I opened a book I just received and read this first line: "Contemporary Catholic intellectuals have failed to give an adequate account of the origins of war." How true! The author is Matthew Shadle and his book is called The Origins of War: A Catholic Perspective (Georgetown University Press, 2011). It seems to me that Catholic intellectuals operating today have fallen behind on many of the debates that are affecting the world. Nowhere does this seem more apparent than in the United States. It is not as though lay Catholic intellectuals can look to their bishops for guidance. They are far too busy putting out fires in their respective dioceses, and those who do speak out publically on this or that issue can sometimes lack the intellectual chops needed to raise the level of discourse about those issues. This is not true of everyone, of course. I think of my own bishop, Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, who is quite expert on immigration reform. But, when it comes to the problem of peace and war, no single prelate comes to mind. Indeed, I can count on one hand those Catholic theologians who are making serious studies of war--and their impact is woefully small. Yes, there are institutions aiming at speaking to a large audience and communicating their findings to both the Academy and a wider public (one thinks of the Kroc Institute at Notre Dame), but we have few leaders of any stature tackling this problem which, of course, is like a hydra. But that has nothing to do with the problem's many facets. It has everything to do with the kinds of commitments our Catholic intellectuals are trying to undertake.
Many areas of concern could be addressed. While war is certainly one area that cries out for a Catholic voice that can truly grip its realities, there are other pressing matters which have met with virtual silence. I myself am guilty of this. I have been promising to write up a somewhat lengthy study on genetically modified organisms--a subject that is receiving zero attention by Catholic theologians--that may be of use to the scientific community. Thusfar (and not withstanding the work of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences), the discourse on GMOs has been rather lop-sided. That has been the case with war as well. It is the purview of soldiers and policy makers, not theologians. We need to reverse this trend. Shadle is a young scholar aiming to do just that. He has a small cadre of allies in the Academy working on similar problems. Perhaps it is time for a coalition and synthesis of thought. It would seem this is an imperative in this perilous age.
