Catholic hypocrisy

 Lest we forget.  Those of us who participated in the American invasion of Vietnam, especially we of Catholic heritage, may be reminded of the unChristian bellicosity of a Francis Cardinal Spellman, archbishop of New York and official Apostolic Vicar for the American Military (officially the 'Military Ordinariate of the United States.')  Thus, as a young Catholic Marine, Spellman was my bishop.  Spellman was hugely instrumental in getting Roman Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem placed as the president of largely Buddhist South Vietnam.  Diem was a resident of Maryknoll, the Catholic seminary outside New York and his brother was the Catholic bishop of Saigon and regularly sought political support for the American war from his fellow hierarch Spellman.  While Pope Paul VI was persistently working toward peace negotiations and an end to the lethal hostilities, Cardinal Spellman visited the troops in country and urged them to  fight on to "total victory."  Celebrated as a fervent anti-Communist, Spellman was also a powerful and unrepentant warmonger notoriously at odds with his pontiff and others who sought to end the bloodletting in Vietnam.  In December, 1966, Spellman came to DaNang, where I had been stationed, and told the American troops that they were "holy Crusaders" engaged in "Christ's war against the Vietcong and the people of North Vietnam."  On Christmas Day, Spellman said Mass at a simple wooden table facing thousands of troops, telling them that "This war in Vietnam is, I believe, a war for civilization," and that their calling was "the defense, protection, and salvation not only of our country, but, I believe, of civilization itself."  As is too often the case, leaders like Patriarch Kirill and Vladimir Putin, can  find some American precedents for their rhetorical and religious propaganda.  Oh, and by the way, when Cardinal Spellman was promoting "total victory" and opposing efforts to limit or end the war, Americans killed in action in Vietnam numbered 6,350.  After Spellman's 1966 encouragement for "total victory" in "Christ's war," another 51, 870 Americans died in Vietnam and untold thousands of Vietnamese people.   Lest we forget.