Blessing the Bombs
by George Zabelka
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
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and gave them his blessing.
Over the next twenty years, he gradually came to believe that he had
been terribly wrong, that he had denied the very foundations of his
faith by lending moral and religious support to the bombing.
Zabelka, who died in 1992, gave this speech on the 40th anniversary
of the bombings.
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.
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 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.
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.
There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings
of Jesus.
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
interdependent. 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.
Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity
with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.
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.
August 17, 2005
This article was originally published by Bruderhof.com,
It is an excerpt of a speech Fr. Zabelka gave at a
Pax Christi conference in August 1985.
*The plane was actually named Bock's Car, after the regular pilot. On the Nagasaki run, it was piloted by another officer.
