Veterans Day

This past veteran's day, Mudpuppy and I went up to the Saint Mary's University Veterans Memorial for some quiet prayer observing the day. We were joined by a few friends. This has become something of an annual ritual since the memorial was erected. We prayed for all veterans...especially those we know personally, who are cherished friends and family members...and we prayed for peace, so that this little one and all children might never know the horror of war.

And we once again read the words of the Church, from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, #497:

The Magisterium condemns “the savagery of war” and asks that war be considered in a new way. In fact, “it is hardly possible to imagine that in an atomic era, war could be used as an instrument of justice”. War is a “scourge” and is never an appropriate way to resolve problems that arise between nations, “it has never been and it will never be”, because it creates new and still more complicated conflicts. When it erupts, war becomes an “unnecessary massacre”, an “adventure without return” that compromises humanity's present and threatens its future. “Nothing is lost by peace; everything may be lost by war”. The damage caused by an armed conflict is not only material but also moral. In the end, war is “the failure of all true humanism”, “it is always a defeat for humanity”: “never again some peoples against others, never again! ... no more war, no more war!”