In mid-April Villanova announced that the commencement speaker would be Admiral William Fallon, a Villanova alumnus whose highest accomplishment was appointment to head of U.S. Central Command, whereby he assumed full responsibility for the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.\u00a0 By honoring Admiral Fallon in this manner, Villanova would be, and would be seen publicly to be, condoning war and particularly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is hardly Christian behavior, and a number of us faculty organized a graduation demonstration to make our peaceable feelings known.<\/p>\n
A copy of the flyer that we distributed is posted on the first comment.\u00a0 The backside of the flyer simply had the word PEACE <\/strong>in large bold letters and could be held up as a visible sign. For convenience, some of the following material is based on selections from my emails to other members of our group, Villanovans for Peace<\/em>.<\/p>\n Recap of May 17 2009 Commencement:<\/strong><\/p>\n Some of us distributed flyers and adhesive images in the faculty area, while Sue and I held the large Villanovans for Peace<\/em> banner at the corner of Lancaster and Ithan Aves.\u00a0 Large numbers crossed at that corner on their way to the entrance to the stadium, and we were able to distribute hundreds of our flyers to graduates and their families. One of our group was a member of the stage party and wore an armband and spoke with the Admiral personally.<\/p>\n Admiral Fallon\u2019s speech was traditional, the same as what a civilian might have given (although that civilian might have been the likes of a basketball coach, when things got a bit hip-hip and rah-rah).\u00a0 It\u2019s likely that Fr. Donohue felt the need to inform Fallon that a peace demonstration was planned, and that might have led him to avoid anything that might be seen as inflammatory.\u00a0 Good.<\/p>\n At the close, a group of us faculty marched out holding the banner (I had brought it into the stadium folded under my ample robe).\u00a0 This was a unique act for any graduation in my memory, and it looked to be well received by those in the stadium (at least folks were taking pictures of us).<\/p>\n What Villanovans for Peace <\/em>group agreed to in advance, after much discussion.<\/p>\n There’s always a question about what to call what we did.\u00a0 I prefer public affirmation<\/em>, avoid\u00a0like the plague the word protest<\/em>, sometimes use witness<\/em>, and we\u00a0settled on using dissent<\/em> in our flyer.<\/p>\n I’m atypical of Villanovans for Peace<\/em> in that I am a Christian pacifist, and I made a point of referring to myself that way when we met with Fr Donohue (President of Villanova) to discuss our concerns about the choice of commencement speaker. This concept seems to be totally lacking at Christian Villanova.\u00a0Has anyone heard of others on campus,\u00a0or is that my unique\u00a0role here?\u00a0 “Look, that’s him, our\u00a0Villanova Christian pacifist.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The following is from my response to a friend\u2019s email on Just War Theory: <\/strong><\/p>\n I can’t give\u00a0over responsibility for participation in war to the politicians\u2019 decision to go to war, even if an individual’s conduct in war followed “jus in bello” <\/em>principles of Just War Theory.\u00a0There is much discussion about the value of the “good Nazi”, but Jesus’ message is clear (even if incredibly demanding) that nothing short of the White Rose and Franz Jagerstatter is asked of us.\u00a0 Why do we honor this\u00a0only when it is done by the\u00a0OTHER side?\u00a0 Incidentally, do you know of any soldiers among the many thousands who participated in saturation bombing of civilian targets\u00a0during WWII (the mis-named “good” war, but hardly Christian by jus in bello<\/em> standards) who refused to participate in these bombings?<\/p>\n The following is from my response to a friend\u2019s email:<\/strong> In mid-April Villanova announced that the commencement speaker would be Admiral William Fallon, a Villanova alumnus whose highest accomplishment was appointment to head of U.S. Central Command, whereby he assumed full responsibility for the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.\u00a0 By honoring Admiral Fallon in this manner, Villanova would be, and would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\nI completely agree that the military does not want wars.\u00a0 That is a significant point of agreement that I use to stress our common interest when I speak with military personnel.\u00a0 However, the military are legally bound to be followers of others more than leaders (despite the hype to the contrary).\u00a0 If they do not follow orders, they are sacked and replaced with reliable followers.\u00a0 There is rumor that Admiral Fallon disagreed with Bush, but there is no reliable support for this rumor anywhere on the web. In any case, our witness is not about Fallon per se, but about Villanova\u2019s honoring him.\u00a0 The formal press release only describes the high positions he has achieved in the military and says nothing of objections to the Iraq\/Afghan Wars.\u00a0 So Villanova is honoring him for advancing in the system, not for trying to reform it.\u00a0 I notice in a recent post they mention his \u201chumanitarian aid for Afghanistan.\u201d\u00a0 I wonder if this new comment might be related to the concern we expressed when we talked with the President of Villanova?\u00a0 I support humanitarian aid; lets do it.\u00a0 But the military is NOT a humanitarian aid society.\u00a0 What a lie, to try to justify military intervention in that way.\u00a0 In any case, most Afghans would be happier if we took the total package elsewhere and stopped killing their civilians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"