On June 6, 1944, as American forces began the liberation of France from Hitler’s clutches, President Franklin Roosevelt asked the nation to join with him in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home – fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas – whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them – help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too — strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.
That same day, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower recorded this message to the American forces:
Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
President Roosevelt and Gen. Eisenhower both asked for God’s blessing for our troops who waged this “just war” against the evil Nazi regime. Fast forward to a few days before we commemorated the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day invasion, when American-born Pope Leo informed his flock in the encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas that the traditional Catholic “just war” theory developed by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas “is now outdated.”
Magnifica Humanitas rejects war apparently under any circumstances, instead it promotes “far more effective and capable tools for … resolving conflicts.”
The encyclical followed the Pope’s Palm Sunday sermon in which he declared that “Jesus does not listen to prayers of those who wage war.” And Pope Leo has stated that the Iran War — waged against an evil regime that has murdered its own people and promoted terrorism throughout the world since 1979 — is not a just war. The Pope has scheduled an extraordinary consistory of the College of Cardinals to discuss, among other things, “rethinking the just war theory.” The very liberal National Catholic Reporter notes that Cardinal Michael Czerny, who heads the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, commenting on the Pope’s encyclical told reporters that “one cannot talk about just war” and “it is impossible to justify a war.”
Magnifica Humanitas rejects war apparently under any circumstances, instead it promotes “far more effective and capable tools for … resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy, and forgiveness.” Perhaps Pope Leo thinks Winston Churchill was wrong when he refused to negotiate with Hitler in May-June 1940. Perhaps he also thinks that the fanatical Islamic theocrats in Iran can be trusted to refrain from using nuclear weapons should they obtain them. Perhaps the Pope believes that dialogue and forgiveness will persuade the Mullahs to forego their support of terrorism. And perhaps if China attempts to forcibly seize Taiwan and subject it to totalitarian rule, we can use dialogue, diplomacy, and forgiveness to persuade the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party to abandon a goal they have held since October 1949.
Pope Leo in Magnifica Humanitas also rejects nuclear deterrence, which arguably has helped to prevent the outbreak of a third world war since 1945. China is today engaged in a massive nuclear weapons build-up in an effort to undermine the U.S. nuclear deterrent in the Indo-Pacific that helps to protect Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other U.S. allies in the region.
Once before in the face of a U.S. response to an adversary’s nuclear weapons build-up — in that instance, the Reagan administration’s defense program to revitalize America’s nuclear deterrent vis-à-vis the Soviet Union — American Catholic Ecclesiastical leaders issued a “pastoral letter” effectively urging U.S. unilateral nuclear disarmament. This brought forth a brilliant response by the Catholic writer Michael Novak, who wrote: “Religious leaders who wish to influence public policy by influencing public opinion owe a special debt to democratic states, and incur an obligation to defend them against those who would destroy them.” Novak continued:
When an unjust aggressor injures human dignity, to stand aside is a form of complicity and collusion. To resist an unjust aggressor with proportionate means is demanded by justice. Thus, human dignity is the cause both of just peace and of just war. As there are wars which are unjust, so also there is peace which is unjust.
The bishops’ letter also brought this devastating response from the non-Catholic strategist Edward Luttwak: “By what doctrine of theology, by what theory of morality, by what rule of ethics is it decreed that the small risk of nuclear war is a greater evil than the virtual certainty of the large-scale death in great-power wars no longer deterred?”
The American soldiers who participated in Operation Overlord — many of them, like my father who served in the 29th Division, of the Catholic faith — were grateful for the prayers of their president and their commanding general. And American soldiers also received the blessing of Pope Pius XII for achieving victory over the Germans in Southern Italy and for liberating Rome. Today’s soldiers also benefit from the prayers of their president and commanding generals. Those who are Catholic would surely like their pope to pray for them and their victory over evil, too.
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