On Just War, and the Responsibility of Citizens

There comes a point at which, if you really don’t know that something is wrong, I can’t convince you.

If you see nothing wrong with the current situation the United States has gotten itself into, I can’t just quote you a syllogism that will make you understand.

If you don’t know why it’s a bad idea for one country to rush into a different country and kidnap their leader for a show trial because they decided they’d like to– even if that leader is a very, very bad person who is making life hell for his subjects– then I’m at a loss. If you don’t know that the rules based international order is a better idea to keep everyone safe than just letting powerful countries have spheres of influence, I can’t explain it to you.  And if anyone over the age of about 35 doesn’t realize what a mistake it is for a Republican leader to decided to annex an oil-rich foreign country with the notion that we’ll be greeted as liberators and it won’t be a drawn out conflict, I don’t have a time machine to go back twenty-three years and show you that it’s not.

I’m just going to remind my Catholic readers, here on this Catholic blog, what Catholics are supposed to believe about war.

And before anybody says anything: I am way ahead of you if you want to tell me all the times the Catholic Church hasn’t acted according to her teachings on war. I write about the church defying what she says she professes all the time. But for now, I’m just going to state what the rules are, and we can go over how hypocritical we’ve been about rules later.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.  All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.   However, “as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.”   The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

Have you got that?

There is never SUPPOSED to be a war. War is never a positive thing. War is bad. But sometimes we cannot help but be involved in a war, so our Church tells us how we’re supposed to go about doing that.

The evaluation of whether a war is a “just war” that wouldn’t be horrendously sinful to participate in, is a matter of “prudential judgement” for those who have a responsibility for the common good. Although people sometimes use the phrase this way, “prudential judgement” does not mean that the leaders of a country are allowed to make a vibes-based decision to do whatever they want. It means that it’s their responsibility to make sure their actions meet the criteria of a just war, or they sin.

And remember: America is supposed to be a democracy. Yes, I realize it’s a republic, but a republic IS a kind of democracy. And in a democracy, we, the people, are the ones in charge. We are the ones who have to evaluate what our government is doing, and speak out as loudly as we can when they’ve got it wrong. That’s part of our responsibility.

For a war to be a just war, it has to meet all three of the conditions for a just war, not only one or two. AND every action taken during that war has to be aligned with the conditions of a just war as well. You can determine that a war itself is just and then do horrendously unjust things in the course of being the good guys in a war: for example, America was certainly on the right side during World War Two, but that doesn’t make every single action the American armed forces took was heroic and right.

For a war to be just, the violence being inflicted on your country or an allied country you’re trying to protect, has to be lasting, grave, and certain. You can’t declare war because you have a bad feeling the country might attack, or because you’re trying to distract from your affair with a young intern which has gotten you impeached, or because the country’s leader insulted your father back when your father was president, or because they have resources you’d like to have for yourself, or anything like that. They have to be aiming their weapons at you or your ally to inflict terrible damage, and you have to be certain that’s what they’re doing. And in every individual battle, you have to ask the same question. May I bomb this particular target? Should I send my soldiers into this or that city? You can do so only if the damage that will happen if you don’t will be lasting, grave, and certain.

Further, for a war to be just, all other means of putting it to an end must have been found to be impractical or ineffective. You have to have exhausted every other means to protect yourself, before you go to war. You have to try negotiations and peace talks if the other side is willing to talk. You can try putting extra guards at the border. A missile defense shield. A wall. Sanctions. Maybe even tariffs. If those do not work to protect you and yours from lasting, grave, and certain damage, you can go to war. And every action in your war has to hold up under the same scrutiny, or you sin.

Finally, for a war to be just, your use of arms can’t be anything you’d reasonably expect would make matters worse. The whole war has to be reasonably expected to not make matters worse than they already are., And also, every action you take in the war must be calculated to not matters worse.  You can repel an invading army, but you can’t murder them all as they turn their backs and retreat. If a sniper is picking off your troops from the window of an apartment building with hundreds of civilians in it, of course you can shoot at the sniper, but you can’t bomb the building to rubble and kill everyone inside. And maybe it’s also a very, very foolish idea to blitz a country with which we haven’t declared war, kill eighty people, kidnap their dictator, and then not have a solid plan on how you’re going to rebuild and stabilize the country so the violence can stop there.

I’m sure you can all see where “prudential judgement” comes in in all of these three criteria. Some things would obviously violate the criteria for a just war, but you and I could have a reasonable disagreement about whether others do. We can and ought to discuss and debate our differences of opinion on things that really are debatable. But that doesn’t mean that our responsibilities as Catholics in a country at war are somehow less important than our responsibilities in other spheres. It certainly doesn’t mean that war doesn’t matter, and you can believe and do whatever you want.

If you are in a democracy, and your democratically elected leaders are waging a war, that’s your business.

It’s part of your responsibility as a Catholic and a citizen to learn about what your government is doing, to make your own prudential judgement about whether it’s right, and make your voice heard when what they’re doing is wrong.

The best time to speak out was some time ago, but the second best time is right now.