A few months back, a controversy provoked heated debate on the campus of Marquette University. Should Jesuit universities allow ROTC on campus? Robert Graf, a graduate student at Marquette published an article criticizing ROTC as being both anti-Catholic and anti-Ignatian, citing the usual suspects: Dorothy Day, Dan Berrigan, and (of course) Jesus. Heated responses from local Jesuits and soldiers defended ROTC at Catholic institutions, citing just-war theory and the need to produce “moral soldiers.” The texts of this debate are chronicled on the website of the Catholic Peace Fellowship.

The ongoing conversation over ROTC and Catholic institutions seems to ignore one major issue: allegiance. Indeed, early church scholars cite allegiance as a critical factor, if not the critical factor, in the practice of conscientious objection by the Church’s martyrs. The issue of war and allegiance are inextricably intertwined, so let us take a look at the oaths of allegiance sworn by enlisted soldiers and commissioned officers in our time.

ENLISTMENT
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

COMMISSIONING
"I, _____ , having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)

The military is an institution that serves two entities: the Constitution and the President. The President is the servant of the Constitution. By serving these two entities the military serves the Nation. Once individuals raise their right hands to take this oath, they abdicate their moral autonomy to make future decisions as to whom exactly should be considered an enemy of the Constitution, as well as when, where and how such enemies are to be dealt with.

Now of course, soldiers are not entirely without recourse to conscience. No soldier is obliged to follow an “unlawful” order. But what about an “unjust” order? What is just and what is lawful are not always the same thing, as the Catholic Magisterium often indicates regarding abortion. What then is a Catholic service member to do when faced with conflicting moral instruction?

As of yet, “selective conscientious objection” to particular wars is not an option in the US Military. If a Catholic service member wished to follow the pope, the bishops, or her own conscience regarding the Iraq War, comprehensive conscientious objection (rescinding one’s oath entirely) would be the only recourse. A service member cannot object to specific actions perceived to be unjust as long as the State can demonstrate that a given action is legal. And who exactly is the barometer of legality? Once again, the State. Fidelity to the State’s notion of justice as interpreted by the State is precisely what one offers in the oath of allegiance – it’s why the State has things like oaths, to make sure people are unified in principles and not indebted to “other allegiances” – even an allegiance to the Catholic Church.

Both oaths demand "true faith and allegiance," and commissioned officers must be "without any mental reservation" as to their readiness to serve the interests of the Nation in defense against enemies of the Constitution. So, without having to address any specifics of any war in particular as to whether it may or may not meet just-war criteria, we see from the very moment of initiation a demand made of service members to submit entirely, without reservation, to the absolute authority of the State in determining the parameters of justice, despite personal reservations, be they moral or political. The Army’s response to such ambiguities (and even the response of many bishops, like Military Archbishop Edwin O’Brien) is to “have faith in your leaders.” So, let's look at the commands of a few other leaders.

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." (Matthew 6:24)

“2155 The holiness of the divine name demands that we neither use it for trivial matters, nor take an oath which on the basis of the circumstances could be interpreted as approval of an authority unjustly requiring it. When an oath is required by illegitimate civil authorities, it may be refused. It must be refused when it is required for purposes contrary to the dignity of persons or to ecclesial communion.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church)

“Do not swear whether by the Creator, or any creature, except truthfully, of necessity, and with reverence.” (St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, 38)

Oaths are invoked when an authority needs individuals to abdicate the autonomy to refuse compliance. In a courtroom, we use oaths to trust speech. In this case, oaths force honesty. Oaths of allegiance are slightly different. They are a free-will pledge, an ascent to specific principles. But again, what happens when principles collide? Let’s take an example.

The textbook definition of interrogation is “to exploit the greatest amount of intelligence in the least amount of time”. Time and again I heard this phrase while serving as an Army interrogator in Iraq. During this same time I was also reading Pope John Paul II who stated that any time we reduce persons to mere objects of exploitation, as a means to an end, we participate in what he calls “the culture of death”. I never tortured a detainee. I never compromised Geneva Conventions Article 3 during my time at war. I never even fired a weapon except on the firing range. But I lied to men, telling them that I would move their loved ones to safer places in Iraq in exchange for information – knowing full well I was going to do no such thing.

“I’ll do everything in my power to…” we’d say to them, knowing we (as individual interrogators) had no real power to do things like migrate families. So, it’s not lying, right? This type of psychological manipulation is “necessary” we said – to get the job done. We have to exploit detainees of their intelligence value. I did as my leaders told me. But I immediately felt the contradiction. It was legal. Maybe even necessary according to certain interests.

We didn’t outright threaten to kill family members. Yet we certainly had no qualms deceiving a person to believe that their non-compliance would directly contribute to a hastened death of family members caught in rougher sections of the country: that they themselves would be the cause of that family member’s death. Deception was merely the tip of the iceberg in my case. And in this scenario, it was not merely the detainee who was being exploited. I too was being exploited to conduct the exploitation. I was being reduced to a mere tool of national interest. And this is the true violence of things like oath of allegiance: I abdicate what my faith tells me I am for what my function as a sworn servant tells me to do.

But, let’s take this one step further. The Cheney Administration (and the President) has finally succeeded in obtaining the requisite legal leverage to continue, and even intensify, the practice of torturing enemy detainees, even without President Bush having to veto Senator McCain’s “humane treatment of prisoners” amendment? It is “legal” to follow the President’s definition of “torture” (which is essentially everything short of organ failure), but certainly unjust. Refusing to follow a lawful order (even “unjust” ones) is punishable under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. Again, it’s the legal system, the Uniformed Code, which determines justice – not one’s moral conscience, not the teachings of the Church. Soldiers do not even have recourse to international law, for they are bound by State interpretation of such laws – the “higher competent authority.”

These are dilemmas for all proclaimed Christians, but all the more so for Catholics authoritatively bound to the moral teaching of the Church. Until such a thing exists in the US allowing Catholics to object selectively to wars and practices deemed unjust by the Church or their consciences, all Catholics serving in the military are put into a position of grave moral peril, forced to choose which master to follow concerning issues of justice: the State or the Church.

Eventually I refused future techniques of deception, tantamount to psychological torture, and I continued to refuse various other fully legal tactics I found to be immoral. This trend of refusal, however, mushroomed until I realized that the real issue was not merely isolated techniques or behavior. From my 130-plus combat interrogations, not one involved my talking with men as the fathers, the sons or the husbands which I did indeed knew them to be. They were objects of exploitation. If an interrogator fails to remain dissociated, objectivity is lost, and the power imbalance necessary to push a man’s buttons for intelligence exploitation is lost as well. That’s the nature of the job. It’s what I’d sworn to do for my country. But what is my duty to my fellow man, others equally endowed with human dignity by their Creator?

As long as Catholics are willing to raise the right hand and swear an oath of allegiance, always and without reservation, to uphold State interests, as interpreted by the State, Catholics will continue to serve two masters. Unlike the Church, the State is not an institution with recourse to the Gospel for policy direction. In The City of God, St. Augustine likened worldly states to the biblical image of “Babylon.”

The problem is not so much one of doctrine, but of deeds and duties. The issue is much more one of allegiance and taking seriously the fact that the parameters of the State, the parameters of the Church, and the duties implied by each sphere are radically different. If Augustine and Aquinas could read our oaths, what would they think? Would they think capitalistic democracy a likely avenue to arrive at Gospel interests? Augustine and Aquinas both expressly rejected any form of democracy as able to arrive at true Justice, stating repeatedly that Justice is a revealed truth of God, proclaimed by the Church. If “service” comes at the expense of the Divine Revelation of God, Christians have but one option: refuse.

Once upon a time it was more virtuous to be executed than to forfeit one’s faith to receive the State’s blessing. Now we kill to receive the State’s blessing and call it patriotism. I argue that everyone from Isaiah to Aquinas would be quite saddened by how easily we have accepted the new gospel of democratic nationalism, and how easily we have forgotten our ecclesial community. Christians already have a commander-in-chief: Christ. Catholics have a manifest, visible nation: the Church. We must not hide ourselves from the problems of the world with false and escapist piety, but we cannot meet the problems of the world if we are not first and foremost faithful to our own Gospel identity. It is Christ who saves the world, and if we do not first put on Christ we will ourselves become the unjust world we seek to save, alienated from the teaching of the Church and the teaching of our Lord.