Just War

 

Here we are, embroiled in yet another war and what a warlike few decades it's been. That in mind, you'd expect the Church to have something to say about this and it does, that there is such a thing as a just war and you'd better take note unless you want to go to Hell. OK, what are the conditions for a just war? Here, via the Information Superhighway:

1. Jus ad Bellum (Right to Go to War)

These criteria must all be met before engaging in armed conflict: [1]

• Just Cause: The war must confront a real, grave, and certain danger, such as defending against an unprovoked attack or protecting innocent life. [1, 2]
• Legitimate Authority: Force must only be declared by a properly constituted, recognized government or sovereign state. [1, 2]
• Right Intention: The primary objective must be to redress the injury or establish peace, rather than seeking territorial expansion or revenge. [1, 2]
• Last Resort: All diplomatic, peaceful, and non-violent alternatives must be completely exhausted before initiating hostilities. [1, 2]
• Probability of Success: There must be a reasonable expectation of victory; launching into a hopeless cause or slaughter is considered morally unjustifiable. [1, 2]
• Proportionality: The overall destruction and casualties expected from the war must not outweigh the good the military action aims to achieve. [1, 2]

2. Jus in Bello (Right Conduct in War)

These rules dictate ethical behavior on the battlefield, regardless of how just the initial cause was: [1, 2]

• Discrimination / Non-combatant Immunity: Military forces must strictly distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. Innocent civilians, medics, and prisoners of war must never be the deliberate target of an attack. [1, 2]
• Proportionality: Combatants must use the minimum amount of force necessary to achieve a legitimate military objective. The damage inflicted must not be excessive or disproportionate to the strategic gain. [1, 2]

3. Jus post Bellum (Justice After War)

While historically secondary, many modern ethicists include a third set of criteria to govern the conclusion of a conflict. It emphasizes: [1, 2]

• Peace Settlements: Peace treaties should not be overly vindictive and must respect human rights and the sovereignty of the defeated nation. [1, 2, 3]
• Reconstruction: Victorious states have an obligation to assist in rebuilding infrastructure and establishing a sustainable, just society. [1]

There it is, like it or not, just war in outline as taught by the Church for around 700 years. Until now. Pope Leo XIV has told the world in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas that, "Without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the 'just war' theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated." What, there's no such thing as a just war? That it isn't right to confront a grave and certain danger by force of arms? Apparently yes, because Jesus was all about peace. Here's the NCR:

That does not mean the questions raised by the tradition were foolish. They were not. At its best, just war teaching sought to restrain violence. It asked whether a war had a just cause, whether legitimate authority had declared it, whether it was truly a last resort, whether civilians would be protected, whether the harm inflicted would be proportionate to the good sought and whether there was a reasonable hope of success.

 

Well done NCR, salute the tradition and then? Gut it, because drones and tech and such:

Those questions were meant to limit state power, expose aggression and prevent the easy sanctification of violence. But a framework developed in earlier centuries can no longer carry the full moral weight of the Gospel in an age of drones, cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, nuclear arsenals, permanent war economies and civilian populations treated as the battlefield itself.

The wars known to Augustine and Aquinas bear little resemblance to the wars of the 21st century. The battlefield is no longer confined. Hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, power grids, water systems, food supplies and communication networks are routinely drawn into the logic of war. Civilian life is no longer collateral to war. Increasingly, civilian life is the terrain of war.

 

Nope, Augustine and Aquinas didn't really think in terms of "civilian life is the terrain of war" said no one at the end of the siege of Jerusalem ever. What an incredibly, mind-numbingly fatuous thing to write. As if a city overtaken overtaken by war in late antiquity or the Middle Ages, with its people slaughtered or enslaved by their conqueror, weren't in the terrain or landscape of war. Think, if you like, of the Moslem slaughter at Otranto or Constantinople. Lord have mercy, Kyrie Eleison, it's exactly that kind of thing Just War theory was advanced to at least mitigate or temper. Relevant now as it ever was, but no, there's a deeper reason for it being out of date. According to the NCR, Jesus was a Woodstock Hippy Pacifist:

Jesus did not give his followers a theory of justified violence. He gave them a way of life. He told them to love their enemies, pray for their persecutors, turn the other cheek and put away the sword. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, welcomed the excluded, confronted hypocrisy, crossed boundaries of purity and tribe, forgave sinners and stood before imperial power without returning violence for violence.

This was not passivity. It was active, public, disciplined resistance. Jesus resisted evil without imitating it. He exposed domination without becoming domineering. He defended the dignity of the vulnerable without dehumanizing those who threatened him. He did not die because he was harmless. He died because the nonviolent reign of God he embodied threatened systems built on fear, exclusion and force.

 

There you have it, Jesus was Gandhi, an active, public, disciplined, non-violent resistance to evil colonial oppression. On the contrary, he brought a sword and you'll note, keen-eyed Biblicists, that he never once told a Roman soldier to lay down his weapon. Not once. In fact, Roman soldiers, along with women, count most amongst the most favored wider circle of his friends in the Gospel account.

So stop with this, Leo. War is a tragedy and we hate it, but don't pretend that Jesus was a Hindoo Hippy and that there's no such thing as the Church Militant here on earth, whose members will justifiably defend their homes and families against an evil secularist aggressor and its Moslem ally of convenience.

Deus Vult,

LSP