Left-Liberal Catholics: Yay for the Atomic Bombings!

In time for the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the leftist National Catholic Reporter treats us to an entirely conventional rendition and defense of that awful episode in U.S. history, a rendition I might have expected to read in the neoconservative Weekly Standard. (Thanks to Laurence Vance for the link.) My comment, which is “awaiting moderation,” ran as follows:

I am shocked that this kind of jingoism and raw collectivism would soil the pages (so to speak) of the NCR. I would expect this in the Weekly Standard. The use of formulations like “Japan started the war” helps to evade all the relevant moral questions; if “Japan” started it, can “Japan” be laid waste? Their political class makes an idiotic and suicidal military move, so every single three-year-old in the country becomes subject to bombing, poisoning, being burned or buried alive, etc.? At what point do we start questioning the logic of this, instead of formulating all our arguments as if this were simply an obvious moral given?

Instead of asking these hard questions, the kind of questions we are trained from early childhood not to ask, indeed not even to be intellectually equipped to formulate, NCR gives us a collectivist propaganda piece. Anyone who criticizes the decision to drop the bomb is trying to “defame our country” (again, in classic neocon style, conflating the decisions of a small circle of officials with “our country”).

I guess the editor of the Paulist Catholic World was trying to “defame our country”? Or how about L’Osservatore Romano, which also criticized the bombings? Or the great Catholic philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe? Or even Pat Buchanan, who denounces the bombings as acts of barbarism?

Oh, but “we” had to burn all those kids alive, comes the reply. Why, that’s all the fanatics in Japan would understand! (What if the author had said the police needed to kick in the heads of certain races of people because that’s all they would understand? Would you thoughtlessly nod your head at that?) Completely left out of the discussion are the genuine alternatives that existed to dropping the bomb, alternatives that could have worked even with the incorrigible Japanese. (Of course, whenever someone mentions “alternatives” to a decision made by the U.S. military, he is instantly derided as some kind of leftist dreamer.)

For what these alternatives were, and for something a little more significant than mindless, knee-jerk cheering of the U.S. military, as if this group of government employees were sacrosanct, I recommend this short piece by historian Ralph Raico.

Chris C.

Graycat your message should be preached loud and clear in places such as N.Korea, and Iran, and in fact throughout the Islamic world. I hope they give you a fair hearing and take your words to heart.
Rob H.

The economy, war, the Constitution, civil liberities, etc. Nobody cares about that stuff anymore.
Rob H.

So governments wage war and the people who engage in peaceful commerce are somehow complicit?
Mike

Uh, dude. Are you really THAT thick? By 1945 there was no way for the Japanese to win the war. Come on you know that!
Mike

If that’s true then he doesn’t sound very holy to me. This is the type of thing that prevent me from ever converting to Catholicism. In the end though I don’t care who pontificates about it. Those bombings were totally unnecessary and were war crimes. End of discussion.
Chris C.

Forgive me for being a bit skeptical but if the exercise of prudential judgment by Our Holy Father is enough to keep you from ”ever converting to Catholicism” I have a sincere doubt that you were very serious about doing so in the first place. I guess the logic of what you are saying is that those who piously thunder in righteous denunciation of actions done under great duress and with millions of lives at stake, and who do so in complete safety decades after the fact,must indeed “sound very holy” to you, which may be exactly what they are looking for; a chance to exercise a self righteous condescension towards those faced with grave responsibilities. A form of monday morning quarterbacking if you will. It can be fun as long as it’s not taken too seriously, such as by maligning as war criminals those who are no longer around to render a defense.
http://twitter.com/617patrick Patrick O’Malley

Most people stopped listening to Catholics years ago when we found out that Catholic priests were raping children and your bishops continued to hide them and lie for them. The Catholic congregation ignores them or fights them, so they aren’t much better. Fortunately, the congregation is now down to a few old ladies, so don’t worry about their opinions for too long.
http://twitter.com/617patrick Patrick O’Malley

Most people stopped listening to Catholics years ago when we found out that Catholic priests were raping children and your bishops continued to hide them and lie for them. The Catholic congregation ignores them or fights them, so they aren’t much better. Fortunately, the congregation is now down to a few old ladies, so don’t worry about their opinions for too long.
Mike

Yes that’s true. I’ve never seriously considered it (I think I gave the wrong impression). What I should have pointed out is that if I WERE inclined to convert that would be one of the things preventing me from doing so.
Chris C.

I actually hope that you will seriously consider doing so, your reservations notwithstanding. We will likely always have questions about a particular facet of a given papacy, but being In Christ in His Church and with the sacraments is incomparable to anything else. Disagreements such as those being discussed here should not deter you. In Christ I love and embrace those of good will even if I disagree with them. You can find a home in His Church, even though you will find imperfect souls there.
Gil

Thus the attack on Pearl Harbor was perfectly justifiable and the U.S. should have apologised profusely and lfited all sanction against Japan?
Gil

Thus the attack on Pearl Harbor was perfectly justifiable and the U.S. should have apologised profusely and lfited all sanction against Japan?
Gil

I’m not just talking the atomic bombs in the last stages of the war but the conventional bombs right from the start. If Allies had to use only guns and grenades in a direct confrontation with Japanese soldiers then the Allies probably would have lost as the Japanese had no qualms about “collateral damage” from their bombs.
Gil

I’m not just talking the atomic bombs in the last stages of the war but the conventional bombs right from the start. If Allies had to use only guns and grenades in a direct confrontation with Japanese soldiers then the Allies probably would have lost as the Japanese had no qualms about “collateral damage” from their bombs.
Caliman

Err, yeah, “minimizing civilian casualties” … as in when we bombed the heck out of the cities and hamlets of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos … or as in the destruction of Iraq. We’ve been too squeamish … that’s the ticket.
Caliman

but this article IS about 1945 and the use of the bomb
Gileadmcgee

And I thought we kept losing troops, because we keep sending them overseas, where they’re not wanted, and telling them to kill the locals. Imagine how shocked I am to learn that its really because were not having them kill enough locals.
GrayCat

If Christians don’t hear the message, loud and clear, how are unbelievers supposed to hear anything with the Christians pointing weapons at them?

How did the followers of Christ “turn the world upside down” for Him in the first three centuries after His Resurrection? Do you think the world was any kinder or gentler than it is now?

How come those believers could conquer the world with nothing but words and deeds of kindness and humility, but we, 1,700 years later, cannot accept their methods as the only ones acceptable for true Christ followers, as necessary and practical?
GrayCat

So, what really matters? What a pope says or doesn’t say in any and all circumstances, or what Christ said, and His followers of the first three centuries said and did?

With plenty lives at stake.

Why are we today different from those then? Was the world kinder and gentler then?

Is following Christ a situational proposition?
Gil

How can atomic bombs be any worse than conventional bombs. Why should the photos of atomic bombs victims be any more horrifying than the photos of victims from napalm? So if the Americans didn’t have the atomic and kept firebombing Japan this would be better?
GrayCat

You should really get out more.
Gil

The WTC wras a supply line of enemy therefore it was a target to them.
GrayCat

Yeah, you would think.

But expedience and politics reveals true character, conviction, and commitment.

Religious leaders not condemning violence, killing and war outright doesn’t mean the “laws of war” (I assume you mean just war theory?) weren’t violated.

It was religious leaders, after all, who agitated to have the One who disagreed with them and called them hypocrites arrested, tortured, and hung on a cross. Because His teachings contradicted their own.

Actually, ALL of us have the luxury of hindsight. The popes of the last century, and we of this century, have two thousand years of it. It’s not Monday morning quarterbacking, it’s a refusal to learn and “go, and do likewise.”

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing.” “If you love Me you will obey what I command.” “Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me.” “If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching.” “He who does not love Me will not obey My teaching. These words you hear are not My own; they belong to the Father who sent Me.” John 14:12, 15, 23, 24, 21

“By their fruits shall you know them.”
GrayCat

There’s only one reason “Americans” are losing war and troops: we’re warring.

If we weren’t “over there,” “Americans” wouldn’t be “losing” anything. We’d be peacefully trading and prospering.

Have you ever read “War is a Racket,” by the most decorated Marine in U.S. history, Major General Smedley Butler? You should. A great expose by one whose trade was war.
Chris C.

Christ called us to preach to gospel to all the world not to each other. Please turn the world upside down. Make sure to go to China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and let them hear you loud and clear. With God’s help perhaps they will take your words to heart. Or maybe you will never be seen or heard from again.
Chris C.

False choice. Our Holy Father is the successor of the Holy Apostle St. Peter. What he says and does is an example for us. If he abstained from making the kind of self righteous statements regarding the bombings that so many make today, safely separated by 6 decades from the violence and evil of WW2, he did so for a reason. He had seen and witnessed the war firsthand. He was greatly grieved over the loss of life. He did as the Faithful should do, work to create an ethic and theology of peace,and pray for suggereing humanity rather than issuing smug condemnations, that make us feel good and righteous, but serve little other purpose.
Rob H.

Um, you do realize I was being sarcastic, right? Geesh.
Gil

Then again if you’re quick to hand over your money to a mugger then you probably won’t get hurt either.
Mike

“Then again if you’re quick to hand over your money to a mugger then you probably won’t get hurt either.”

Yup, which is why the 9/11 attacks occurred. Some people get really angry when their moms, dad,s brothers, sisters and friends are murdered by a rogue government (meaning the US government) were tired of the “mugger” murdering their families and friends. They got tired of this rogue government installing brutal dictators that torture and kill them. They got tired of sanctions that murdered 500,000 children while getting bombed and occupied.

You’d be the first to hypocritically bitch if the Chinese were doing the same thing over here. You want empire and never ending war, then prepare for domestic tyranny bankruptcy. It’s already begun. For those who can’t see that, I pity them as I would the village idiot.
Anonymous

Spoken like a true Irish-American ex-Catholic from the North East! Please tell me that you reside near the Boston Archdiocese to prove my caricature true!

Speaking as a youth minister for the Catholic Church with hundreds of teenagers pouring into my youth room and Mass every week, you are decidedly wrong. Speaking as a lay evangelist who travels throughout American preaching and teaching Catholic teens and young adults, you are overwhelmingly wrong.

But I digress, this is about the immorality of the Atomic Bombs…
Anonymous

Wait, wait, wait. Gil…

Do you honestly think that it is perfectly fine for a nation in war to kill anyone and everyone, as long as the end is a hoped-for decrease in one’s own casualties?

I may be wrong here, but it sounds like you are saying that the Japanese and Germans, because they initiated the aggression, deserve to have all their people, even women, children and babies, to be burned, poisoned, and/or ripped apart by us because they started it, they’re the evil ones.

We all know that innocents die accidentally in warfare, and that is a tragedy. But it is another thing altogether to directly target them, which involves a grave evil. If you bomb a military armament factory and an errant bomb hits a school, that is unintentional. But if one were to bomb the school, that one is a monster, no matter how bright the flag is that he drapes his rationalizations in.
http://layevangelist.com Michael Gormley

Militarism destroys the imagination of a people and the common sense of her leaders. Militarism replaces diplomacy with force, knows only violence, and sees negotiation as weakness. There are only two possibilities to the warmonger: total victory (with absolute surrender) or annihilation. As such, he restricts the field of opportunities to only those options, and formulates strategy and tactics accordingly.

The atomic bomb was a tactic to advance total war and to achieve total victory. It is seen as nothing other than that. A tactic.

Peacemaking is a lost art. Militarist myopia sees peace as the end result of one-sided total victory, and any negotiation is compromising with the enemy, or “appeasement”.

And if you don’t want to bomb the hell out of women and children, if you don’t like the idea of burning school children alive, or poisoning their air, why, you are just unrealistic. People die in war, don’t ya know.
Gil

Saddam murdered those children. He could have simply capitulated. There’s nothing immoral about the reasons for the sanction. Saddam starved them out not the U.N. members.
Gil

So basically you believe that soldiers should have been sent into Japan with express orders to fire only when fired upon? Or are you going for the claptrap that the Nagasaki and Hiroshima were purely civilian targets?
Gil

Yeah appeasement totally worked with Hitler. Stalin and Mao didn’t have much outside interference either.
Fr. Terry Donahue, CC

For those who think Pope Pius XII didn’t take a clear position against obliteration bombing, here is a quote which demonstrates his opposition in 1942:

“Mankind owes that vow [to
return to the law of God] to the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without
any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race,
have been consigned to death or to a slow decline. Mankind owes that vow to the
many thousands of non-combatants, women, children, sick, and aged, from whom
aerial warfare—whose horrors We have from the beginning frequently
denounced—has, without discrimination, or through inadequate precautions, taken
life, goods, health, home, charitable refuge, or house of prayer.”

(Pope Pius XII, Dec. 24, 1942, as quoted by John C. Ford, S.J.,
“The Morality of Obliteration Bombing,” Theological
Studies, V, 1944, pp. 261-309, these excerpts from pp. 267, 305-309, http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/5/5.3/5.3.1.pdf
It references the Pope Pius XII quotes from Principles
for Peace (Washington, D. C: N.C.W.C., 1943), nn. 450, 478, 491, 494, 522,
563)
Cathyar

So your answer is the “pragmatic” one: the chances are anyone preaching the gospel in those countries you mentioned “will never be seen again,” hence, it’s better to meet them with aggression and guns than with the gospel.

So . . . you are not included in the call — and you don’t have a “need” to hear the gospel or apply it in our own time?

No problem with Christ and His call there, yah? Because . . . He made exceptions to His call?

You prove you have no idea what Christianity is, or what Early Church history is or is all about.

“Each other” thrill at the gospel; they help and support each other in their efforts to honor Christ’s call. Ever read much of the Gospels or the rest of the New Testament? To whom was it written, and why? So what’s up with you?
ROBERT WAYNE

Those imbeciles who think using atomic weapons against Japan in 1945 are downright unbelievable. Do these idiots think that if Japan had come up with the atomic bomb ahead of us that they wouldn’t have used it? Imperial Japan was at war to take over Asia and the U.S. if possible. They’d have used the atomic bomb on American civilians in a heartbeat if they’d have had the technology. Germany would have too. Also, thousands of G.I.’s would have been killed if there had been an invasion. My dad was a WWII veteran and I remember him saying that the Japs had tunnels dug out all over the place and that it would have been easy as hell for them to mow down invading troops. Killing civilians is just an unfortunate reality of war. And if you think it can’t happen here, think again. It already has. Thousands of white southerners who weren’t even Confederate troops were murdered by Lincoln’s yankees from 1861-1865 for merely wanting their independence from a tyrannical federal govt.
Mark

I always get a little sick during the petitions at Mass when we pray for soldiers but never for the end of war.