COLMAN McCARTHY, cmccarthy at starpower.net A former Washington Post columnist, McCarthy is founder and director of the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, D.C., and the author of the book I’d Rather Teach Peace. He recently wrote the piece “Francis Needs to go Beyond his Play-it-Safe Verbiage” for the National Catholic Reporter.
McCarthy said today about Pope Francis’ speech before Congress: “I thought it over emphasized meaningless pieties.” While the speech referred to stopping the arms trade, McCarthy noted “it didn’t refer to the militarism of U.S. government itself. It didn’t talk about lowering the military budget. He quoted from [Martin Luther] King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, but not King’s calling the U.S. government ‘the greatest purveyor of violence‘ — as King did. He mentioned Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, but they too spoke out against U.S. militarism. He should have quoted Dorothy Day and her commitment to pacifism.” See McCarthy’s piece on Dorothy Day in the Washington Post from 1980 just after her death. See also McCarthy’s piece “Rediscovering Thomas Merton.”
http://www.accuracy.org/release/popes-blind-spots-sex-abuse-militarism/
McCarthy said today about Pope Francis’ speech before Congress: “I thought it over emphasized meaningless pieties.” While the speech referred to stopping the arms trade, McCarthy noted “it didn’t refer to the militarism of U.S. government itself. It didn’t talk about lowering the military budget. He quoted from [Martin Luther] King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, but not King’s calling the U.S. government ‘the greatest purveyor of violence‘ — as King did. He mentioned Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, but they too spoke out against U.S. militarism. He should have quoted Dorothy Day and her commitment to pacifism.” See McCarthy’s piece on Dorothy Day in the Washington Post from 1980 just after her death. See also McCarthy’s piece “Rediscovering Thomas Merton.”
http://www.accuracy.org/release/popes-blind-spots-sex-abuse-militarism/