Bob Waldrop, founder of the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House in Oklahoma City, is calling for a boycott of the 2016 national collection in Catholic churches for the Archdiocese of Military Services, accusing the military bishops of material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war. To facilitate the boycott, he has prepared a half page document that can be printed and placed in the collection plate or offering envelope the weekend of November 5-6, 2016, when the offering is to be collected. A PDF version of the document is available at www.justpeace.org/mscollection.pdf. This has two copies on one page to facilitate distribution.
Text of the boycott call:
I am not giving to the 2016 Archdiocese for Military Services Collection.
The bishops of the Archdiocese for Military Services, together with nearly all of their brother United States Bishops, are guilty of material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war. In 2003, both Pope John Paul II and then Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Benedict XVI, condemned our attack on Iraq as an unjust war. In spite of the Pope’s opposition, the Most Rev. Edwin O’Brien, then Archbishop for the Military Services advised Catholic members of the US Armed Forces: “Given the complexity of factors involved, many of which understandably remain confidential, it is altogether appropriate for members of our armed forces to presume the integrity of our leadership and its judgments and therefore to carry out their military duties in good conscience.”