My dear Parishioners,
Peace! There are thirteen (13) “In Brief” articles in the Catechism of the Catholic Church addressing the Fifth Commandment of the Decalogue, ‘You shall not kill.’ The following is a reflection on CCC 2329.
The Fifth Commandment ‘You shall not kill’ besides addressing directly the value of human life, that of neighbor and self, also involves wider public policy. The Catechism highlights the “arms race” as being “an extremely grave plague” on humanity. Just how the arms race is a plague and how it wounds the poor in an intolerable manner (Gaudium et spes, 81) are our concerns here.
A plague is not only a contagious disease but also a continual cause of trouble, distress and harassment. When considering the arms race as a plague Mother Church is not only considering the nuclear arms race of the last century. Whoever has had the better weapons has normally won the battles: flintlock led to the percussion cap, which led to the cartridge, which led to repeating, leading to… The arms race was nothing new if we recall Sacred Scripture. On the one hand we have Pharaoh and his chariots and charioteers (Exodus 14:6, 9, 17–18, 23, 28; 15:4, 19). While Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3 remind us of swords and spears being retrofitted into plowshares and pruning hooks. For his part, Joel 3:10 has the retrofitting going the other way. The Lord Jesus was content with two swords (cf. Luke 22:38), which has been interpreted to mean both spiritual and temporal authority exercised by Mother Church.
Our civil leaders have a responsibility to protect the citizenry and to not be naive. If all the players on the international scene “played nice” our defense budget would not have been more than $700,000,000,000.00 in 2012. It is apropos that the strategic plan for using nuclear weapons came to known as MAD (mutual assured destruction). If the monies that the USA, China, Russia and the UK spent in 2012 on “military/defense spending” ($15,530,000,000,000.00) were funneled into education and health how much global sickness, ignorance and the like could be eliminated? The use of funds in the production and upgrading of weapons in order to safeguard the peace does not so much contribute to the domestic tranquility of the neediest when these are undernourished, undereducated… To put this in perspective, in 2010 international actual expenses per pupil for educational purposes k–12 ran from as little as $1,200.00 in Turkey through $13,000.00 in Switzerland. This means that more than a billion students could get a ‘high end’ education based on the defense budgets of four nations.
I am proud of my Great Uncle John Francis Daly who received the Silver Star for Valor in World War II. Patriotism is a virtue and subset of the Fourth Commandment. Defense spending is important and an act of prudence, another virtue. We are, however, blessed to know the Prince of Peace, who calls us to be blessed peacemakers.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr