Pope Francis might jettison idea of a ‘just war’

Pope Francis might jettison idea of a ‘just war’

MAY 30, 2016 3:15 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER

That would remove one of the West’s key philosophical foundations and leave Catholics no alternative but to surrender to the advancing jihad. But with the monuments of Catholic Europe in ruins and the Church subjugated and enslaved, as the jihadi’s blade slices through his neck Pope Francis can congratulate himself that he was never, ever “Islamophobic,” and that he and his bishops made sure that those within their purview who spoke honestly about the jihad threat were duly silenced.

The Pope has forgotten, if he ever knew, that (as Winston Churchill put it) “we sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)



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“Pope Francis might jettison idea of a ‘just war,’” by Maria J. Stephan, Associated Press, May 26, 2016 (thanks to David):

Developed in the fifth century A.D. by St. Augustine, the doctrine of a “just war” empowers rulers to wage war only as a last resort to confront grave wrongs. As Augustine wrote: “Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity.”

Later, the Summa Theologica, written by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 1260s and 1270s, clarified that war could only be waged by a properly instituted authority like the state, that it could not occur for purposes of self-gain, and that attaining peace must be its central aim.

Though the Catholic Church’s “just war” doctrine has been modified over the centuries – accounting for things like new technologies and the changing nature of warfare – its basic principles remain the same.

As the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church describes, in order for the Church to sanction engaging in a war, “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 [the conflict] must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; there must be serious prospects of success; [and] the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.”

But it seems that Pope Francis – who is by all accounts a progressive thinker, unafraid to challenge old Church doctrines – might welcome a debate over the church’s foundational tenets on war and peace.

“Faith and violence are incompatible,” he repeated in a 2013 mass prayer gathering at the Vatican. Like his predecessors of the past 50 years, he has called for the abolition of war. But this pontiff has gone one step further in pressing for nonviolent alternatives.

In his letter to a recent Rome conference, he exhorted participants to revitalize the tools of “active nonviolence.” It was a call, in other words, to challenge the idea of “just war” and to propose an alternative paradigm.

The concept of “just peace” is not new. It first emerged in the United States in the mid-1980s, when an interdenominational group of Christian scholars advanced alternatives to war that culminated in a just-peace framework.

It included practices like supporting nonviolent direct action; cooperative conflict resolution; advancing democracy, human rights, and religious liberty; fostering just and sustainable economic development; and encouraging grassroots peacemaking groups and voluntary associations.

The inter-religious dialogue expanded to include Jewish and Islamic traditions, focusing on the scriptural and practical meanings of “just peace” in the three Abrahamic traditions. The scholarly dialogue resulted in the creation of an Abrahamic framing of an interfaith just-peacemaking paradigm that was later published in book form….

Yes, and just look at how that has stopped the jihad.

Pope Francis might jettison idea of a ‘just war’