Catholic Church Reviews Just-War Theory as Critics Debate Its Future

For more than 1,000 years, the Catholic Church has used its just-war theory to set moral limits on when nations may go to war and how their armies conduct themselves in combat. According to the reporting, the Church under Pope Leo is now having second thoughts about that framework.

Speaking last month at a religious conference, Leo said, “There is no such thing as a holy war: Only peace is holy,” as quoted by Christopher Hale at Letters from Leo. Peace as the holy aim is a lesson in peacemaking (Matthew 5:9). Earlier this year, the pope criticized the U.S. war against Iran, a stance that drew the ire of President Donald Trump. Hale said Leo’s continued anti-war messaging shows “he means it,” and wrote that the Church is now reviewing its “outdated” just-war doctrines, in reaction against “every leader who has tried to draft heaven into a bombing campaign.”

Luis Parrales, writing in The Atlantic, described the theory as holding that a war is justified only if waged for a “just cause” and with “just means.” He noted that the guidance has influenced instruction at military academies and the development of human-rights laws. He also said there is a sense the doctrine is “prone to abuse” by national leaders who have twisted its tenets to assert the morality of their chosen conflicts. In his account, the Church’s current task is to create a “successor theory that better addresses the many moral challenges that modern-day wars pose.”

Eli McCarthy, writing for U.S. Catholic, argued that just-war theory “fails to adequately train peacemakers.” He said leaders must “cultivate strategic nonviolent practices” and build institutions that make “sustainable peace” possible, and he contended that the existing theory only makes wars “more likely to continue.”

The National Catholic Register, as reported, suggests that abandoning just-war principles would risk “dangerous passivity in the face of aggression.” Church historian and philosopher John Rist told the outlet, “All wars are bad,” but said that sometimes it is “necessary and therefore just” to fight. He called this “unhappy truth” one that must be acknowledged, adding that “appeasing the wicked and supposing one needs only to ‘accompany’ them or ‘dialogue’ with them is itself irresponsible.”

Source: Read the original report