sobrought a personalist approach toCatholic anti-war activity. Andthey did so with intelligence,grace, wisdom, and (alwaysimportant) with humor.

St. Marcellus was a RomanCenturion who realizedthat Christianity was notcompatible with service inthe Roman army. He wasbeheaded in 298 for hisrefusal to serve.

“We don't counsel conscientious

objection, non-cooperation,

resistance, interference with the

Selective Service, or anything else.

We counsel young men.”

-Tom Cornell

“The Sacraments, the Gospels,

the stories of the Saints, the

ability of friends and strangers

to risk everything rather than

take part in murder. . . all these

things helped to keep us going.”

-Jim Forest

PRESORTEDFIRST CLASS MAILU.S. POSTAGE PAID

MILFORD, INPERMIT NO. 8

PO Box 4232South Bend, IN46634

Dominus vobiscum (May the Lord be with you)Joshua Casteel, Tom Cornell, and Michael Griffin in St. Peter’s Square

s i g no f p e a c e SPRING 2007 VOLUME 6.1 Journal ...

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