St. Joseph Church
Bristol, Connecticut

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Pastoral Minister

War and Peace

"Peace is not merely the absence of war; not can it be reduced solely to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies; nor is it brought about by dictatorship. Instead, it is rightly and appropriately called an enterprise of justice (Is. 32:7)."

Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 1965 # 78

"Soldiers who wish to be a hero
Are practically zero,
But those who wish to be civilians
Lord, they run into the millions."

"I believe in God, who is for me spirit, love, the principle of all things."

"In the days to come,
The Mountain of the Lord's house
shall be established as the highest mountain
and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it:
many people shall come and say;
"Come, let us climb the Lord's mountain,
to the house of the god of Jacob,
That he may instruct us in his ways,
....He shall judge between the nations,
and impose terms on many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
One nation shall not raise the sword
against another,
nor shall train for war again."

Isaiah 2:2-4

"As we face the challenges of the turn of the next millennium, it is worth remembering that enemies can be contained, peace extended, and revolutions made."

"....Faith does not insulate us from the daily challenges of life but intensifies our desire to address them precisely in the light of the gospel which has come to us in the person of the risen Christ. Through the resources of faith and reason we desire in this letter to provide hope for people in our day and direction toward a world freed of the nuclear threat."

"The cause of war is the preparation for war."

"It is not a pleasant thought, but it cannot be ignored: the game of war is up, and we are going to have to change the rules if we are to survive. During the last two years of World War II, over one million people were being killed each month. If the great powers go to war with each other just once more, using all the weapons they now have, a million people will being killed each minute. Technology has invalidated all our assumptions about the way we run our world."

"Peace upon earth !" was said.
We sing it, and pay a million
priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of Mass
We've got as far as poison gas."

Thomas Hardy, Peace Upon Earth

"It is widely believed that military combat is the only effective means of struggle in a wide variety of situations of acute conflict. However, there is another whole approach to the waging of social and political conflict. Any proposed substitute for war in the defense of freedom must involve wielding power, confronting and engaging an invader's military might, and waging effective combat. The technique of nonviolent action, although relatively ignored and underdeveloped, may be able to meet these requirement, and provide the basis for a defense policy."

"Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation."

Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, #80.3

"War is not an instinct but an invention"

"The soldier, above all people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."

"....and if we can not now resolve our differences, at least let us make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

"I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may."

"We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will perish as fools."

" Protection of a large population against chemical weapons is difficult, against biological weapons virtually impossible. Moral deterrence against their use therefore takes on heightened importance."

"Nuclear weapons are irrational devices. They were rationalized and accepted as a desperate measure in the face of circumstances that were unimaginable. Now as the world evolves rapidly, I think that the vast majority of people on the face of this earth will endorse the proposition that such weapons have no place among us. There is no security to be found in nuclear weapons. It's a fool's game."

"Let us have the courage to believe in the bright future and in a God who wills it for us--not a perfect world, but a better one. The perfect world, we Christians believe, is beyond the horizon, in an endless eternity where God will be all in all. But a better world is here for human hands and hearts and minds to make."

Economic Justice

"There are many matters of a like kind in which the worker needs the protection of the state. His spiritual good comes first....It follows that no man has the power freely to consent to treatment not in accordance with his nature and to deliver his soul into slavery."

"But we who have per capita incomes averaging sixty times those of the poorest half of the world's people are obsessed with getting richer as fast as possible and without end. Now if we and all the others continue to pursue that goal, as population doubles, and resources become scarcer, there can be no other conceivable outcome than increasing levels of conflict in the world."

"We therefore consider it our duty to reaffirm that the remuneration of work is not something that can be left to the laws of the market place; nor should it be a decision left to the will of the more powerful. It must be determined in accordance with justice and equity; which means the workers must be paid a wage which allows them to live a truly human life and to fulfill their family obligations in a worthy manner."

"The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it."

"Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation."

"The encyclical "Rerum Novarum" can be read as a valid contribution to socioeconomic analysis at the end of the 19th century, but its specific value derives from the fact that it is a document of the magisterium and is fully part of the church's evangelizing mission, together with many other documents of this nature. Thus the church's social teaching is itself a valid instrument of evangelization. As such, it proclaims God and his mystery of salvation in Christ to every human being and for that reason reveals man to himself."

"Catholic social teaching does not hold that unions are no more than a reflection of the "class" structure of society and that they are a mouthpiece for a class struggle which inevitably governs social life. They are indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people in accordance with their individual professions."

"If we so choose, instead of demanding that those fortunate enough to have jobs sacrifice their family and community lives on the altar of competition while others languish in the ranks of the unemployed, we could organize our society around a twenty-to thirty-hour workweek to assure secure and adequately compensated employment for almost every adult who wants o job. The time thus freed could be devoted to the social economy in activities that meet unmet needs and rebuild a badly tattered social fabric."

"If the role of the hierarchy is to teach and to interpret authentically the norms of morality to be followed in this matter, it belongs to the laity, without waiting passively for orders and directives, to take the initiative freely and to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws and structures of the community in which they live. Let each one examine himself, to see what he has done up to now, and what he ought to do. It is not enough to recall principles, state intentions, point to crying injustice and utter prophetic denunciations: these words will lack real weight unless they are accompanied for each individual by a livelier awareness and personal responsibility and by effective action."

"Over the span of man's history, although a phenomenal amount of education, persuasion, indoctrination and incantation have been devoted to the effort, ordinary people have never been quite persuaded that toil is as agreeable as its alternatives. Thus to take increased well-being partly in the form of more goods and partly in the form of more leisure is unquestionably rational."

"The poor of the United States and of the world are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Never be content to leave them just the crumbs of the feast. Take of your substance, and not just the crumbs of the feast. Take of your substance, and not just of your abundance, in order to help them. Treat them like guests at your family table."

"Economic or political power should never be used to protect the interests of one group to the detriment of the others. The whole of society ought to be one with all people and in the first place with the poor. Justice for the poor is a Christian option; it is also the option of a society that is concerned with the true common good. Those who exercise power must do so as a service of social justice. Power must be at the service of people, especially those who are the neediest."

"Racism is not merely the one sin among many; it is a radical evil that divides the human family and denies the new creation of redeemed world. To struggle against it demands an equally radical transformation, in our minds and hearts as well as the structure of our society."

"So we defend ourselves and our henroosts, and maintain slavery."

"Every social group must take account of the needs and legitimate aspirations of the other groups, even of the general welfare of the entire human family."

Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 1965

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never been engaged in a direct action movement that was "well-timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the words "Wait !" It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never."....We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

"....forms of social or cultural discrimination in basic personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language or religion, must be curbed and eradicated."

"....for once we learned to see the great events of history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspect, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled--in short, from the perspective of those who suffer."

"Within the Church no inequality arising from race or nationality, social condition or sex should exist."

Dogmatic Constitution on the Church

"Like life, racial understanding is not something that we find but something that we must create."

"Anyone who takes even a cursory interest in the state of our planet's health and vitality must be aware that things have gone badly wrong....Some people may respond to rational arguments, but I am convinced that it needs more than that. It is one thing to understand the problems, it is quite another to have the will the implement practical remedies, particularly if they demand restraint and sacrifice... The evidence suggests that people are influenced in their behavior by moral conviction and ethical concepts. People are more likely to go to the stake for their beliefs than for their knowledge of the facts."

Duke of Edinburgh

"The new technological possibilities are based upon the unity of science, on the global and simultaneous character of communications and on the birth of an absolutely interdependent economic world. Moreover, men are beginning to grasp a new and more radical dimension of unity; for they perceive that their resources, as well as the precious treasures of air and water--without which there cannot be life--and the small delicate biosphere of the whole complex of all life on earth, are not infinite, but on the contrary must be saved and preserved as a unique patrimony belonging to all mankind."

"In the end, this is the search for an earth cosmology and earth ethic, carried out in the recognition that nature and earth comprise a single community. Whether we like it or not, it's life together now or not at all. Earth faith and earth community--this is humanity's next journey."

"Among today's positive signs we must also mention a greater realization of the limits of available resources and of the need to respect the integrity and the cycles of nature and to take them into account when planning for development, rather than sacrificing them to certain demagogic ideas about the latter. Today this is called ecological concern."

"The whole human race suffers as a result of environmental blight, and generations yet unborn will bear the cost for our failure to act today. But in most countries today, including our own, it is the poor and the powerless who most directly bear the burden of current environmental carelessness."

"An education in ecological responsibility is urgent: responsibility for oneself, for others, and for the earth. This education cannot be rooted in mere sentiment or empty wishes. Its purpose cannot be ideological or political. It must not be based on a rejection of the modern world or a vague desire to return to some "paradise lost."

Death Penalty

"Capital punishment denies the givenness and totality of human life...It implies that men know more about life than they do...It is a denial of the human mystery...It is therefore always morally wrong, no matter what the justifications...It destroys the very purpose for which human life exists, a never-ending search for human meaning. No one has the right to frustrate this human dimension by imposing death...Capital punishment is a capitulation to human despair, the antithesis of morality and ethics..."

"...God drove Cain out of his presence and sent him into exile far away from his native land, so that he passed from a life of human kindness to one which was more akin to the rude existence of a wild beast. God, who preferred the correction rather than the death of a sinner, did not desire that homicide be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide."

Prayers and Reflections on Justice and Peace

"Lord, open our eyes,
That we may see you in our brothers and sisters.
Lord, open our ears,
That we may hear the cries of the hungry, the cold,
the frightened, the oppressed.
Lord, open our hearts,
That we may love each other as you love us.
Renew in us your spirit
Lord, free us and make us one.

Mother Teresa

"As long as we only use creation, we cannot recognize its sacredness because we are approaching it as if we were its owners. But when we relate to all that surrounds us as created by the same God who created us and as the place where God appears to us and calls us to worship and adoration, then we are able to recognize the sacredness of all God's handiwork."

"A women with cancer of the face was begging, and when I gave her money--she tried to kiss my hand. The only thing I could do was to kiss her dirty old face with the gaping hole in it...It sounds like a heroic deed, but it was not. What we avert our eyes from today can be borne tomorrow when we have learned a little more about love."

"O merciful God, fill our hearts with the graces of your Holy Spirit--with love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Teach us to love those who hate us; to pray for those who despitefully use us; that we may be your children, our Father, who make your sun to shine on the evil and on the good and send rain on the just and the unjust."

"O God
to those who have hunger
give bread;
And to those who have bread
give the hunger for justice."

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console,
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love,
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."