Christ our Hope: part 7 -AMERICAN THEOLOGIANS AND JUST-WAR

This is Part 7 of a series entitled Christ our Hope in the Face of Violence and our Witness to Nonviolent Love. Part 1 served as an introduction and Part 2 considered God as a God of Peace in the Old Testament. Part 3 and Part 4 began to consider what Christ has to say on the issue of violence and war and . Part 5 looked at the witness of early Christianity and the changes which took place after Constantine along with the thought of Augustine and Aquinas on the issue. In part 6 we studied the witness of the contemporary Church. The present installment will examine the thoughts of some recent American Catholic theologians on the topic.

While we must admit the occasional acknowledgement by the popes that all men have a duty to defend others, peace, mercy, and nonviolence have begun to occupy more of their thought and teaching. However, in contrast with the popes, we can see the thought of American Catholic theologians[1] continuing to focus on the just war theory and even attempting to interpret it less restrictively than was apparently intended by Augustine and Aquinas. First, they have exacerbated the misuse of the just war theory for politics rather than pastoral purposes. Michael Baxter explains,

The teaching on just war was, first and foremost, a form of pastoral reflection and discernment. And it was in this respect an ecclesial discourse. But a shift occurred in modern times…such that "just war theory" came to be seen primarily as a set of norms for managing the affairs of modern states in the arena of international politics. At length, it came to be seen almost exclusively in this way[2]

This has resulted in an eradication of the concept of penance from war. It has transferred the perceived moral culpability from the soldier in tandem with the state, to the head of the state alone. And it has led to the just war theory being used as a rationalizing tool to justify military actions of nation states rather than as a criterion meant to limit war and to discern penances.

A few examples will suffice to shed light on their thought. In 1963 Blessed John XXIII wrote Pacem in Terris in which he outlined a vision of peace based on truth, justice, love, and freedom – a vision which he considered to be attainable if the world would embrace the awareness of human dignity and rights and if the world would justly agree on an international public authority to help resolve conflicts. However, Weigel considers this a utopian vision. He writes, “Human nature being what it is, someone would undoubtedly breach the peace, and in some instances that breach of the peace would have to be met by the use of proportionate and discriminate armed force.”[3] Because the pillars set forth by Pope John XXIII –truth, justice, love, and freedom—cannot and will not succeed, according to Weigel’s implication, we must have a backup plan. That backup plan must include violent armed forces.

Let us conclude this portion of our discussion by considering a disagreement Weigel, Pope John Paul II’s biographer, has with John Paul’s year of 2000 message on the World Day of Peace, in which the Pope writes, “war is a defeat for humanity.”[4] The Pope continues to speak of the need for humanitarian intervention for those innocent victims in war torn countries.[5]Weigel assumes this intervention necessarily must be violent and armed intervention. He writes of “John Paul II’s insistence on a duty of humanitarian intervention, which would presumably include the use of proportionate and discriminate armed force.”[6] Cardinal James Stafford of Apostolic Penitentiary responded to Weigel in an interview, explaining that Weigel’s interpretation is “abbreviated” and “omits” important qualifiers which specify and limit the Pope’s statement. Specifically, says Stafford, Weigel ignored John Paul II’s insistence that the United Nations, an international authority like the one mentioned in Pacem in Terris, is the authority to make the call on potentially armed interventions, not any specific nation-state.[7]

Cardinal Stafford’s implication is that Weigel, intentionally or not, is ignoring the importance of an international authority because of his allegiance to the United States. In doing so, Weigel is departing from an authentic Catholic understanding of the just war theory as taught by our recent popes. Thus, he and those like him have failed to perceive the continual shift toward a renewed emphasis on nonviolence. Cardinal Stafford refers to this implied disobedience of American theologians and identifies a key to this new way of thinking about war to which the Council Fathers, following Jesus’ exhortation, have called us. Stafford explicates:

"Pope John XXIII spoke of this in 1963 when he said that a program for peace is based 'on the Gospel of obedience to God, mercy and forgiveness.' Major portions of the World Day of Peace messages…have been devoted to forgiveness and reconciliation. No one is talking about the Christian understanding and practice of forgiveness which are unique.”[8]

Thus we can finally begin to come to a conclusion, a resolution of this apparent contradiction between nonviolence and war, between mercy and justice. In order to do this we shall analogically adopt Augustine’s approach[9] to Sacred Scripture and assume that apparent contradictions between Scripture and Tradition are only apparent: if there appears to be a discrepancy, the error is in our interpretation, thus we much approach humbly, ridding ourselves of preconceptions and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us. Let us begin.

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[1] We speak here primarily of Richard Neuhaus, Geroge Weigel, and Michael Novak, among others.

[2] Baxter.

[3] George Weigel, “World Order: What Catholics Forgot,” First Things, May 2004.

[4] Pope John Paul II, “Peace on Earth to Those Whom God Loves,” World Day for Peace Message, 2004, 3.

[5] Ibid., 11.

[6] Weigel.

[7] Delia Gallagher, “Cardinal Stafford on War and the Church’s Teaching,” Zenit, May 2004, http://zenit.org/article-17478?l=english.

[8] Ibid.

[9] St. Augustine, Letters, 116.3.