On Faith and Morals

The age of terror started in the southern hemisphere years before September 2001. The twentieth anniversary of the killing at the University of Central America (UCA) in El Salvador of a housekeeper, her teenage daughter, and six Jesuit priests is next Monday. “Be a patriot! Kill a priest!” was an infamous slogan at the time, to terrorize the current generation into submission.

The United States Army School of the Americas (SOA) based at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia then and now trains Latin American soldiers in combat and counter-insurgency. The School of the Americas (SOA) changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC)in January 2001. The name of Archbishop Oscar Romero is included in the litany of the dead and disappeared, along with four American Maryknoll nuns, the El Mazote Massacre of 900 civilians at the Rio Sumpul, and tens of thousands of Latin Americans massacred, tortured, raped, or “disappeared” at the hand of SOA alumni. Or forced into refuge. Graduates of the SOA are responsible for the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. And Bishop Robert Morlino of the Madison, Wisconsin Diocese since 1999 has been allowed to serve since 2005 as an adviser to Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, on their advisory Board of Visitors. (Bishop Robert Morlino was one of eighty bishops who said he would not have allowed President Obama to speak at the graduation at Notre Dame.)

The annual vigil of prayer and protest against the School of the Americas very much involves the Catholic community. The time of protest outside of Fort Benning is once again at hand as students, religious, labor, human rights and social/global justice groups in solidarity with the people of the Americas, asking on November 20th through November 22nd in nonviolent action exactly what kind of country sponsors the School of the Americas, under any name. The current struggle of a nation coming to grips with the closing of Guantanamo Bay detention camps has precluded any self examination of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which has continued under Clinton, Bush and Obama. In November, 2004, there were 16,000 outside of Fort Benning, protesting the continued support. After his election to president, Obama has resisted pleas to shut the school but he has promised to end torture.

On the eve of the week of Thanksgiving, with the National Conference of Bishops meeting in Baltimore this week voting on matter of the nature and purposes of marriage, I have to wonder about the Catholic part of Bishop Robert Morlino of the Madison, Wisconsin Diocese. If it is the responsibility as bishop to encourage Catholic institutions to “give public witness to the fullness of the Catholic faith,” as stated by Bishop D’Arcy of Fort Wayne about his pastoral presence at Notre Dame, I have to wonder how in the age of terror Bishop Robert Morlino of the Madison, Wisconsin Diocese can justify his participation in the existence of United States Army School of the Americas. If he is in communion with the faithful, his public witness to the fullness of the Catholic faith gives foundation to those that massacre, torture and force into refuge. How in the name of God could you lend support to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation? And then speak out with credibility on any other moral issue? How is he not censored by the National Conference of Bishops? Or by the Vatican? How is he allowed to speak at any Catholic institution?

With the massacred, tortured, raped, or “disappeared”at the hands of SOA alumni, I am uncertain about Bishop Robert Morlino of the Madison, Wisconsin Diocese ability to judge right from wrong. Why would anyone look to Bishop Morlino for any moral guidance? He also wrote at one time that only he, not his flock, should read The Da Vinci Code to be able to understand it. In a university town.

From the late 1970s into the early 1990s, in another age of terror in the southern hemisphere, the United States supported the Salvadoran government armed forces throughout their civil war, with ongoing persecution of clergy and repression of movements for social change. The November 16, 1989 Jesuits martyrdom in the El Salvador civil war was hardly the only instance of repression. It was no different sponsoring the School of he Americas than being a sponsor of Al-Qaeda.

Since September 11, 2001, the age of terror was a lot more personal. In the southern hemisphere years before September 2001, the tax dollars of the American people were used to terrorize a generation into submission, in places where the number of victims well exceeded that American number of dead on September 11, 2001. Away from the lights of New York.

In solidarity with the people of the Americas, on November 20th through November 22nd the protesters will reveal the radiance of their own discovery, no thanks to Bishop Morlino. It was Joseph Campbell who said that preachers “err by trying to talk people into belief. Better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery.”