Last week I wrote a few web sites that claim to be based on Catholic social justice and peace principles asking them to link the YouTube video Marquette and Notre Dame Universities Teach War and Killing to their web site. One of them, Consistent Life wrote back to me saying that although Marquette and Notre Dame Universities host all three departments of the military “most Catholic colleges and universities teach war and killing.” I felt compelled to respond since this misconception, that nearly all universities has ROTC and teaches war and killing is a common misconception that keeps Catholics from speaking out against this immorality. Here is my response:

Dear Consistent Life,

Thank you for your response to my request for consistent life to share the video about Teaching War and Killing. You are correct in saying that only the Catholic universities of Marquette University and Notre Dame host all three branches of military officer training on campus Army, Navy/Marines and Air Force, but you are wrong in saying “most Catholic colleges and universities teach war and killing.”

After the selective service was eliminated in the 70′s the military turned to an education model of recruiting soldiers from 5th grade through University. As many private and public colleges and universities refused to teach the new training of military officers, based on reflex killing, killing without conscience the Department of Defense (DoD) turned to the US Congress. In 1995 the Solomon act was passed in Congress requiring all colleges and universities, except approved pacifist ones, to offer ROTC, NROTC or AFROTC in order to receive any type of Federal Education funds. However they did not have to host the military training that teaches war and killing. Only universities that elected to host such training will received military support and money for teaching. Other Universities in the area became partner schools, sending any ROTC interested students to host colleges and universities.

The number of Catholic colleges and university that host military training has significantly been reduced. The attached list, I made a few years ago, has only 23 Catholic Universities offering some type of military training. For example in the D.C. area Georgetown is the only Catholic University that offers military training for Army and Air Force.

For example, in the D.C. area any students at American University, Catholic University of America or George Washington University interested ROTC would be send to Georgetown University for ROTC classes. You can check this out at the Army, Navy/Marines or Air Force location sites. If you find any changes in my list please let me know and it will be changed.

It is the Army ROTC that flaunts teaching Killing without Conscience. See the movie Soldiers of Conscience which is also now on YouTube and was officially approved by DoD.

We picked on Marquette University and Notre Dame not only because they are the only Catholic Universities to host all three departments of military sciences and training but because they also flaunt the teaching of war and killing, both have Peace Centers and both benefit greatly from the three military departments they host as well as other academic departments. (The big difference is DoD does not allow any oversight by university where all other departments are accountable for their teaching.)

I am a great admirer of ‘consistent life’ and your site. However, I find the lack of pointing out the teaching of killing that takes place in our Catholic universities very inconsistent, as a number of peace and justice groups are doing. Please allow a link to our YouTube video on your site. Add if you choose make a note there are 20 other Catholic Universities that have Army ROTC (St. Louis has Air Force Not Army) that teach war and killing without conscience.

All the statements in the video are backed by teaching of Army ROTC training and teaching of the Catholic Church.

If you need more information about Teaching War and Killing at Universities and Colleges please see Teach War No More.

Thanks again for responding, The message that some Catholic Universities teach war and killing is one that Catholics do not want to hear. Let’s walk together to get the number down from 23 to six this year.

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