War: What is it Good For?

AS AN INSTRUMENT OF AFFIRMATIVE or ordinary policy, war is condemned by the Church. The Church has cried against war like a bell ringing its tocsin: "never again some peoples against others, never again! no more war, no more war!"* (Compendium, No. 497)   Indeed, a "war of aggression is intrinsically immoral."  (Compendium, No 500)

Particularly modernly, the Church has condemned the "savagery of war." War does not justify itself; it must be justified. With the rise of modern technology, war has become particularly brutal, particularly inhumane. War is a physical evil always. It is a "scourge." Not only is war a physical evil, more often than not it is a moral evil also, and moral evils always seem to come in its dark train. "The damage caused by an armed conflict is not only material, but also moral." (Compendium, No. 497) 

War is difficult to control: indeed, it seems to devour its participants and embroil them in barbarism. It nurses hatred, desire for vengeance, and bitterness between peoples.  War is "the failure of all true humanism." (Compendium, No. 497)  The "terrifying power of the means of destruction--to which even medium and small-sized countries have access--and the ever closer links between the peoples of the whole world make it very difficult of practically impossible to limit the consequences of a conflict." (Compendium, No. 498)

The sheer brutality of violent war and the physical and moral evils that are always part and parcel of its consequences is what underlies the Church's desire to remove those circumstances that often give rise to war: injustice, poverty, exploitation.  Instead of promoting war, the Church seeks to promote peace, to promote the cooperation between peoples, to promote their physical and moral development and thereby obviate if at all possible the violence of war as an instrument of policy.

While wars of aggression are always condemned as intrinsically evil, the Church recognizes that war is sometimes forced upon a nation.  A nation "that has been attacked" has the "right and the duty to organize a defense even using the force of arms."**  (Compendium, No. 500)  In such circumstances, the Church has fashioned a "just war" doctrine which both outlines when a defensive war may be morally fought and how such defensive war may be fought.  Traditionally, therefore, the Church has divided its "just war" doctrine into two: jus ad bellum and jus in bello.

The traditional elements of jus ad bellum--when war may rightly be entered into by a nation--are outlined in the Compendium:

• There must be a just cause of war.  That is to say, the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be "lasting, grave, and certain."
• There must be a right intention.  In other words, the just cause must be the motive and not just a pretext for entering into the war.
• All other means to obviate the aggression must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; the defensive war must be a last resort, and so there must be a practical necessity for it.
• there must be serious prospects of success if war is entered into;
• the resort to arms must not produce evils and disorders greater than the evil sought to be eliminated.  In other words, entering into war must appear to be proportionally the better result than not entering into war.

The weighing of these conditions and the prudential decision that are therein entailed are the responsibility of the authority who has the responsibility for the common good.

Since nations have a right to defense, it follows that they have the right to possess "sufficient means to exercise this right to defense," including the existence of armed forces.  (Compendium, 500, 502)  However, the "possession of war potential does not justify the use of force for political or military objectives," nor does it justify the imposition of "domination on another nation."  There is always an obligation to "do everything possible 'to ensure that the conditions of peace exist.'"  (Compendium, No. 500)

Once engaged in war, there are certain moral restrictions upon how war is to be fought.  These rules are called jus in bello.

•  particularly brutal weapons (chemical, biological) are not to be used;
• the non-combatants are to be considered immune from direct and intentional attack;
• force must be proportional to the end sought;
• prisoners of war must be treated with benevolence, and they may not be threatened with death, starvation, rape, torture, or inhumane conditions, etc.
• no intrinsically evil means are to be used (e.g., rape, genocide, weapons of mass destruction)
• reprisals are not to be engaged in (if the opposition violates the jus in bello, it does not justify reciprocal violations).

Particularly given the experience of World War II and the invocation of the "Nuremberg defense" (where a military officer seeks to defend himself from immoral action based upon the defense that he was following the orders of a superior officer), the Church insists on personal responsibility of each member of the military:

Every member of the armed forces is morally obliged to resist orders that call for perpetrating crimes against the law of nations and the universal principles of this law. Military personnel remain fully responsible for the act they commit in violation of the rights of individuals and peoples, or of the norms of international humanitarian law. Such acts cannot be justified by claiming obedience to the orders of superiors.

(Compendium, No. 503)

Finally, the Church insists on respect for the rights of conscientious objectors, yet also insists that these shoulder their duties to the common good:

Conscientious objectors who, out of principle, refuse military service in those cases where it is obligatory because their conscience rejects any kind of recourse to the use of force or because they are opposed to the participation in a particular conflict, must be open to accepting alternative forms of service. "It seems just that laws should make humane provision for the case of conscientious objectors who refuse to carry arms, provided they accept some other form of community service."

 (Compendium, No. 503) (quoting VII, Gaudium et spes, 79)

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*John Paul II, Address to the Diplomatic Corps (Jan. 13, 2003), 4.
**Problematic is the notion of preventive war.  When is a preventive war justified as a defensive war?  "[E]ngaging in a preventive war without clear proof that an attack is imminent" would seem prohibited.  But if there is clear proof of an imminent attack, a nation may engage in preventive war.  (Compendium, No. 501)

Conscientious Objection and Resistance

THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN NAVIGATES between two pole stars, as it were. On the one hand, he recognizes the divine warrant given secular authorities. He remembers that the early Christian, following Christ, respected the civil authority of Caesar. "You would have no power over me," the Lord told the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, "if it had not been given to you from above." (John 19:11) Sts. Peter and Paul enjoined their flocks to obey all governing authorities, including Caesar who had arrogated to himself powers he did not have, and whose philosophy of government was wholly false. (E.g., 1 Pet 2:15; Rom. 13:1) Ordinarily, Christians ought to be model citizens, conscientiously required to follow the laws of the State.

And yet absolute obedience is never due the State. Any arrogation of divinity by the State is absolutely rejected by the Christian. Here is the veiled teaching behind Christ's answer to the query by those sent by the Chief Priests seeking to entrap him either as a revolutionary or a bad Jew:

"Is it permissible for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
But He was aware of their cunning and said, "Show me a denarius. Whose head and name are on it?"
"Caesar’s," they said.
"Well then," He said to them, "give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God."

(Luke 20:21-25). The coin Jesus pointed to, one ought to add, claimed falsely that Caesar was divine. In these soft-spoken words, Jesus ushered in a political revolution. Wherever the words of Jesus take root and sprout, there will be a separation between political power and moral truth, a de-divinized political order. The political order will be demoted, constrained, circumscribed. Its desire to be a "mortal God" will be muzzled.

Denarius (ca. 19-18 B.C.)
"Caesar Augustus" and "Divus Iuliu[s]" = Divine Julius (Caesar)

There are, then, "things of Caesar" and there are "things of God." There are "things of God" that Caesar may not touch, one of which is moral truth, the other of which is the human conscience which is our means of accessing that moral truth. And if Caesar has the temerity, the audacity of trespassing on moral truth or human conscience, the Christian may not respond with the obedience enjoined by Sts. Peter and Paul in ordinary situations. In such extraordinary situations--when Caesar trespasses the moral law and asks from his citizens what God forbids, then we must stand with St. Peter and declare: "Obedience to God comes before obedience to men." (Acts 5:29)

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church addresses the issue of when and how St. Peter's teaching that obedience to God comes before obedience to men applies in the modern Christian's life. It is a political reality that American Catholics confront a real threat from their governing authorities. This threat is the result of a unhealthy hodgepodge whose ingredients include the erosion of any moral consensus in the West, the increase in moral relativism built upon false notions of individuality and moral autonomy, a "reductive secularism" which neglects moral and spiritual truths and restricts truth to mere "scientific rationality" or "political power or majority rule," and the increased political intolerance from those with world-views hostile to traditional and Christian morality who have no compunction in imposing their views through the authority of the State.

These ingredients have given rise in a sort of political witch's brew. It is a political witch's brew that Pope Benedict XVI recently referred to as a "radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres." This "radical secularism" is backing Christians into those corners where obedience is no longer due civil authority.

Presciently, or perhaps better, prophetically, Pope Benedict XVI foresaw and foresees increasing conflict between American Catholics and a public authority increasingly secularized and increasingly hostile to the moral values of its Catholic citizens.** The conflict is caused by the increasing demands of the State to "to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices." The aggressive secularist State wants freedom of religion to be limited to "mere freedom of worship," and not to "freedom of conscience" which extends beyond the realm of the four walls of a Church into the "public square" of social, civil, political, and economic life.

It behooves us, therefore, to dust off the covers of the Compendium and re-visit the issue of when Christians must oppose themselves to civil authority, either by conscientious objection or, in an extreme situation and under carefully guarded circumstances, rebellion.

Christians may conscientiously object to civil laws if they infringe upon one or more of three things: (1) the law violates the moral order, that is, the natural moral law; (2) the law violates fundamental human rights; or (3) the law violates the teachings of the Gospel, which is to say the teachings of the Church. Laws that trespass against one or more of these three things may not be obeyed, and obedience to them must be refused. In fact, the Christian has both a duty and a right to refuse such a law. And though it may be unrecognized, it is a right that he must exercise regardless of the consequences to him.

The full text of the Compendium on this issue merits quotation:

Citizens are not obligated in conscience to follow the prescriptions of civil authorities if their precepts are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or to the teachings of the Gospel. Unjust laws pose dramatic problems of conscience for morally upright people: when they are called to cooperate in morally evil acts they must refuse. Besides being a moral duty, such a refusal is also a basic human right which, precisely as such, civil law itself is obliged to recognize and protect. "Those who have recourse to conscientious objection must be protected not only from legal penalties but also from any negative effects on the legal, disciplinary, financial and professional plane."***

It is a grave duty of conscience not to cooperate, not even formally, in practices which, although permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to the Law of God. Such cooperation in fact can never be justified, not by invoking respect for the freedom of others nor by appealing to the fact that it is foreseen and required by civil law. No one can escape the moral responsibility for actions taken, and all will be judged by God himself based on this responsibility (cf. Rom 2:6; 14:12).

(Compendium, No. 399)

The right of conscientious objection is not the right of resistance, and the two should be carefully distinguished. Moreover, resistance which can be expressed in "many different concrete ways" should be distinguished from the last and desperate recourse of "armed resistance."

The right to resist an oppressive law or an oppressive government is one that is found in the natural law. It is a right which precedes a government, and so is one that is inalienable. Resistance generally is something to be avoided, and it is justified only if there is a "serious" infringement or "repeated" and chronic infringements of the natural moral law, a fundamental human right, or a Gospel precept.

Recognizing that natural law is the basis for and places limits on positive law means admitting that it is legitimate to resist authority should it violate in a serious or repeated manner the essential principles of natural law. Saint Thomas Aquinas writes that "one is obliged to obey . . . insofar as it is required by the order of justice."† Natural law is therefore the basis of the right to resistance.

(Compendium, No. 400)

The right of resistance is not one that necessarily has the overthrow of government in mind. There may be many ways in which resistance may be expressed, and there may be many ends which resistance may have in mind:

There can be many different concrete ways this right may be exercised; there are also many different ends that may be pursued. Resistance to authority is meant to attest to the validity of a different way of looking at things, whether the intent is to achieve partial change, for example, modifying certain laws, or to fight for a radical change in the situation.

(Compendium, No. 400)

Resistance in the sense of armed resistance is something which is a last resort. The Church has identified five conditions all of which must be met before armed resistance is morally justified:

1) there is certain, grave and prolonged violation of fundamental rights, 2) all other means of redress have been exhausted, 3) such resistance will not provoke worse disorders, 4) there is well-founded hope of success; and 5) it is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution.

(Compendium, No. 401)

As the Church observes, armed resistance, even if morally justified, is generally to be avoided, and passive resistance is to be preferred. Armed resistance is often a Pandora's box which unleashes as much or more evil as it intended to avoid.

Recourse to arms is seen as an extreme remedy for putting an end to a "manifest, long-standing tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous harm to the common good of the country." The gravity of the danger that recourse to violence entails today makes it preferable in any case that passive resistance be practiced, which is "a way more conformable to moral principles and having no less prospects for success."††

(Compendium, No. 401)

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*Pope Benedict XVI's address to the Bishops of the United States on the occasion of their ad limina visit on January 19, 2012 may be found here.
**The threat against religious liberty is, of course, broader than affecting only Catholics. As former Arkansas Governor and 2008 Presidential Candidate (and Southern Baptist) Mike Huckabee stated in a recent speech in the Conservative Political Action Conference referring to the recent mandate by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services that Catholic institutions are required to provide their employees healthcare that covers contraception and abortifacients, "we are all Catholics now."
***Quotation is from John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium vitae, 74.
†Summa Theologiae, IIaIIae, q. 104, a. 6, ad 3. (principibus saecularibus intantum homo oboedire tenetur, inquantum ordo iustitiae requirit)
††Quotations are respectively from Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 31, and Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Libertatis Conscientia, 79.