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Profiles of Historic Conscientious Objectors
Don Lorenzo MilaniAlthough Milani was never called upon to fight, he was a strong advocate for all conscientious objectors who were at the time ostracized and scorned by the Catholic Church.
Don Lorenzo Milani was born in 1923 in Italy. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1947. However, the greater Catholic Church criticized him for teaching youth to question authority and for "defending the right of Italians to refuse military service." Although Milani was never called upon to fight, he was a strong advocate for all conscientious objectors who were at the time ostracized and scorned by the Catholic Church. The church viewed conscientious objection as "foreign to the commandments of Christian love" and condemned it as "cowardice." Milani wrote his "Letter to the Military Chaplains" in response to these statements in 1965. Here is an excerpt from it: "..if you have the right to divide the world into Italians and strangers, then I say to you, in this sense, I do not have a country. Instead I claim the right to divide the world into the disinherited and oppressed on one side, the privileged and oppressors on the other. The former are my countrymen, the latter my strangers. And if you have the right...to teach that Italians and strangers may licitly and even heroically butcher one another, then I claim the right to say that the poor can and must combat the rich. At least in the choice of means I am better than you. The arms that you approve are horrible machines for killing, mutilating and destroying, for creating widows and orphans. The only weapons I approve are noble and bloodless: the strike and the ballot." Milani was charged with inciting treason, but was later acquitted. He died in 1967, five years before Italy made conscientious objection legal. For more information, visit the following Web sites: |
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