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April 21, 2005
The Pope and War
From the Catholic Peace Fellowship
Yet perhaps the most important insight of Ratzinger came during a press conference on May 2, 2003. After suggesting that perhaps it would be necessary to revise the Catechism section on just war (perhaps because it had been used by George Weigel and others to endorse a war the Church opposed), Ratzinger offered a deep insight that included but went beyond the issue of war Iraq:
"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'."
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
it is paradoxical that new weapon systems have made it possible to keep the troops safer, and the local non-combatants less safe.
Posted by: thomas tucker at Apr 21, 2005 8:38:17 AM
Paging Chris Sullivan.
One could also argue -- and as then-Cardinal Ratzinger clarified in the CDF note he later issued to the U.S. bishops, Catholics can disagree with the Holy Father's judgment in these matters -- that the precision of modern weaponry suggests that wars can be begun and waged more justly.
Posted by: Rich Leonardi at Apr 21, 2005 8:48:40 AM
... and does anyone know when the Compendium of the CCC (the 4C) is to be released?
Posted by: Rich Leonardi at Apr 21, 2005 8:49:30 AM
In a time when the previous Pope commented that the center of a Christian's focus is the quest for holiness, how can a person truly seek holiness and seek the enemy's death and destruction? Destruction that includes the annihilation of his water supply (and the civilian water supply-a necessary stategy in both Iraq wars) the destruction of local power grids and infrastructure, and the local transport systems? These are necessary parts of a war today-the bombing strategies on these key "strategic" centers, while spokesmen and women from the military show up on TV and comment these targets and civilian casualties are unavoidable parts of modern war.
War is a willful activity choosing predictable death, destruction, and suffering for non-combatants. And an incapacitated civil society is important in these strategies.
This is not Christian. Supporting war impedes my progress for holiness. This is not The Way, at least not in my Gospels.
Posted by: Daniel H. Conway at Apr 21, 2005 9:03:32 AM
The posters who were huzzahing and thanking God for Ratzinger Tuesday and Wednesday will be showing their deepest loyalties now. Question the "Bush Doctrine" and watch them turn.
Posted by: Nancy at Apr 21, 2005 9:04:00 AM
Frankly, I like to be challenged and I hope the Holy Father continues to do so. But as a good theologian he knows that this is an area of deep conversation and ongoing debate. As head of CDF, his was one voice but an important one. It will be interesting how he develops things as Pope.
Posted by: Cheeky Lawyer at Apr 21, 2005 9:07:06 AM
Nancy:
Don't be so quick to judge. You probably weren't reading this blog back in 03, but if you were (and you can actually just search the archives - Feb-May '03), you can see that a substantial number of posters were either
1)outright opposed to the war
2)Really concerned and puzzled at how a preventive war could be understood to come under any traditional understanding of just war.
There is much more nuance than you think, and you would be well to do your homework before you pass rash judgments.
Posted by: amy at Apr 21, 2005 9:10:56 AM
Then there is Chesterton:
"War is not 'the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you."
Posted by: Richard at Apr 21, 2005 9:11:21 AM
Amen, Amy! I'm a Canadian peacenick here! I don't see 'orthodox' as a position inside the church anymore than 'catholic'. Our *church* is orthodox and catholic. We are liberals, conservatives, or what not, but if we are faithful, we are all members of the church, which is orthodox and catholic. Saying "I'm an orthodox Catholic" can be short hand for that, but I think it's misunderstood, people seeing 'orthodox' as a political label of Catholic.
Posted by: Eileen R at Apr 21, 2005 9:16:11 AM
I don't see how the Church can change its teaching/Tradition on just war in a way that eliminates the concept. At most, one can argue that modern conditions do not admit to a set of circumstances that would satisfy the criteria. But such a conclusion really does require a denial of history and imagination.
Unless of course we are still proud of one million dead Tutsis.
Posted by: Mike Petrik at Apr 21, 2005 9:19:07 AM
FWIW, my interest in this matter is more focused on maintaining clarity as to what the Church teaches. The Bush Doctrine, as such, concerns me much less. I suspect that's true for a lot of the posters, many of whom defended the legitimacy of Bush's judgment while still being ambivalent about the wisdom of it.
Unless of course we are still proud of one million dead Tutsis.
Sandro Magister, quoting someone I can't recall, stated "it's one thing to turn your own cheek; it's quite another to turn someone else's."
Posted by: Rich Leonardi at Apr 21, 2005 9:22:29 AM
You know, this is what kills me -- that people who were against the war in Iraq assume that people who supported the war must be in love with war itself. The people who support the war, Iraqi and American, are far more likely to have friends and loved ones who are in the thick of things. People who fight wars hate war a lot more knowledgeably than people who stand on the sidelines and whine about them -- and Pope B is a perfect example of this. (I can't imagine there's much uglier war experience than being a 1944 Wehrmacht draftee.)
But if all war is unjust, then what do you justly do with the Hitlers and Saddams of this world? I can choose to be a martyr myself, but can I justly choose it for my defenseless children, or for other people's? Some awfully iffy morality there, I'm afraid.
More to the point, without defining what he meant by "modern weapons", that part of the man's statement was essentially useless. Some modern weapons do tend to hurt bystanders more than combatants. Others tend to minimize collateral damage and make war less lethal.
But frankly, a weapon may cause less damage to property and kill fewer people and still be totally immoral. If you doubt this, check out a few of the more iffy research proposals for non-lethal weaponry. I'd rather die than get hit by some of those nasty little things.
So there's a lot of thought to be done, frankly. I'm glad we've got a Pope who will keep challenging us to think about these things, and it looks like the Prez was glad of that, too. That's what religion is for.
Posted by: Maureen at Apr 21, 2005 9:30:46 AM
Was World War II a just war? The weapons and technology used then made possible destructions that went beyond the combatant groups. They went past the combatant groups in spades.
Posted by: Tom at Apr 21, 2005 9:31:23 AM
Right. Like, for instance, the cheek of the however many Iraqis who've been killed in the violence there over the past two years. It's not entirely clear that we should have turned their cheek for them by creating the situation by overthrowing Saddam.
I have great respect for Chesterton. I might well have great respect for whoever Magister was quoting. But I'm more likely to give weight to our Mater et Magistra than to Chesterton or Magister if they seem to disagree.
Posted by: Kevin Miller at Apr 21, 2005 9:31:48 AM
The posters who were huzzahing and thanking God for Ratzinger Tuesday and Wednesday will be showing their deepest loyalties now. Question the "Bush Doctrine" and watch them turn
I would like to partially fulfill Nancy's prediction, although it is based on a false premise. It is possible to welcome Benedict XVI and legitimately question all kinds of things.
A prescription for suicide, for example, which is what this isolated quote provided by Amy suggests. Hopefully we need not wait for the Vatican itself to be bombed before this becomes clear.
Posted by: Christopher Rake at Apr 21, 2005 9:33:31 AM
(My "Right" was to Rich L. - the intervening comments were posted while I was composing mine.)
Posted by: Kevin Miller at Apr 21, 2005 9:35:49 AM
Mike,
I think here's the way in which the Church could "change" its teaching on war (ie. indicate a greater restriction in principle than previous articulations granted).
As Michael Novak's and George Weigel's interpretations of Just War doctrine, vis a vis Iraq, demonstrated, the notion of a positive title to war to remedy conflicts between soveriegn states, because of the consequences this has for the international order, and because of the obvious impairments in that order to actual acts of aggression (treaty organizations, atomic deterrence, possibility of conflagration), clearly can be subject to abuse.
And so the limitation of the title to war to absolute cases of necessity in self defense seems entirely in keeping with the Natural Law basis of Just War Doctrine.
It should be noted as well, that Pope Benedict's articulated objection to a "preventative", as opposed to "preemptive", war, was premised on a strict interpretation of the Natural Law basis--that you have to have an extant or imminent threat to justify a preemptive act of war.
Which is why he observed that "preventative war is not in the Catechism."
Posted by: al at Apr 21, 2005 9:36:37 AM
(That "Right" was to Rich L. - the intervening comments were posted while I was composing mine.)
Posted by: Kevin Miller at Apr 21, 2005 9:37:17 AM
Finally: There is a difference between "suicide" and "martyrdom." The former is never morally licit. The latter is sometimes morally obligatory.
Posted by: Kevin Miller at Apr 21, 2005 9:38:01 AM
Sorry about the double comment - the first one loaded very slowly.
Posted by: Kevin Miller at Apr 21, 2005 9:38:31 AM
Comments must always betaken within a larger whole. There were deep reservations about the military actions taken against Sadaam Hussein's regime, to be sure. Questioning the wisdom and justice of these actions is certainly legitimate.
Hussein had ample opportunity to prevent the military actions taken against him thereby sparring much of the additional suffering that he caused. At this very moment, the so-called insurgents can lay down their arms, and peacefully return to raising dates and figs. They would be granted amnesty and probably a decent deal.
This was not a military action of conquest or revenge. It was a considered and discussed action based upon a number of factors that arose from a massive and violent attack on the United States after a series of violent attacks dating back well over a decade.
Pope Benedict XVI can weigh his earlier comments now in light of the outcome of military actions that are producing the foundations of both a larger peace and a young democracy in an area raped by its former government.
It will be interesting in how he nows views the situation in Iraq.
Posted by: John Hetman at Apr 21, 2005 9:38:43 AM
It's funny, in the last few days, I have come to love our good Pope Benedict in a way I never felt towards John Paul the Great.
Let me explain.
John Paul the Great became Pope when I was a month old. He was the only Pope I ever knew and I loved him greatly.
But he was so confident, so dramatic, so sure of himself. He strode the world and, with his training as an actor, he saw the world as a stage.
This was a good and grand thing. He fed off our love and we loved him.
But Benedict is different.
Good Pope Benedict is a shy man, perhaps a humble man. A man who has served under others and a man who is a simple worker in a vineyard.
Think of it this way. John Paul the Great was the popular guy in school, he was the athlete, the actor, the guy who got good grades without studying too hard. His smile lighted our life.
Good Pope Benedict was different. He was the man who attended the plays, who stayed in the background, who helped men like John Paul the Great when they needed help with their paper.
He is a shy man.
A holy man.
I love this and I love him. I feel towards him such love, for their is a vulnerability to him, a shyness that attracts.
John Paul the Second seemed like he was destined for the Papacy, and he was.
Good Pope Benedict would have been happy (perhaps far happier) had he been allowed to retire to Bavaria to read and write.
He is not "great" in the sense that John Paul the Great-- but he is "good" perhaps in a way we have not known in some time.
Goodness is different than Greatness.
After Paul the Sixth and JP I, we needed Greatness.
Now, we need Goodness.
To me he is and always be Benedict the Good.
Long may he reign and Vive il Pappa!
Posted by: singaporesling at Apr 21, 2005 9:42:49 AM
The wesbite that provided the quote starting this discussion is an eye-opener--it's a Catholic pacificst site, which works to help soldiers leave the military. They also provided handy tips on subjects including the following:
Topic of the week-- Post your experiences of military recruiters in high schools. What have you found to be successful ways to limit their access?
Sad.
Posted by: Christopher Rake at Apr 21, 2005 9:45:28 AM
Was World War II a just war? The weapons and technology used then made possible destructions that went beyond the combatant groups. They went past the combatant groups in spades.
I think a distinction needs to be made between a "just war" and a "justly executed war". I don't think the church can outright deny the possibility of the first, but She can always insist that principles of justice are followed as closely as possible, in any war, whether the war itself is just or not. I wonder what Benedict thinks about the development of more sophisticated precision bombing that uses technology to limit civilian damage, rather than to expand it.
Posted by: hieronymus at Apr 21, 2005 9:47:17 AM
To clarify some technical points here:
The new weapons under reference in that passage are nuclear and chemical. The *really* new weapons enable a level of selectivity unimaginable until 20 years ago. The hottest new system under discussion here at Eglin AFB is the Small Diameter Bomb, which, may I point out, is small. The really new weapons make non-combatants safer than before. Imagine the US Army/Air Corps of 1945 taking Baghdad, and you will begin to grasp my meaning.
Posted by: Ed at Apr 21, 2005 9:49:35 AM
