Ohari's question
Blaz, Ben
NOTEBOOK 'CIVILTA' HAS SPOKEN BUT IT'S NOT THE LAST WORD ON WAR “But Was It Just?" asks a forthcoming book (Doubleday, March) about the morality of the Gulf War. The volume continues the...
...Thus, while the editorial states that per sua natura modem war "cannot really be conducted according to the criteria required for a just war," and while it announces—without substantiation— that the Catholic church's opposition to war has now become "absolute," its argumentation is not convincing...
...Jesus' teaching may seem improbable in a world infected with sin and seemingly irredeemable...
...It also reprints, in an appendix, a controversial editorial on justwar theory published last July 6 by the Rome-based Jesuit magazine La Civilta Cattolica (the Origins translation appeared on December 18, 1991...
...For many, the book will raise more general questions about the authority of justwar teaching in Roman Catholic thought...
...Vitoria's teaching is not that of Jesus, at least as Jesus embodied it in his life and words...
...Were such a revolutionary understanding to become church teaching, the pope himself would have to declare it, clearly, unequivocally, and without the use of platitudes, such as those offered in Centesimus...
...When it comes to Christians justifying violence, even for a seemingly justifiable cause, Jesus' standard still stares us in the face...
...and Hehir observed that where the pope is moving on this question surely bears careful watching...
...Once such a two-edged sword is out of its scabbard, it resists constraint...
...No, while the Civilta editorial is good news—particularly its challenge that we all must oppose "the ideology of war" enveloping us—its arguments are not compelling enough in themselves to outscore the relentless justifications of the just-war theorizers, let alone t he theory's advocates in Baghdad, Belfast, and inside the Washington Beltway...
...While some would like to see in he Civilta editorial an indication of the pope's progress in abandoning the just-war theory, they are as likely to be mistaken as those who concluded in early 1968 that the papal birth control coming son reflected the views of Paul VI on contraception...
...The volume continues the intense battle over the validity of the just-war theory as it was applied to that particularly modem war...
...The mystery is indeed nearly humanly unfathomable: that Jesus chose to emphasize forgiveness and selfsurrender rather than retribution or the settling of scores...
...For while its conclusion may be welcome to some—its authors reason that "the theory of the 'just war' is untenable and needs to be abandoned"—the editorial argues its case by means of just-war categories...
...But it remains the teaching by which true Christ-likeness will finally be measured...
...Nor should the Civilta statement that the church condemns modem war absolutely be taken as factual...
...To do that, the editorial would have to beg n from a different set of principles, principles grounded in another, higher authority...
...It has been criticized by some just-war advocates, but it ought to raise objections from Christian pacifists as well...
...And it seems to accept at face value the classic just-war dictum of Francisco de Vitoria (1483-1546): "vim vi repellere licet," "it is licit to repel violence with force...
...For example, it states, but does not demonstrate, that war "always produces harm that far exceeds any advantages that may accrue in terms of justice and right...
...includes contributions from Michael Walzer, George Weigel, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jean Bethke Elshtain...
...Because of Civilta's quasi-official Vatican ties, questions were asked: Did the editorial have papal approval...
...Titled "Modem War and Christian Conscience," the editorial deserves careful attention...
...Did it signal a new direction in Catholic teaching...
...In so doing, it grants them an unnecessary and fateful legitimacy, one that, like a computer virus, finally subverts the distinctive message of Jesus on peacemaking and violence...
...Writing in these pages after the publication of John Paul II's Centesimus annus ("Reordering the World," June 14, 1991), J. Bryan Hehir concluded that the pope's remarks during the Gulf War and in his new encyclical indicated John Paul had "drawn the moral barriers against the use of force" more tightly...
...PATRICK JORDAN Commonweal 31 January 1992: 5...
Vol. 119 • January 1992 • No. 2
