Jesus teaches that the commandments to love God and neighbor form the foundations of the Ten Commandments. The first three Commandments teach us to love God; the following seven teach us to love neighbor. The temptation to dismiss the centrality of love in times of war is pervasive. But in such times, we must rediscover and apply the Commandments with vigor.
During the Civil War, Catholic priests accompanied both Northerners and Southerners. At Gettysburg, the statue of Father William Corby memorializes his blessing of the Irish Brigade before the battle. During WWII, Father Thomas O’Neil penned a prayer for General Patton’s troops before the Battle of the Bulge. A Jesuit priest who participated in the famous Saint Louis exorcism became a chaplain during the Korean War. He said he witnessed far greater evil during the war than during the possession.
During the Vietnam War, chaplains were fixtures among the troops. During the Iraq War, the Chicago Tribune featured a Catholic priest on its front page administering Extreme Unction to wounded Marines in the Battle of Fallujah. Historians suggest that the priests who accompanied the conquistadors helped to reduce the savagery of the Spanish conquest.
All of us are horrified by the murderous carnage in the Middle East. We’re all worried about an escalation that could engulf the entire region, if not the world. We increasingly hear that the Pope, bishops, and priests must support one side or the other. Some even damn the restraint of the generic prayers to end the violence as a moral failure to take the right side.
We all have our political points of view. Every priest has a right to express his private views as a citizen. But priests do not have the right to supplant the rights of the laity. From the pulpit and in our official teaching, with disciplined restraint, priests must enunciate Christian principles for the laity to apply (cf. Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Vatican II).
The Fifth Commandment reads, “Thou shalt not kill.” More precisely, it reads, “Thou shalt not murder.” A combatant has a right to kill an enemy while waging a just war (under the usual strict conditions) in national defense. However, there is no right to murder an enemy. Public authorities have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for the national defense.
Traditional Church teaching allows nations to wage just wars (cf. CCC 2309 ff). The rigorous conditions include:
- 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.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those responsible for the common good.
The Fifth Commandment, as understood by the Church over the years, also guides waging war (cf. CCC 2312 ff):
- Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.
- Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions.
- Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out.
- Thus, the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin.
- One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.
- “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation” (cf. Vatican II, GS 80 #3).
We can justify, under strict conditions, attacks on the enemy (a good act within the context of a just war because it is an act of national self-defense) with the knowledge that non-combatants may be killed. The so-called traditional Catholic principle of double effect holds:
- The nature of the act is itself good within the context of a just war.
- The agent intends the good effect and does not intend the bad effect, either as a means to the good or as an end in itself.
- The good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect, and the agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm.
Both sides should also consider the realism of Jesus in negotiating a settlement: “What king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace” (Lk. 14:31-32). We must not underestimate the value of face-to-face negotiations with enemies.
At some point, after the war runs its horrible course, the teaching of Jesus begins to make sense: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Mt. 5:38-40). The Church has always seen in these words not pacifism but long-suffering and a spirit of conciliation.
The Ten Commandments are not anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, or anti-Palestinian. They are pro-human. World leaders, the media, and everyday citizens–even religious leaders—seldom publicly invoke the Ten Commandments. Why not? After all, the Middle East is the cradle of the Jewish and Catholic faith.
For my part—as a Catholic priest from the pulpit—show me the action or incident supported with sufficient evidence, and I’ll try to evaluate its morality according to God’s law. But please do not ask me, as a Catholic priest, to make decisions that belong to the laity.
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Please take a moment Father to share the the Catholic Just War Theory when engaged with the antiChristian theologies of Islam and atheism.
Do you mean like Isaac Jogues and the Iroquois?
The ten commandments in the Bible or the catechism
They are the same, as any semi-literate, thinking person knows. The real question is why anti-Catholic Fundamentalists use a Catholic book they never would have had except because of Catholic to attack Catholics about something (the Commandments) that they only know about because of Catholicism. Go figure.
My sentiments exactly.
If I may anticipate any answer that Father may give, I would suggest that a war is a religious war if either belligerent (eg the Muslims) wages it for a religious end – in so doing he improperly alienates war from its purpose, which is always to serve a political end. In that case, God is his counterbelligerent.
Practically, a war such as Israel wages against Hamas is eligible for the Crusade indulgence: the Holy Father may, for the benefit of Catholics serving in the Israel Defence Force and the armies of Israel’s allies, attach an indulgence for the forgiveness of their sins.
The fact that the State of Israel is one of the belligerents in this conflict directs us to heed our Lord’s last order to His people: “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. You must therefore observe and do whatever they tell you.” (Matthew 23:1-3).
The correct assessment is that the entire Torah is as binding on unbaptised Jews as it ever was before the coming of Christ. Save that the destruction of the Temple rendered much of the Torah impossible of performance and put these precepts into abeyance.
The judicial precepts, as they are called, remain on the statute book and (according to St Thomas) are lawfully adopted by any sovereign to be observed in his kingdom – however, the only courts which must enforce them as a matter of obligation (the court of 23 and the court of 70) cannot be convened today because there is no Temple. The ceremonial precepts – those that require the holiness of a Jew – may not be observed by any non-Jew; however, it is arguable that the observance of any of them by a Jew of Christian faith is licit unless incompatible with Christian faith in the particular case.
Among the commandments that are binding on Jews today is the commandment to wipe out all remembrance of Amalek under heaven. On Sunday 29 October 2023 Prime Minister Netanyahu invoked the Amalek scripture at Deuteronomy 25:19 in relation to Hamas – not incorrectly, as Hamas is waging a religious war in furtherance of a false religion and with intent to destroy the Jewish people in whole.
This corresponds to Exodus 17:16 in which we read, “The LORD, the God of Israel, will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
Christ surpassed all that Petek. Christ didn’t die and rise to reimpose it back on everybody. It’s the Jews who are stuck in it.
Everyone else is freed in Christ. This actually leaves sad Zionists in a totally isolated framework of their own choosing and ambition.
Keeping Christ from others is how they subjugate them to themselves. This is an inevitable pattern through the history from Redemption.
The last command that Jesus gave to His people was to bind them to obey everything imposed on them by the judges who sit on Moses’ seat. The reason is this. The purpose of the Law is to lead the Jews to Christ. For Jews who haven’t become believers, that purpose is not yet discharged.
It is only at Acts 15 that we read of the Apostolic Council deciding that Gentiles who become Christians need not be circumcised and instructed to keep the Law of Moses. And at Acts 20 we read that Paul was falsely accused of urging the Jews to abandon circumcision and the Law.
This may be part of the reason why Paul circumcised Timothy whose mother was Jewish, but declined to circumcise Titus, whose mother was not.
Acts 15 stands for the proposition that the Law is available within the Church, but does not impose a burden. We may take its benefit and rely on the enabling laws to justify what we do in public worship.
The concept of “Just War” is trickey. A nation, if attacked, can defend itself, but how about a “preemptive war” where a nation attacks another nation who might attack them?
Even in just wars like WW2, some actions could be questionable, such as the fire bombing of Dresden.
The whole concept is not simple.
In modern international law, you can use armed force in self-defence, but not for the prevention of a mere threat to the peace. You can use it to remove a threat to the peace and to suppress acts of aggression and other breaches of the peace.
Wars are easy to get into, but difficult to get out of. Moving aircraft carriers around is one thing, but actual bombing is quite another.
The government must be truthful as well. George W Bush was not truthful about Iraq. There were no “weapons of mass destruction” and Iraq was not involved in 9/11. The result was disaster. An unnecessary war.
This goes to the point I just made above. The prescriptive reason for going to war against Iraq, and the justifying principle, is that Iraq had waged a war of aggression against Kuwait and had failed to execute in full all its legal consequences – cessation and non repetition, reparation, and just satisfaction.
Things that I said (to you, here in CWR), all have to be studied more fully.
For example, see Beaulieu’s comments here, second-to-last para.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/10/29/on-the-evidence-of-an-evidence-free-mentality-in-the-middle-east/#comment-398281
There are “preemptive” attacks that are intended to start conflicts also. We did something like that in the 1840’s Mexican War. Hamas did that in a much bloodier, savage way on Oct. 7th.
I totally believe in peace, Father & I abhor war & bloodshed. I can’t think of a single war America’s been involved in with the possible exception of WWII that was truly necessary. Wars are almost always avoidable.
But what of self defense? It seems like the Jews are the only people who are expected to suffer endless persecution & carnage & remain docile victims. Or fight back with one hand tied behind their back.
If Great Falls, VA was being invaded by a terrorist cartel that occupied the next county & over a thousand parishoners & their neighbors had been butchered, burned alive, & kidnapped, what might your community’s reaction be? And all the while thousands of rockets continued to be fired at them?
There’s a difference between going after pirates & savage terrorists & supporting endless wars. I support the former but almost never the latter. And I try to pray for the conversion of the hearts of the terrorists also.