Is Napalm the Only Answer in Vietnam?

As a Catholic layman who has long been opposed to New Zealand participation in the Vietnam War, on grounds by no means unexamined, I wish to differ respectfully with the views of Rev. Patrick O’Connor, expressed at length in your pages. I recognise that his standpoint is not uncommon among both clergy and laity, who hold –

(a)	that Communists do not tolerate religious freedom, but persecute the Church; and –
(b)	that this situation ipso facto justifies war against any Communist regime or major uprising.

I do not quarrel with the first premise, though many leftists have tried to argue me out of it.

Communists do persecute the Church, for two reasons – because she embodies a source of authority separate from the State (this is also the familiar Protestant and nationalist objection to the Church); and because she has seemed to tolerate various social injustices (e.g. the extreme economic power of landlords) and various political iniquities (e.g. the French domination of Vietnam).

On the issue of the Church’s authority, the Communists are mistaken, as we know; though it is a mistake the British Government has also made since the time of Henry the Eighth.

On the issue of social justice and political equity they are by no means wholly mistaken. Thus I do quarrel with the second premise.

Are we to participate indefinitely in a bloody and atrocious war because the Catholic minority in Vietnam has suffered and may suffer persecution? Is the Church incapable of converting her persecutors, except with burning napalm that brings the innocent and the guilty to the Judgment Seat? Has the voice of Pope John, pleading for patient and charitable co-existence with the persecutors, been heard in vain?

Do we not also secretly hold that atheists, however passionately humanist their atheism may be, are the Devil’s men and have no right to exist?

Have the non-Communist states of which we are citizens, incurred no blame by their persistent military intervention (successful only in hardening Communist prejudice and suspicion) in each revolution of the century?

Are the people of God partisans?

Let us weep for our persecuted brothers; pray for them; work for them, as page 244 the Vatican has done through years of difficult diplomacy – but not invoke the sword of doubtful Caesars on their behalf.

Has napalm distinguished anyway between Catholic and non-Catholic peasantry?

I suggest that we should consider these questions in our hearts. To care and not believe is the difficult human road of many Marxian atheists; to believe and not care is the trap of a crusading Catholic bigotry.

God forbid that war should turn us into nihilists who fundamentally neither care nor believe. To believe and care is our task in this century.

1967 (412)