Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force,
served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on
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
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
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.
Stopped when the A-bomb hit
Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945, this watch belonged to Kengo Futagawa, a 59-year-old who
was crossing a bridge 1600 meters from the hypocenter. Horribly burned, Futagawa jumped into the river for relief, and later made
his way home, but died on August 22, 1945.
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
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
As
a Catholic chaplain I watched as the Boxcar, piloted by a good Irish Catholic
pilot, dropped the bomb on Urakami Cathedral in
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.
This article is excerpted from a speech George Zabelka
gave at a Pax Christi conference in August 1985 (tape
of speech obtained from Notre Dame University Archives). The first two
paragraphs are from an interview with Zabelka
published in Sojourners magazine, August 1980.