Archbishop says U.S. soldiers carry out 'noble vocation'

Published: 2004-05-27

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- At an annual military pilgrimage Mass, the head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services said the "barbarous acts" of a few U.S. soldiers should not overshadow the "noble vocation" of military service or the enormous accomplishments of most American men and women in uniform. "This is not a political statement but a matter of fact," said Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien in his homily at the Ascension Sunday Mass May 23, held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. Referring to the recent revelations that some U.S. soldiers subjected Iraqi prisoners to abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the archbishop said, "As we discuss the ethics of our nation's role in the overthrow of two dictatorships, as we decry the barbarous acts of custodial cruelty on the part of a few malicious miscreants, let there be no doubting the solid motives and the too-often unheralded and enormous accomplishments of so many of our military men and women, day in and day out, under the most trying of conditions far from home." In an earlier public statement Archbishop O'Brien had said the abuse of the prisoners "must be condemned without equivocation" and those responsible must be brought to justice.

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