Catholic teaching, stand aside! The Army Field Manual says, "If you're to be an Army leader and a person of integrity, (your) values must reinforce not contradict, Army values." Army values trump religiously informed conscience.
Why this strange marriage?
Marquette would not allow a government-financed program on campus to teach the legitimacy of contraception, abortion or same-sex marriage. Why this affair with ROTC, an arrangement unparalleled at other Jesuit universities? The answer in biblical terms is "thirty pieces of silver." ROTC is a money-maker.
But what of Bob Graf?
Bob Graf is a 70-year-old, nonviolent peace-maker. For decades, he has been a dreadful nuisance as he persistently protested against ROTC.
Graf stands in a distinguished train of nuisances. He and his fellow protesters are at one with Isaiah, who was a vexing nuisance, as was Jeremiah. Jesus was a colossal nuisance, and he, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, paid for it with his life. Jesus' mother was a nuisance. In her one speech, she uttered one of the most radical calls for justice in human literature. She was out to free the Earth's poor from the sordid chains of injustice and to rout bloated oppressors from their plush thrones.
So who is guilty around here?
Albrecht Haushofer was found guilty of resistance to the Nazis. While in jail awaiting execution, he wrote a poem called "Schuld" (guilt.) In it, he said he was indeed guilty, but not the way the Nazis thought. He was guilty because he was silent and timid for too long. He did not soon enough and loudly and clearly enough (nicht hart genug und klar) cry out and shout "Unheil!" (This is unholy!) He who was to pay the full price for resistance condemned his own slowness to respond to evil with courage.
Who is guilty at Marquette? First, I am guilty. I have not cried out "hart genug und klar" that ROTC propaganda, which amounts to Operation Conscience Destruction, is blessed at Marquette when it should be condemned and routed. Marquette's administration, which monopolizes all deliberative power at the university, is very guilty, as it embraces ROTC while sending Graf to jail. A compliant faculty is guilty, especially the Theology Department faculty, the supposed keepers of the biblical Gospel of peace.
It is time for Marquette to end its alliance with ROTC indoctrination, to turn back the unholy lucre it brings to our coffers and to become a stirring beacon of that light of peace that Isaiah wanted to extend to the furthest edges of the Earth and Jesus wanted to be taught "to all nations."
Source: http://www.religiousconsultation.org/NEWS/Marquette_and_ROTC.htm
Daniel C. Maguire is a professor of moral theology at Marquette University.
