Archbishop Timothy Broglio, Catholic Archbishop for the U.S. Military Services, issued a sharp statement on Dec. 3 against the immoral U.S. policy of sinking boats in the name of “fighting drugs.”
“No one denies that dismantling the powerful criminal networks responsible for the flow of illegal substances into our Nation is a necessary and laudable task,” he wrote. But “as a Nation, we must ensure that the use of military force is ethical and legal. I have a specific interest in this question, because from the beginning George Washington wanted chaplains with his troops to tell him the truth.
“In the fight against drugs, the end never justifies the means, which must be moral, in accord with the principles of the just war theory, and always respectful of the dignity of each human person. No one can ever be ordered to commit an immoral act, and even those suspected of committing a crime are entitled to due process under the law. As the moral principle forbidding the intentional killing of noncombatants is inviolable, it would be an illegal and immoral order to kill deliberately survivors on a vessel who pose no immediate lethal threat to our armed forces.
