Johannes Ude
Whoever is a Christian, that is, who truly abides by Christ’s teaching, may not touch a murder weapon and does not need a rifle, a revolver, a canon, or poison gas. His defense is nonviolence, and his weapons are love, goodness, compassion, patience, and gentleness.
Johannes Ude
How do Catholic moral theologians, priests, and laymen justify the right of self-defense? Are they not violating the unambiguous words of Christ and His apostles when they declare arming and training for war to be acceptable and the “just defensive war” to be morally permissible? How can they, without contradicting themselves, teach that the great commandment to love includes all people, friend and foe, with no exceptions, and, on the other hand, judge the force of arms, preparations for war and self-defense— the killing of the enemy—to be morally permissible, justified, and even a duty?
Johannes Ude
If our remarks are correct, and we are deeply convinced that they are, all churches, starting with the Catholic Church, instead of supporting the right of self-defense and the right to wage war, have to forbid their members to fight in wars and to defend themselves with weapons or any kind of violence because these are incompatible with Christianity.
Johannes Ude
Whoever believes that military preparations help the economy is like the man who wants to heat his stove with dynamite because he thinks it has greater heating power than coal. After a war the economy is like the dynamite heated oven: exploded and completely destroyed. We have to make a decision. Either we are for canons and renounce Christianity, or we are for Christianity and renounce canons, self-defense, military preparations, and war. Either we are for an “armed peace,’ for military preparations, and the use of violence, but then we may not call ourselves Christians. Or we want to be true Christians, but then we have to profess nonviolence and forego self-defense. –Johannes Ude
However, if the supporters of war, in order to demonstrate how “Christian” they are, demand that war be waged “humanely” and form organizations which object to the various horrors of war, these people are playing a ludicrous, not to say, a childish role. Either one is for war or opposed to it. If one is for war, then one is for war fought with every, even the cruelest, methods in order to totally destroy the enemy as soon as possible, because that is real war. Every war is the opposite of love, and each war is brutal. If I support war, then I also support also the cruelties committed. However, as a Christian I may not commit even the smallest brutality. A Christian has to be a total conscientious objector.
Johannes Ude
-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
