Just War Doctrine

A 3-day conference at the Vatican, "co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Catholic peace organization Pax Christi, called on the pope to issue an encyclical or other authoritative teaching document in which he would advise Catholics to stop using the church's long tradition of just war theorizing to analyze international relations.  The just war tradition has been used too often to justify violence, conference participants maintained.  As an alternative, the church should place Jesus Christ's ethic of nonviolence at the core of deliberation about military conflict."  [1]

On this matter, this blogger has a few thoughts:

1.  The Iraq war was an invasion.  There was nothing just or godly about it.

2.  Man has been called to be like Christ, not to die like Him, for the death of man is irrelevant to the salvation of souls. Man was not created to be a martyr; rather he was asked to obey God, to stand on the side of God, to withstand the temptations of Satan.  The weak ones who have succumbed under the influence of Satan ought to be removed from having any influence on society, assuming that those in charge of such a monumental task would know how to act without killing.  However, should pure evil continue to advance in the elimination of the good, then in defense of the good, a war would be necessary, as well as just. [2]

3.  Not only is an outright invasion evil and unjust, the incitement of regime-change, directly or indirectly without a war, is equally unjust and evil.  In this sense, Satan has not relinquished the seats of worldly power, small and big, even though the faces of Its pawns continue to change, and Its methods of creating strife has gone from blatant to Machiavellian, and perhaps moving toward unrelenting self-aggrandizement.

So long as leaders continue to stay intoxicated by power and the exercise of power, with not a scintilla of humility, the world will always be at war.



[1] http://theweek.com/articles/619107/pope-francis-dump-just-war-doctrine
[2] What is "just"?  Arriving at the right answer is not easy because man is sinful and is tainted by bias.  Perhaps looking at what has resonated throughout mankind is a start: one's desire to be safe in the comfort of his own home with his loved ones.  If only everyone works to provide everyone else a certain level of safety and comfort, then perhaps conflicts can be avoided, and there is no need for a conversation on what war is just or unjust.