Among the more perennially contentious issues on the campuses of many Catholic colleges and universities is the presence of the Reserve Officers'Training Corps, or ROTC. While opposition to ROTC has been by no means limited to Catholic schools, the centrality of moral and religious principles to the mission of these institutions has provided purchase for many of the arguments of ROTC critics. This article examines the major arguments put forth in support of the claim that ROTC is fundamentally inconsistent with Catholic Church teaching and, therefore, at odds with the mission of Catholic colleges and universities. The article concludes that each rests on interpretations of Catholic moral thought and teaching that are not only incomplete but also incorrect and that claims of a basic contradiction between the religious identity of Catholic institutions of higher learning and ROTC programs do not stand up well to scrutiny.
Katie Millar, “ROTC at Catholic Universities,”Sign of Peace2, no. 2 (Easter 2003), http://www.ndu.edu/mbaxter/cfp/sopII2/sopIIrotc.htm
2.
Quoted in Tracy Early, “Los Angeles Bishop Is New Bishop President of Pax Christi USA,”Catholic News Service, August 1, 2003, http://www.paxchristiusa.org/news_events_more.asp?id=671 (accessed August 3, 2005).
3.
Gordon C. Zahn, “R.O.T.C. on Campus,”America, December 21, 1985, 440-440; and Daniel Berrigan, quoted in Vicki Ritterband, “The ROTC Question,” Holy Cross Magazine 37, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 22-23.
4.
Quoted in Colman McCarthy, “Educating Peacemakers,”National Catholic Reporter Online, September 29, 2000, http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/092900/092900j.htm (accessed August 1, 2005).
5.
Center on Conscience and War, “ROTC and Catholic Higher Education: A Report and Recommendations,”January 31, 1989, 13-13.
6.
Ibid., 16.
7.
See the essays collected in Thomas A. Shannon, ed., War or Peace? The Search for New Answers (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1980), especially David J. O'Brien, “American Catholic Opposition to the Vietnam War: A Preliminary Assessment,” 119-50.
8.
Roman Catholic Church, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 1965, sec. 78.3; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response (1983).
9.
Whether the Church's stated position on war and peace is consistent with the message of the scriptures is of course a vibrant debate in its own right but one that is beyond the scope of this article. For relatively recent examples of Christian nonviolence arguments, see John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994); and Daniel A. Dombrowski, Christian Pacifism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991).
10.
USCCB, “The Challenge of Peace,” n. 7. The purpose of pastoral letters such as The Challenge of Peace is to interpret Church teaching so as to provide guidance to American Catholics and those who minister to them. USCCB statements and letters therefore do not constitute official Church teaching, although they can be assumed to be not inconsistent with such teaching. I am grateful to David O'Brien for clarifying this point for me.
11.
Catechism of the Catholic Church [hereinafter CCC], n. 1882. The Catechism is the Church's central document for the comprehensive expression of its teachings, one that “conveys the essential and fundamental content of Catholic faith and morals in a complete and summary way.” John Pollard, “Questions and Answers on the Catechism of the Catholic Church,”http://www.usccb.org/catechism/general/q&a.htm (accessed January 13, 2006). It draws upon many other documents, including scripture and apostolic constitutions such as those that emerged from Vatican II. Because of its status as a definitive source of teaching, I will in most cases cite the Catechism itself rather than the documents upon which it draws.
12.
CCC, n. 2308.
13.
Ibid., n. 2265.
14.
Ibid., nn. 1910, 2310.
15.
USCCB, “A Pastoral Message: Living with Faith and Hope after September 11,”November 14, 2001, http://www.nccbuscc.org/sdwp/sept11.htm (accessed November 16, 2001).
16.
CCC, n. 2310.
17.
USCCB, The Challenge of Peace, n. 58.
18.
Ibid., n. 60.
19.
CCC, nn. 2304, 1909.
20.
USCCB, The Challenge of Peace, n. 21 (emphasis added).
21.
Ibid., n. 14.
22.
Pope John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae: Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on Catholic Universities, August 15, 1990, n. 32, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_15081990_ex-corde-ecclesiae_en.html (accessed August 1, 2005).
23.
Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, December 28, 1997, n. 16, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccathedu/documents/rc_con_ccathedu_doc_27041998_school2000_en.html (accessed August 1, 2005).
24.
CCC, n. 2306.
25.
Ibid.
26.
Ibid., nn. 2240, 2265.
27.
Ibid., n. 2461.
28.
Ibid., n. 2306.
29.
USCCB, The Challenge of Peace, n. 75.
30.
CCC, n. 1778.
31.
Zahn, “R.O.T.C. on Campus,”440-440.
32.
Pax Christi USA, Selective Conscientious Objection and Catholic Teaching, pamphlet.
33.
Judgment of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, 1946, 41-41 A.J.I.L. 172 (1947); Joseph B. Berger III, Derek Grimes, and Eric T. Jensen, eds., Operational Law Handbook (Charlottesville, VA: The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School, 2004), 34-34.
34.
Berger, Grimes, and Jensen, Operational Law Handbook, 34-34.
35.
There is, in such cases, a large amount of overlap between legal and moral reasoning, given that the law of armed conflict typically embodies judgments with strong moral content, such as the distinction between military and civilian targets, the principle of proportionality, and the injunctions against inflicting undue suffering.
36.
Anyone who doubts this would do well to review the proceedings of the meetings of the International Symposium on Military Ethics (formerly the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics) or to review the numerous articles on military ethics published by officers in the journals of the various armed services or the Journal of Military Ethics.
37.
See, for example, Center on Conscience and War, “ROTC and Catholic Higher Education,”5-7.
38.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, 2nd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 311-311.
39.
There are five main criteria in assessing the permissibility of resorting to force (the question of jus ad bellum). They are the presence of a just cause, the proper or legitimate authority of the war-making entity, the right intention for going to war, the reasonable probability of success, and the proportionality between the ends sought and the harm anticipated.
40.
See James Turner Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981); Paul Ramsey, War and the Christian Conscience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1961); Yedidiah Groll-Ya'ari, “Toward a Normative Code for the Military,” Armed Forces & Society 20, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 457-61; and Bradley C. S. Watson, “The Western Ethical Tradition and the Morality of the Warrior,” Armed Forces & Society 26, no. 1 (Fall 1999): 55-72.
41.
Millar, “ROTC at Catholic Universities.”
42.
Quoted on Holy Cross Military Free Web site, http://www.worcester.indymedia.org/mail.php?id=1217 (accessed September 26, 2005).
43.
Reuters, “Pope: War Threatens Fate of Humanity,”March 22, 2003; and Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, “Statement on War with Iraq,” USCCB, March 19, 2003.
44.
On the Vatican's view on Afghanistan, see Alfonso Aquilar, “A Year after Iraq: Catholic Just War Doctrine,”National Catholic Register, March 28, 2004, http://www.godspy.com/reviews/A-Year-After-Iraq-Catholic-Just-War-Doctrine.cfm (accessed September 29, 2005).
45.
Ibid., 4-5.
46.
Ibid., 4.
47.
ROTC programs provide the armed services with a high percentage not only of their newly commissioned officers but also of their senior leadership. A representative sampling of general officers in the U.S. Army interviewed in the late 1990s, for example, contained 46.8 percent ROTC graduates, compared with only 29 percent West Point graduates. James J. Dowd, “Connected to Society: The Political Beliefs of U.S. Army Generals,”Armed Forces & Society, 27, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 343-372, 348-348. Four of the last six chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been ROTC graduates.
48.
CCC, n. 2309.
49.
I have elsewhere examined the question of whether Catholics in the armed services are morally required to refuse to participate in wars they deem unjust. Ward Thomas, “Unjust War and the Catholic Soldier” (Presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Honolulu, Hawaii, March 2005). This is, in any case, an individual decision and not one that can be logically applied to entire institutions, for the reasons described here.
50.
In the current U.S. nuclear force structure, only the Navy and Air Force possess strategic nuclear weapons, those most relevant to the doctrine of deterrence.
51.
See, for example, Center on Conscience and War, “ROTC and Catholic Higher Education,”13-13.
52.
For an example of this type of argument, see Gordon C. Zahn, “Violence and Pacifism,” in War, Conscience and Dissent (New York: Hawthorn, 1967).
53.
Pax Christi USA, “Selective Conscientious Objection and Catholic Teaching.”
54.
CCC, n. 2314.
55.
Ibid., n. 2315.
56.
USCCB, The Challenge of Peace, n. 137.
57.
Ibid., nn. 147-48.
58.
Ibid., n. 150.
59.
Ibid., nn. 131, 140, 145, 152, and 161. It is important to note that this judgment was made in the context of the bilateral nuclear relationship of the cold war. The use of nuclear weapons in tactical contexts against nonnuclear states arguably raises different issues.
60.
Ibid., nn. 173, 186.
61.
Both John Paul II and the USCCB specified that deterrence should be an intermediate step toward the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament. Ibid., nn. 173, 188.
62.
Ibid., n. 311; CCC, nn. 2312-2314.
63.
See Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (New York: Touchstone, 1983).
64.
USCCB, The Challenge of Peace, n. 137.
65.
These arguments are surveyed in Center on Conscience and War, “ROTC and Catholic Higher Education.”
66.
Kathryn Wexler, “ROTC Still Draws Protests, but Issue Now Is Bias against Gay Students,”Washington Post, November 17, 1994, A3-A3.
