By Emil Brisson
Special to The Catholic Spirit
How do we care for needy while funding war?
March 19 marks the fourth anniversary of the United States’ war in Iraq. So far it has taken over 3,000 American lives and has cost more than $403 billion. Instead of a quick war in which we expected to be greeted as liberators, it has dragged on for more than four years. It has led to horrible sectarian violence and there seems to be no end in sight.
I can’t think about the war without thinking about the teachings of Jesus regarding our duty to love and care for others. Specifically, I think about his command that we love our neighbors and our enemies. Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart.” The second greatest commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). Jesus tells us we will be judged by how we treated “the least of his brothers,” whether we gave food to the hungry, welcomed a stranger, cared for someone who was ill, clothed a person we found naked, visited an individual who is in prison (Matthew 25:31-46). Jesus even goes so far as to say that we should love our enemies, do good to those who hate us: “To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic” (Luke 6:27-36).
As a country, we devote a vast amount of our resources to the military and to war and very little to programs that aid our needy. The War Resisters League estimates that 51 percent (about $727 billion) of the federal government’s fiscal year 2008 budget will go toward current and past military-related costs. The Friends Committee on National Legislation (a Quaker group) estimated that 41 percent of the FY 2006 budget went to current and past military-related costs; only 12 percent of it went to “responses to poverty,” and only five percent to social programs.
Although the FY 2008 federal budget includes an increase in military spending (the total military budget is $787 billion), it reduces funding for important domestic programs, such as low-income energy assistance, head start, supplemental food packages for needy elderly, elementary and secondary education, and Social Services block grants to the states (which fund basic services to low-income children, seniors and people with disabilities). The two are related: The more we spend on the military, the less we have to spend on programs for the needy.
Our Christian values and Jesus’ words stand in stark contrast to the policies and budgetary priorities of our government. For those who sit in Washington, it may be easy to lose sight of the results their policy and budget decisions have. For those of us who have “brothers and sisters” (relatives, friends, neighbors, coworkers) who suffer from these decisions to fully fund war-related activities and under-fund education and social services programs, it is clear that our priorities must change to be more in line with the teachings of Jesus.
Emil Brisson is a member of St. Philip and St. James Parish, Phillipsburg.
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law