Blessing the Bombs

Too Late, The Hiroshima Bombers' Chaplain Finally Faces Christ

The destruction of civilians in war was always forbidden by the church,
and if a soldier came to me and asked if he could put a bullet through a
child’s head, I would have told him, absolutely not. That would be
mortally sinful. But in 1945 Tinian Island was the largest airfield in
the world. Three planes a minute could take off from it around the
clock. Many of these planes went to Japan with the express purpose of
killing not one child or one civilian but of slaughtering hundreds and
thousands and tens of thousands of children and civilians—and I said
nothing. 

I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men
who were doing it. I was brainwashed! It never entered my mind to
protest publicly the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told
it was necessary—told openly by the military and told implicitly by my
church’s leadership. (To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals
or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters
is a stamp of approval.) 

I worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights struggle
in Flint, Michigan. His example and his words of nonviolent action,
choosing love instead of hate, truth instead of lies, and nonviolence
instead of violence stirred me deeply. This brought me face to face with
pacifism—active nonviolent resistance to evil. I recall his words after
he was jailed in Montgomery, and this blew my mind. He said, “Blood may
flow in the streets of Montgomery before we gain our freedom, but it
must be our blood that flows, and not that of the white man. We must not
harm a single hair on the head of our white brothers.” 

I struggled. I argued. But yes, there it was in the Sermon on the Mount,
very clear: “Love your enemies. Return good for evil.” I went through a
crisis of faith. Either accept what Christ said, as unpassable and silly
as it may seem, or deny him completely. 

For the last 1700 years the church has not only been making war
respectable: it has been inducing people to believe it is an honorable
profession, an honorable Christian profession. This is not true. We have
been brainwashed. This is a lie. 

War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news. I was
there. I saw real war. Those who have seen real war will bear me out. I
assure you, it is not of Christ. It is not Christ’s way. There is no way
to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus. There is
no way to train people for real war in conformity with the teachings of
Jesus. 

The morality of the balance of terrorism is a morality that Christ never
taught. The ethics of mass butchery cannot be found in the teachings of
Jesus. In Just War ethics, Jesus Christ, who is supposed to be all in
the Christian life, is irrelevant. He might as well never have existed.
In Just War ethics, no appeal is made to him or his teaching, because no
appeal can be made to him or his teaching, for neither he nor his
teaching gives standards for Christians to follow in order to determine
what level of slaughter is acceptable. 

So the world is watching today. Ethical hairsplitting over the morality
of various types of instruments and structures of mass slaughter is not
what the world needs from the church, although it is what the world has
come to expect from the followers of Christ. What the world needs is a
grouping of Christians that will stand up and pay up with Jesus Christ.
What the world needs is Christians who, in language that the simplest
soul could understand, will proclaim: the follower of Christ cannot
participate in mass slaughter. He or she must love as Christ loved, live
as Christ lived and, if necessary, die as Christ died, loving ones
enemies. 

For the 300 years immediately following Jesus’ resurrection, the church
universally saw Christ and his teaching as nonviolent. Remember that the
church taught this ethic in the face of at least three serious attempts
by the state to liquidate her. It was subject to horrendous and ongoing
torture and death. If ever there was an occasion for justified
retaliation and defensive slaughter, whether in form of a just war or a
just revolution, this was it. The economic and political elite of the
Roman state and their military had turned the citizens of the state
against Christians and were embarked on a murderous public policy of
exterminating the Christian community. 

Yet the church, in the face of the heinous crimes committed against her
members, insisted without reservation that when Christ disarmed Peter he
disarmed all Christians. Christians continued to believe that Christ
was, to use the words of an ancient liturgy, their fortress, their
refuge, and their strength, and that if Christ was all they needed for
security and defense, then Christ was all they should have. Indeed, this
was a new security ethic. Christians understood that if they would only
follow Christ and his teaching, they couldn’t fail. When opportunities
were given for Christians to appease the state by joining the fighting
Roman army, these opportunities were rejected, because the early church
saw a complete and an obvious incompatibility between loving as Christ
loved and killing. It was Christ, not Mars, who gave security and peace.

Today the world is on the brink of ruin because the church refuses to be
the church, because we Christians have been deceiving ourselves and the
non-Christian world about the truth of Christ. There is no way to follow
Christ, to love as Christ loved, and simultaneously to kill other
people. It is a lie to say that the spirit that moves the trigger of a
flamethrower is the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. It is a lie to say that
learning to kill is learning to be Christ-like. It is a lie to say that
learning to drive a bayonet into the heart of another is motivated from
having put on the mind of Christ. Militarized Christianity is a lie. It
is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of
Jesus. 

Now, brothers and sisters, on the anniversary of this terrible atrocity
carried out by Christians, I must be the first to say that I made a
terrible mistake. I was had by the father of lies. I participated in the
big ecumenical lie of the Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox churches. I
wore the uniform. I was part of the system. When I said Mass over there
I put on those beautiful vestments over my uniform. (When Father Dave
Becker left the Trident submarine base in 1982 and resigned as Catholic
chaplain there, he said, “Every time I went to Mass in my uniform and
put the vestments on over my uniform, I couldn’t help but think of the
words of Christ applying to me: Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”) 

As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of
the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world
as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As
Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel
that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the
Enola Gay and the Boxcar. 

All I can say today is that I was wrong. Christ would not be the
instrument to unleash such horror on his people. Therefore no follower
of Christ can legitimately unleash the horror of war on God’s people.
Excuses and self-justifying explanations are without merit. All I can
say is: I was wrong! But, if this is all I can say, this I must do,
feeble as it is. For to do otherwise would be to bypass the first and
absolutely essential step in the process of repentance and
reconciliation: admission of error, admission of guilt. 

I was there, and I was wrong. Yes, war is hell, and Christ did not come
to justify the creation of hell on earth by his disciples. The
justification of war may be compatible with some religions and
philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of
Jesus. I was wrong. And to those of whatever nationality or religion who
have been hurt because I fell under the influence of the father of lies,
I say with my whole heart and soul I am sorry. I beg forgiveness. 

I asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas (the Japanese survivors of the
atomic bombings) in Japan last year, in a pilgrimage that I made with a
group from Tokyo to Hiroshima. I fell on my face there at the peace
shrine after offering flowers, and I prayed for forgiveness—for myself,
for my country, for my church. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This year in
Toronto, I again asked forgiveness from the Hibakushas present. I asked
forgiveness, and they asked forgiveness for Pearl Harbor and some of the
horrible deeds of the Japanese military, and there were some, and I knew
of them. We embraced. We cried. Tears flowed. That is the first step of
reconciliation—admission of guilt and forgiveness. Pray to God that
others will find this way to peace. 

All religions have taught brotherhood. All people want peace. It is only
the governments and war departments that promote war and slaughter. So
today again I call upon people to make their voices heard. We can no
longer just leave this to our leaders, both political and religious.
They will move when we make them move. They represent us. Let us tell
them that they must think and act for the safety and security of all the
people in our world, not just for the safety and security of one
country. All countries are inter-dependent. We all need one another. It
is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of
themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are
doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust. 

Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating
in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military.
This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the
weapons. There’s no question about that. We’ve got to realize we all
become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest
sins. 

The bombing of Nagasaki means even more to me than the bombing of
Hiroshima. By August 9, 1945, we knew what that bomb would do, but we
still dropped it. We knew that agonies and sufferings would ensue, and
we also knew—at least our leaders knew—that it was not necessary. The
Japanese were already defeated. They were already suing for peace. But
we insisted on unconditional surrender, and this is even against the
Just War theory. Once the enemy is defeated, once the enemy is not able
to hurt you, you must make peace. 

As a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish
Catholic pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, the
center of Catholicism in Japan. I knew that St. Francis Xavier,
centuries before, had brought the Catholic faith to Japan. I knew that
schools, churches, and religious orders were annihilated. And yet I said
nothing. 

Thank God that I’m able to stand here today and speak out against war,
all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false
gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshipping the gods of
metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism,
and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength.
The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in
chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was
simple, and so is mine. 

We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do
something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshipping the gods
of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our
destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it’s also the
greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history
of our world—to save our world from complete annihilation.