When can a country use force against another? Should Catholics oppose every military intervention in another country? Can a Catholic support an invasion if it is for a “good cause”?
Catholic tradition and its current teaching do have a strong presumption toward peace. In fact, in the first three centuries, the Church Fathers were universally pacifist.
Tertulian made a representative observation when he said, “In disarming Peter, Christ unbelted every soldier.” To this day, the Catechism of the Catholic Church recognizes that a Catholic can legitimately “renounce violence and bloodshed and… make use of those means of defense available to the weakest” (CCC 2306).
Even St. Augustine, who in the 4th century laid out the basic principles of Catholic teaching on just wars, did not recognize war as a form of self-defense. He, like the other Church Fathers, assumed that any Christian, confident in their salvation in Christ, would gladly die rather than harm another person. But he did recognize the need to act to protect an innocent third party, and he began a process of reflection that led the Church to recognize that some wars could be morally justified.
In my own life, this insight was helpful when I was a teacher at a Catholic high school. While I sought to always lead students to understand the right thing to do and choose it freely, I quickly realized that the class’s common good required me at times to act decisively against a student. Appealing to conscience was the ideal, but if one student threatened the learning environment for all the rest, I needed to intervene directly with appropriate disciplinary measures.
Similarly, the Church recognizes that under certain conditions a nation may be required to act decisively — even with military force — to protect the innocent. However, based on the careful thought of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others, Catholic teaching sets out “strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force” (CCC 2309). For a war to be just, it must fulfill all of the following conditions:
• The damage caused by the aggressor nation must be “lasting, grave, and certain.”
A petty insult or minor dispute does not have enough gravity to warrant military action.
• All other means of addressing the issue must be shown to be impractical or ineffective.
War is always the last choice, forced upon a nation by the aggression of another country. It cannot be a pre-emptive measure or a convenient means to a political goal.
• There must be serious prospects for the success of the action.
Violence in revenge, even for injustices committed, is a form of immoral terrorism unless it has the hope to right the wrongs in question.
• The use of arms must not cause even greater harm than the evils one is trying to prevent.
One cannot simply do anything and claim that war justifies it. For example, the use of weapons of mass destruction is immoral, even within war.
Unless all these conditions are met, the use of force would be immoral. And even when they are met, there are further moral responsibilities to conduct war in ways that are as limited as possible, respect noncombatants, and without malice, hatred, or desires for revenge. In this way, the Church and Christ’s teachings oppose any view of the world that argues that “might makes right” or that the end justifies the means.
Christ is the Prince of Peace, and His kingdom cannot be brought about by immoral violence.
Father Chris Schroeder is parochial administrator of Christ the King Parish in University City and St. Joseph Parish in Clayton.
