18 Catholic bishops join letter calling for US to cut military spending | National Catholic Reporter

Source: 18 Catholic bishops join letter calling for US to cut military spending | National Catholic Reporter

BY ALEJA HERTZLER-MCCAIN

Staff Reporter

View Author Profileahertzlermccain@ncronline.org

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January 22, 2024

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Eighteen U.S. bishops have signed a letter calling for the United States to cut military spending and instead invest in ending poverty. 

“The growing gap between the rich and the poor is compounded by a growing gap between our nation’s spending on weapons and preparations for war and our commitment to end poverty,” the statement said.

Pax Christi USA, a Catholic peace organization, led the Bread Not Stones campaign behind the letter. Since October 2023, Pax Christi USA’s grassroots membership has contacted at least 99 different bishops in 65 different dioceses, leading to the 18 bishop signatories on the final letter. 

In December, the U.S. Congress authorized a record $886 billion in annual military spending, up 3% from the previous year. 

The campaign’s name comes from Matthew 7:9, where Jesus asks his disciples, “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread?”

In a statement to NCR, Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, who is also bishop president of Pax Christi USA, wrote, “Pax Christi USA sees the US military budget, especially the part earmarked for weapons development, as offering stones when so many social programs in the US are underfunded, resulting in poor nutrition and hunger in our country.”

Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, bishop president of Pax Christi USA, speaks at a meeting Dec. 6, 2022, in Rome. The topic was “Pope Francis, nonviolence and the fullness of Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth).” (CNS/Courtesy of Pax Christi International/Martin Pilgram)

The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveals that 12.8% of U.S. households faced food insecurity in 2022, with 5.1% of U.S. households reporting someone skipped meals because of lack of resources.

That level of food insecurity represented a significant increase from 2021, when only 10.2% of households faced food insecurity, as Congress chose not to renew social safety net programs instituted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2022’s fiscal year, the U.S. spent $183 billion on the USDA’s food and nutrition assistance programs, a 6% decrease from the previous year with an adjustment for inflation.

In his Jan. 8 speech to ambassadors to the Holy See, Pope Francis renewed a call for military spending to be diverted to a global fund to end hunger and finance development in low-income countries to prevent violence and migration, a proposal he made in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, drawing on Pope Paul VI’s teaching.

Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, whose archdiocese includes two of the three U.S. nuclear weapons research facilities and houses the biggest U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons, also signed the letter. Wester told NCR, “The spending is just astronomical for us in Santa Fe at the Los Alamos laboratories and Sandia.” But, he said, “we don’t see the benefit at all.”