http://www.stjoan.com/homilies5/hn7.31.05.htm
Father Peter Zabelka, Catholic priest chaplain to Enola Gay bombers Peter: As a Catholic priest my task was to keep my people close to the heart and in mind of Christ. When I look back I am not sure I did this very well. As a chaplain I often had to enter the world of the boys who were losing their minds because of something they did in war. I knew civilians were being destroyed, yet I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to men who were doing it. I was brainwashed. The whole structure of the secular, religious and military society told me clearly that it was all right to "let the Japs have it." God was on the side of my country. I was certain that this mass destruction was right. I was brainwashed not by force or torture but by my Church's silence and wholehearted cooperation with the country's war machine. Sunday, July 31st 2005 The prayer bowl sounds; readers come forward In the early morning of the 6th of August, 1945, the bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The explosion killed about 90,000 by the end of the day. The target was not the military base on the edge of the city but the city center itself. Three days later, a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. That device killed about 40,000 people that day. Unknown numbers of people perished from injuries and radiation sickness in the days and years following the attacks. The following excerpts are from an interview conducted in 1985 with Fr. George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Army Air Force, stationed on Tinian Island in the South Pacific. Fr. Zabelka was assigned to serve the Catholics of the 509th Composite Group, the Atomic Bomb Group. He served as a priest for those who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Michelle: Fr. Zabelka, did you know that the 509th was preparing to drop an atomic bomb? Peter: No. We knew that they were preparing to drop a bomb substantially different from and more powerful than even the "blockbusters" used over Europe, but we never called it an atomic bomb and never really knew what it was before August 6, 1945. Michele: So since you did not know that an atomic bomb was going to be dropped you had no reason to counsel the men in private or preach in public about the morality of such a thing? Peter: Well, that is true enough. And I guess I will go to my God with that as my defense. But on Judgment Day I think I am going to need to seek more justice than mercy in this matter. Michele: Why? Peter: As a Catholic priest my task was to keep my people close to the heart and in mind of Christ. When I look back I am not sure I did this very well. As a chaplain I often had to enter the world of the boys who were losing their minds because of something they did in war. I knew civilians were being destroyed, yet I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to men who were doing it. I was brainwashed. The whole structure of the secular, religious and military society told me clearly that it was all right to "let the Japs have it." God was on the side of my country. I was certain that this mass destruction was right. I was brainwashed not by force or torture but by my Church's silence and wholehearted cooperation with the country's war machine. Michele: So you feel that because you did not protest the morality of the bombing other cities with their civilian populations, that somehow you are morally responsible for the dropping of the atomic bomb? Peter: To fail to speak to the utter moral corruption of the mass destruction of civilians was to fail as a Christian and a priest as I see it. Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened in and to a world and a Christian church that had asked for it - that had prepared the moral consciousness of humanity to do and to justify the unthinkable. I say all this not to pass judgment on others, for I do not know their souls then or now. I say all this as one who was part of the so-called Christian leadership of the time. Modern war and oppression are carried out by a long string of individuals, each doing his or her job meticulously while simultaneously refusing to look at the end results of his or her work. I was the last possible official spokesman for the Church before the fire of hell was let loose on Hiroshima on the Feast of the Transfiguration 1945 - and I said nothing. Michele: Fr. Zabelka, why after 39 years did you decide to return to Japan? Peter: I am old now. Soon I will go to meet my God. When this invitation came, I felt that God had offered me a "great grace." The invitation entered my soul as a pilgrimage, a journey one undertakes to holy places for holy reasons. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are Calvaries. Michele: But Calvary is where Christ suffered. He did not suffer in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Peter: God, Christ lives in every human being. This is part of what the Incarnation is all about. Christ suffers and dies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Therefore to condone or support war is to condone or support the call to "Crucify Him." I'm sorry I can say nothing else - if Calvary is a holy place, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are holy places. Michele: You said that a pilgrimage must not only be to a holy place but for holy reasons. What are your reasons? Peter: Peace! Peace is the fruit of communion with God. Jesus tells us that the condition now for reconciliation with God is reconciliation of human beings. The Christian is explicitly called to be an agent of reconciliation. The reason I am going to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is to repent and to ask for forgiveness of those living and dead whom I have damaged by my failure to love as Christ loved. Michele: Why are you asking for forgiveness? Peter: If my priestly silence spoke for the Church in 1945 to the fellows on Tinian, perhaps my priestly request for forgiveness can speak for the Church in 1984. You see, I want to expose the lie of killing as a Christian social method, the lie of disposable people, the lie of Christian liturgy in the service of the homicidal gods of militarism and nationalism, the lie of nuclear security. I want to expose it by looking into the faces of the hibakusha - the survivors - and saying, "Brother, forgive me for bringing you death instead of the fullness of life. Sister, pardon me for bringing you misery instead of mercy. I and my Church have sinned against you and God." It is our hope in the Power of that small moment of truth, repentance and reconciliation that moves me to pilgrimage East by the grace of God. Michele: Fr. Zabelka, what steps do you think the church should take in order to become the "divine leaven in the human dough"? Peter: It seems to me that Christians have been slaughtering each other, as well as non-Christians, for the past 1700 years, in large part because their priests, pastors and bishops have simply not told them that violence and homicide are incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Christians the world over should be taught that Christ's teaching to love their enemies is not optional. I offer you step two at the risk of being considered hopelessly out of touch with reality. I would like to suggest that there is an immediate need to call an ecumenical council for the specific purpose of clearly declaring that war is totally incompatible with Jesus' teaching and that Christians cannot and will not engage in or pay for it from this point in history on. Jesus authorized none of his followers to substitute violence for love: not me, not you, not the president, not the pope. Christ's teachings are teachings of nonviolent love and mercy. Readers step back and prayer bowl sounds. Michele: Mother Teresa was invited to address the General Assembly of the United Nations on the celebration of its fortieth anniversary. She said: You and I must come forward and share the joy of loving, But we cannot give what we don't have. That's why we need to pray. And prayer will give us a clean heart, And a clean heart can see God in each other. And if we see God in each other We will be able to live in peace. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? 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