Our Sunday Visitor

NEWS

Bishops in private audience with U.S. arms dealers

Part of a broader effort to bring the 'Gospel of life' into dialogue with the 'merchants of death'

By William Bole

On a frigid morning in late January, a group of arms dealers, government operatives and other interested parties came together behind closed doors in Washington. They haggled over lethal weapons and international transfers.

The chosen site of the rendezvous, however, was not the State Department or some foreign embassy. Rather, it was the headquarters of the Catholic bishops in the United States. And the business at hand was not how to sell more weapons to more countries, but the morality of this rapidly spreading trade.

The daylong gathering was titled "A Colloquium on the Moral Dimensions of the U.S. Arms Trade" and involved bishops and ethicists, as well as arms traders and policymakers. More than 50 of them turned up as part of an effort by Church leaders to throw moral light on the often shady world of weapons trading.

It was considered the first conference of its kind in recent years -- so sensitive that the bishops even refused to make public a list of participants. But details have trickled out since then, tracing the progress toward a moral conversation.

In the post-Cold War era, the United States has become the predominant arms supplier of the world.

As a sign of Pope John Paul II's own strong feelings on the matter, the Vatican sent an official who voiced one of the core ethical concerns in a dinner speech during the on-the-record portion of the gathering.

Msgr. Diarmuid Martin, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, echoed a 1994 declaration by the Holy See that weapons of war "can never in any way be treated like other goods exchanged on the world market."

He emphasized, "We are talking here about issues of life and death."

Other speeches and exchanges were closed to the press. "We're interested in building relationships and fostering a dialogue among people on different sides of the issue, not in getting news stories about this," said John Carr, who heads the U.S. bishops' development and peace department.

Yet a few of the participants who are visible figures in the arms debate continued the dialogue in interviews after the event.

Joel Johnson, vice president of the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade organization of arms makers, had mostly praise for the bishops -- 15 of whom took part in the Jan. 24 colloquium -- and their effort to bring people of conflicting views together.

But he also made it clear that some Church leaders, in their past comments on the weapons trade, have rubbed him the wrong way. And the one he singled out was none other than Pope John Paul.

The offending remark came in the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae ("The Gospel of Life"), issued in March 1995. In a litany of evils, the Pope cited "the violence inherent not only in wars as such, but in the scandalous arms trade, which spawns the many armed conflicts which stain our world with blood."

"That is a great over-exaggeration," said Johnson, who is not Catholic.

"I would certainly think that there are more charlatans in the religious profession than the arms profession," he said, pointing a finger at television evangelism. "But does that mean you get up and say the religious profession is a scandal?"

Gerard Powers, an international policy adviser at the bishops' conference, said Pope John Paul was indeed speaking of the arms trade as a global force, although not specifically of the U.S. role.

"I don't think the Pope or bishops are simply concerned about a few bad apples," he said. "They're looking at the structure, the arms trade as a whole. And there is something scandalous about this global trade, in which the United States plays the dominant role."

"But the fact that he [Johnson] would object to the Pope's statement is one of the reasons we held the dialogue," Powers added.

Market share

Since the passing of Cold War tensions, the American share of the global weapons market has shot up from 13 percent to about 70 percent today, according to an extensive investigation published in The Boston Globe (Feb. 11).

With the government buying fewer arms, the industry has looked to exports as a crucial source of profits. The Globe report cited analysts who say the government and arms makers have become partners in marketing advanced conventional weapons around the world.

"Countries are using these weapons to suppress ethnic, minority and democratic movements," said Michael Klare, a colloquium participant who teaches peace and security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass.

"The big-dollar items -- tanks and jet planes -- may be used for legitimate self-defense. But the day-to-day weapons -- machine guns, rifles, grenades and other small arms -- are more often used by regimes against internal dissent."

As two examples, Klare cited Indonesia and what human-rights groups have termed its bloody occupation of East Timor, a predominantly Catholic nation; and Turkey, widely condemned for campaigns of "ethnic cleansing" against the minority Kurds. Both countries use American-made weapons, he said.

Johnson, of the trade association, said the arms are sold only to American allies for purposes of self-defense, although some countries may at times stray from those purposes.

"If you weren't a good guy, we wouldn't be selling to you," he said. The U.S. government must approve all sales by the arms industry.

In its 1994 statement on the arms trade, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace criticized a frequent justification for the trade -- that if one country refuses to provide arms, another will. "The argument . . . is without any moral foundation," the council stated.

Johnson said no respectable arms dealer justifies the trade purely on grounds that if the United States doesn't sell them, somebody else will.

But, he added, "if we know a country is going to get the arms from somebody else, we at least should ask ourselves, 'Why should they get them from the French or some other country, rather than from the United States?'"

He said the United States can use its leverage as a supplier to influence the behavior of governments.

The Vatican has posed a more fundamental question: Why export arms? The 1994 document said no country should ever consider the arms trade "an accepted fact" of international relations.

For their part, the American bishops have turned the argument around by asking: If the United States doesn't take the leadership in reducing arms proliferation, who will? In calling for restraint, the bishops have invoked the "principle of sufficiency" -- the United States should sell no more arms than a country needs for its legitimate defense.

According to those interviewed, there were no conversions at the colloquium, no meeting of the minds on the contentious points of this debate.

But Johnson said he and his colleagues welcome the moral scrutiny as well as involvement of the bishops. "The Church has a couple of thousand years experience reconciling the desire for peace with the need for defense and the fact that there are unpleasant people out there," he said.

Other industry vice presidents at the meeting included William Paul of United Technologies and Michael Smith of Lockheed-Martin, both of whom are active Catholics, said Johnson, who was designated to speak for the arms entourage.

"I think they impressed on the bishops and their lay staff that there are some serious, responsible and morally introspective people in the arms profession," Johnson said.

"We [the bishops' conference] assume good will -- that everyone has the intent to do the right thing," said Powers. "We're just trying to make the moral issues more visible in the debate. This is just the beginning of an effort to do that." q

Bole is a senior correspondent for Our Sunday Visitor

headlines for March 3

Will he foster abstinence or promote promiscuity?

From addict to evangelist (profile of Father John Corapi

A statement best left unmade (editorial on French bishops' statements on condoms

But for the grace of God . . . (Cardinal John O'Connor homily)

McAngels among us

Making more than money and stress (profile of Karl Schultz)