U.S. bishops can’t justify the use of military force in Iraq as a ‘just’ war

Published: November 16, 2002

By Charles T. Sullivan

On Sept. 13 of this year, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops presented an open letter to President George W. Bush outlining the conference’s general opposition to any preemptive, unilateral use of military force by the United States against the government of Iraq.

Acknowledging that the United States and the international community have a “grave moral obligation” to protect the common good against Iraqi threats to peace, Bishop Gregory wrote that any armed movements aimed at countering Iraq must be in conformity with certain “fundamental moral norms” that constitute the traditional criteria for a “just” war.

According to Catholic teaching, war is morally justifiable in certain circumstances and for a sufficiently just cause. The traditions of a just-war doctrine find their roots in ancient Catholic thought. Most historians would agree that St. Augustine was the first to formalize a just-war “theory” early in the fifth century as Rome braced herself against the impending invasion by barbarians.

St. Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages accepted the legitimacy of war waged in self defense provided that lawful authority sanctioned the conflict, the cause was just, and the combatants had the rightful intention. Contemporarily, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council, in their “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” (“Gaudium et Spes”) affirmed that no government could be denied the right to legitimate defense “… once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted.” (GS, 79)

Recognizing the licitness of a truly just war, the Catechism of the Catholic Church nevertheless cautions in paragraph 2309 that the “…strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration.” The catechism then goes on to outline the traditional moral elements that form the necessary parameters of a “just” war: “the damage inflicted by the aggressor ... must be lasting, [potentially] grave, and certain”; all other means of stopping or negating the evil of the aggressor must “be impractical or ineffective”; there must be a genuine probability of success; the use of arms must be proportional and not result in “evils and disorder” graver than the “evil to be eliminated.”

In light of the wholesale devastation made possible in our times by nuclear weapons, the bishops of Vatican II urged that mankind “… undertake an evaluation of war with an entirely new attitude.” (GS, 80) By this, the council fathers did not mean to imply that the traditional criteria for a just war were now obsolete, but rather that it is far more difficult to satisfy these criteria in our present nuclear age.

Since the close of the Second World War, the Church has consistently and insistently maintained that the use of nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction can never be justified, regardless of the circumstances. Bishop Gregory, in his closing comments to President Bush, questioned whether or not the conditions now leading the United States ever closer toward war with Iraq would stand up to the litmus test of a “just” war.

“We conclude,” he said, “based on the facts that are known to us, that a preemptive, unilateral use of force is difficult to justify at this time. We respectfully urge you to step back from the brink of war and help lead the world to act together to fashion an effective global response to Iraq’s threats that conforms with traditional moral limits on the use of military force.”

Charles T. Sullivan, a member of St. Bernard Church in Bella Vista, has a master’s degree in theology from the University of Dallas. This article was originally published in Arkansas Catholic November 16, 2002. Copyright Diocese of Little Rock. All rights reserved. This article may be copied or redistributed with acknowledgement and permission of the publisher.