Fr. Raymond Schroth, S.J., " But Recently As The “War” President, Barack Obama Has Morphed Into An Indifferent, Pragmatic Utilitarian"

Fr. Raymond A Schroth, S.J.

Barack Obama has changed...In his major speeches — Inaugural Addresses, State of the Union, etc. and in“war” president he has morphed into an indifferent, pragmatic utilitarian. The man who once taught Constitutional law seems to have forgotten the relationship between law and morality, his heart-felt campaign for gun control— he has come across as a Christian humanist, a man of compassion, deep feeling, high democratic ideals. But recently as the

He seems to have shelved the basic Christian principle of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,”....To an almost odd degree, President Obama has assumed responsibility for every drone assassination. I was personally appalled as it became clear that no attempt was made to arrest Osama bin Laden and bring him to trial.

 Even the Navy Seal who personally shot the unarmed Osama again and again told Esquire magazine this was either the greatest or worst moment of his life. In the aftermath the fact that Obama had killed bin Laden was touted as proof that Obama was a strong leader....Following the killing of Osama bin Laden, the White House proceeded down its list of “High Value Targets” to Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico born American, Al Queda propagandist living in Yemen, sentenced to death without trial by President Obama. The president was so anxious to kill— not arrest— him that he would not let “collateral damage” interfere. So on the morning of September 30, as Awlaki and American Pakistani journalist Samir Khan, and cohorts piled into cars and drove out, drones with Hellfire missiles, with other aircraft and helicopters standing by, fired one into Awlaki’s car and a fireball burned their bodies beyond recognition...

Perhaps a year from now Al Queda will have drones that can zero in on prominent or just ordinary Americans. Operated from secret command posts abroad, they will hover over baseball fields, universities, shopping malls, and churches with Hellfire missiles of their own. 

The moral authority we think we once had as a democratic “City on the Hill” will have been compromised perhaps beyond recall. After all, when we kill the enemy’s innocent children, we have invited the enemy to do the same.

Link (here) to read the full opinion piece entitled, Do Unto Others, in the Jesuit publication America Magazine, by Fr. Raymond Schroth, S.J.