THB
O'GavcK 'la.wie.s.
Tlr,e. OiyJrcU awcL:r

AC Q. (o 4 \ \

CHURCH

WAR
James O’Gara

A



Copyright 1967

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC MEN

All rights reserved. No portion of this

booklet may be reproduced in any way

without written permission from . . .

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC MEN

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D. C. 20005



THE CHURCH

AND

WAR

JAMES O’GARA

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC MEN



OWCWlt; ^



PAGE

INTRODUCTION v

I The Early Church 9

II The Middle Ages
21

III The Modern World 35

IV In Our Time 47

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 60

BIBLIOGRAPHY 62





Introduction

The question of war and peace cannot be a
matter of in-

difference to any rational man, let alone a
Christian. “Deliver

us, O Lord,” we pray, “from pestilence, famine and
war!”

Yet every day the weapons of war grow
more and more

“efficient,” more and more terrible.

Men today live under a heavy weight of fear. Some
have

learned to live with this fear, pushing it
out of their conscious-

ness. Others are more conscious of the
omnipresent danger in

which we live. Over all alike hangs the deadly
possibility of

thermonuclear war. To our generation falls the
dubious dis-

tinction of being able, for the first time in
history, to lay waste

the earth and destroy the human race.

In these circumstances Christian
questions about the morality

of war are essential — although this fact, which should be so
obvious, seems to escape many. No one can expect the

Church

to supply any simple answer to
complex questions like those

in Vietnam. However, as Father
John Courtney Murray sug-

gests, the task is made infinitely harder by
the fact that many

Catholics seem completely unfamiliar with
Christian tradition

on war and violence — so much so that they are surprised by
any attempt to determine the norms for

a just war, or to dis-

cover the limits beyond which we must not
proceed in warfare

on pain of sin, that this should be so is
a great scandal.

There are, of course, those who consider the
Christian quest

for peace impossibly idealistic.
“Wars have always taken

place,” these people say; “they always
will.” So too some

people used to talk about slavery, yet
in point of fact slavery

has now disappeared from large parts of the
world. In similar

fashion, wars which once were waged between
individual fami-

lies and clans and tribes are today
largely limited to those

between nations. Will we one day see fear of
that kind of war

eliminated also? Will a future international
court rule on the

v



methods and weapons of warfare? Will every state in time find

it must yield that part of its sovereignty which now makes

possible war between nations?

It was at least to raise questions like these that “The Church

and War” was conceived. It is not intended to present my

views on war and peace, nor those of any one individual; rather

it represented an attempt to focus on what great Popes and

Christian thinkers have said on the subject over the course of

the Church’s life. Obviously, to undertake such a task in four

parts demanded extreme selectivity; if there are those on one

side or the other who are unhappy with my selections, I can

only emphasize that I tried my best to be balanced and fair

in presenting this very complex subject.

The problem presented is unquestionably crucial. We all

owe a duty to the political community in which we live, and

to our leaders. Nonetheless, there clearly must be limits to our

loyalty. Certainly we cannot follow the example of Eichmann,

obeying blindly and insisting that we are only following orders.

The Christian who makes a god of the State and obeys without

question betrays the one true God of the Old and New Testa-

ments. That such men exist in our time, and that modern war

is more horrible because of this fact, none can deny. On the

other hand, there have always been the peacemakers; there

have always been those who take Christian tradition seriously

those who, like Pope Paul VI, insist that peace must be a

matter of central Christian concern. It is to such men and

their cause that this booklet is dedicated.

— James O’Gara

vi



HOW TO USE

THE CHURCH AND WAR
Lay organizations, CCD classes, teachers and study clubs

can use this booklet to stimulate their members or students

to think about their role in promoting peace
in today’s

world. A simple format for using this booklet is: each

participant in turn reads a paragraph aloud while the others

follow from their copies. Discussion questions for each
of

the four parts are provided in the booklet to stimulate
an

exchange of views and attitudes among the participants.

FILM PROGRAM

“The Church and War” is also available to schools,

parishes and organizations in a series of four
half-hour,

black and white 16mm sound films.

Order the films from:

NCCM FILM CENTER

405 Lexington Avenue

New York, New York 10017

Rental: $10.00 per film.

Discount: On any order for all four films a 15% discount

is allowed on the entire order. The films may be

ordered for different dates.

FILM TITLE Code
Number

The Early Church CM-564

The Middle Ages CM-565

The Modern World CM-566

In Our Time CM-567

t •

Vll





I

THE EARLY CHURCH

Reliable statistics about
Vietnam are hard to come by,

but

it is estimated that at
least 250,000 persons have

been killed

there since 1957. By mid-October
of 1966, the United

States

had over 300,000 troops
in Vietnam, and the

number of

American dead and wounded in
the first nine months of

that

year fell just short of
25,000. By mid-September of

1966

American dead were averaging
100 a week and that figure w

expected to mount.

We think of ours as an age of war
and violence and with

good reason. World War II,
Korea, Vietnam — Americans

by the millions have
participated in these warsand

someh

even fought in all three.
But ours is not the first age

of war

and violence, by any means.
In almost every age the

innocent

blood of the victims* of war
has cried out to heaven,

and some

have come to accept this
state of affairs as an almost

routine

fact of life. For the Christian,
however, war and violence a

bloodshed can never be routine,
can never be accepted

casually.

St. Paul’s epistle to
the Romans reiterates why.

“To no man rendering evil for
evil ... If it be possible, as

much as is in you, have peace
with all men. Revenge

yourselves, my dearly beloved; but
give place unto wrath

for it is written:
Revenge is mine, I will repay,

sai

Lord. But if thy enemy be
hungry, give him *o eat, it

he thirst, give him to drink
... Be not overcome by evil,

but overcome by good.”
(Ch 12:17-21)



Christianity, then, is a religion of peace, not of war. Vio-

lence and killing are clearly repugnant to the Christian spirit.

Even so, though, can a Christian participate in a war declared

by the state? Does war so obviously contradict the Gospel

message of love that a Christian is necessarily barred from

taking part in it?

To this large question there can be no simple, easy response,

but to help us find at least the beginnings of an answer we turn

to history. What have Christians thought about war and peace

over the centuries? What to begin with, did the followers of

Christ in the first few centuries think on the subject?

The social effects of Christianity are described by St. Justin.

Reflecting on the implications of the Incarnation, St. Justin

said:

“We who hated and slew one another, and because of (dif-
ferences in) customs would not share a common hearth with
those who were not of our tribe, now after the appearance
of Christ, have become sociable, and pray for our enemies,

and try to persuade those who hate (us) unjustly in order
that they, living according to the good suggestions of Christ,

may share our hope of obtaining the same (reward) from the
God who is Master of all . . . and as to loving all (men),
He has taught as follows: ‘If you love (only) those who love
you, what new thing do you do? for even fornicators do this.

But I say to you: pray for your enemies and love those who

hate you and bless those who curse you and pray for those

who act spitefully toward you.’
”

Another of the early Christian witnesses was Athenagoras,

who was perhaps the first Christian writer to elaborate a

philosophical defense of the doctrine of the Trinity. Writing

in the second century after Christ, Athenagoras also discussed

some of the implications of the Gospel among the early Chris-

tians :

“We have learnt not only not to strike back and not to go
to law with those who plunder and rob us, but with some

10



if they buffet us on the side of the
head, to offer the other

side of the head to them for a blow,
and with others if they

take away our tunic to give them also
our cloak.”

A comparable point of view on violence was expressed
by

St. Clement of Alexandria. Also
writing in the second cen-

tury, St. Clement said:

“Above all, Christians are not allowed to
correct by violence

sinful wrongdoings. For (it is) not
those who abstain from

evil by compulsion but those (who
abstain) by choice (that)

God crowns. For it is not possible for a
man to be good

steadily except by his own choice.”

It was with this general mentality
that the early Christians

first approached the question of
military service in the forces

of the Roman Empire. In the beginning,
however, few really

confronted the question as a practical
difficulty. Until some-

where around the end of the second
century, the question of

military service was not a pressing one
for Christians. The

Romans normally did not practice universal
conscription, and

except in very unusual circumstances
no one was forced to

serve in the army. Indeed, slaves
and Jews, with whom in

the early days Christians were
identified, were not even eligible

for service. Thus in the first century
and a half there seem

to have been few if any Christian
soldiers and as a consequence

little or no detailed consideration by
the Church of what was

not really a crucial problem. At the
same time those who did

speak made their views very clear.
One of these was St.

Cyprian, who said:

“The world is wet with mutual blood
(shed) : and homocide

is a crime when individuals commit
it, (but) it is called a

virtue when many commit it. Not the
reason of innocence,

but the magnitude of savagery assures
impunity for crimes.

Condemnatory references to war abound
in this period and

even later. Arnobius was a leading
Christian apologist in the

time of Diocletian. He contrasts Christ
with the rulers of the

Roman empire and asks

:

11



“Did he, claiming royal power for himself, occupy the whole

world with fierce legions, and, (of) nations at peace from

the beginning, destroy and remove some, and compel others

to put their necks beneath his yoke and obey him? . . . What

use is it to the world that there should (be) . . . generals of

the greatest experience in warfare, skilled in the capture of

cities, (and) soldiers immoveable and invincible in cavalry

battles or in a fight on foot?”

Arnobius denied that God intended that men, “forgetting

that they are from one source, one parent and head, should

tear up and break down the rights of kingship, overturn their

cities, devastate land in enmity, make slaves of free men,

violate maidens and other men’s wives, hate one another,

envy the joys and good fortune of others, in a word all curse,

carp at and rend one another with the biting of savage teeth.”

A famous pupil of Arnobius was Lactantius, whom Con-
stantine was to make tutor to his son. In his “Divine Insti-

tutes” Lactantius frequently refers to war as one of the great

blots on human history. Speaking of the Romans, Lactantius

said:

“Truly the more men they have afflicted, despoiled, (and)

slain, the more noble and renowned do they think themselves;

and, captured by the appearance of empty glory, they give

the name of excellence of their crimes. Now I would rather

that they should make gods of themselves from the slaughter

of wild beasts than that they should approve of an im-

mortality so bloody. If anyone has slain a single man, he is

regarded as contaminated and wicked, nor do they think it

right that he should be admitted to the earthly dwelling of

the gods. But he who has slaughtered endless thousands of

men, deluged the fields with blood, (and) infected rivers

(with it) is admitted not only to a temple, but even to

heaven.”

Eusebius is often called the Father of Church History. Born

about the year 260, he was the Bishop of Caesarea and the

author of one of the principal sources for the history of Chris-

12



tianity from the apostolic age to his own day. In his writings

Eusebius discussed the incessant occurance of warfare in
pre-

Christian times, and in large part he blames this on the instiga-

tion of demons tyrannizing over the nations that worshipped

them.

All the e^rly Christian writers against war were profoundly

influenced by the Old Testament prophecy, found both in

Isaias and Micah, foretelling the abolition of war and the

Messianic age:

“And many nations shall come in haste and say: Come, let us

go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of
the

God of Jacob: And he will teach us of his ways, and we will

walk in his paths, for the law shall come forth out of Sion:

and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. And he shall

judge among many people and rebuke strong nations afar

off: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their

spears into spades. Nation shall not take sword against nation:

neither shall they learn war any more.” (Micah. Ch. 4:2-3)

This ancient prophecy about the coming of the Messiah is

quoted again and again by Christian writers, who argued that

it is being fulfilled by the spread of Christianity, because Chris-

tians are peace-loving people who do not make war. Quoting

the Old Testament prophecy of peace, St. Justin says:

“And that this has happened, you can be persuaded. For from

Jerusalem twelve men went out into the world and these (were)

unlearned, unable to speak. But by (the) power of God they

told every race of men that they had been sent by Christ to

teach all (men) the word of God. And we, who were formerly

slayers of one another, not only do not make war upon our

enemies, but, for the sake of neither lying nor deceiving those

who examine us, gladly die confessing Christ.”

To the modern Christian, a striking fact about the writing

of early Christians on war and violence is the apparent ab-

sence of any question about defending others from violence

and evil. It seems to be taken for granted that if a man will

13



not avenge his own wrongs, he certainly will not avenge those

of others — a position, it should be noted, quite the opposite
of that of many modern Christian thinkers who may be quite

willing to turn the other cheek themselves but who feel it is

their duty to defend the innocent against unjust attack.

The early writers who insisted that Christians could not

accept military service did so, of course, knowing full well

that war figured largely in the Old Testament. This fact seems

not to have troubled them, however. For them the wars of the

Old Testament and the principles of peace associated with

Christ appear to have formed two separate realms. Indeed,

the wars waged by Jews of old could be seen as just wars,

inspired by God, an approach that somewhat foreshadows

St. Augustine's later concept of a just war.

The conditions of life in the Old Testament and those of

Christians under a pagan state were, of course, quite different.

Reluctance to participate in pagan rites in honor of a divine

emperor would obviously reinforce a Christian's basic reluct-

ance for military service. However, Tertullian specifically

states that in considering the problem of military service he

had in mind those of lower rank who would not have to take

part in pagan sacrifices. Nonetheless, Tertullian insisted,

“There is no agreement between the divine and the human

sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the

devil.”

“Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword,

when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall

perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in

the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law?

And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture,

and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own

wrongs?”

So said Tertullian. At the same time, though, this same

Tertullian praised and upheld the position of the emperor

14



and the stability of the empire.
Christians, he said, regard

the emperior as a man who received his
appointment and

power from God. A similar attitude is found among
many

others of the early writers. In this
matter, St. Paul again sets

the tone. Writing to the Christians
at Rome, he specifically

warned them against any anarchical
tendencies to defy the

government and refuse to pay taxes. Said
St. Paul.

“Let every soul be subject to higher
powers. For there is no

power but from God: and those that are
ordained of God.

Therefore, he that resists the power resists
the ordinance of

God and they that resist purchase to themselves
damnation.

For princes are not a terror to the
good work but to the

evil.” (Romans Ch. 13: 1-3)

The early Christian writers, like St. Paul,
seem to have

viewed the state as a useful and necessary
institution, ordained

by God for the security of life and property,
the preservation

of peace and the prevention and
punishment of the more public

forms of human sin. At the same time,
during the first two

centuries they refused to participate
in military service and

indeed in almost any area of
responsibility or authority in the

Roman state. How is one to explain this?

One possible explanation is that Christians of
the period felt

themselves barred by the Sermon on the
Mount from violence

which pagans could still legitimately
employ. Undoubtedly

the obligation of those in
public service to take sacriligeous

oaths on occasion further closed the
question as far as they

were concerned. In any case, it is
clear that during the first

two centuries Christians considered it
impossible to reconcile

their beliefs with service to the
pagan state. This is one of

the reasons pagans Ike Celsus
attacked Christians, if all re-

fused to serve as Christians did,
he said, the empire would

fall to the Barbarians.

For their part, Christians saw themselves
as members of a

holy brotherhood, as part of a new community
in Christ which

transcended the boundaries of nation or
race. This Christian

15



self-image was by-and-large accepted by non-Christians.

Christians were generally viewed as a more-or-less dangerous

foreign element, withdrawn and secretive; they were subject

to periodic persecution and were often made the scapegoats for/

national disasters.

But if the first Christians did not serve in the army and

were generally regarded with suspicion and hostility, this did

not mean that they were unconscious of the function of the

state and the value of the army. Christians habitually prayed

for the emperor and his subordinates, not only as their enemies

and persecutors but as those who guarded law and order and

repelled by military force the barbarian invaders, thus Arnobius

asks:

“Why have our meetings deserved to be cruelly broken up?

Seeing that in them the Supreme God is prayed to, peace

and pardon are asked for all — magistrates, armies, kings,
friends, enemies?”

Only by understanding this point can one understand how

St. Paul could forbid Christians to avenge themselves, telling

them to overcome evil with good, and at the same time praise

a pagan magistrate as the servant of God for punishing a

wrongdoer. On the whole question of violence and military

service, in short, it seems plain that the attitude of the early

Christians was sharply conditioned by the fact that the state

in which they found themselves was a pagan state. Because

Christians were not by-and-large responsible for the govern-

ment or for keeping the peace, they could afford to permit

considerable ambiguity in their thinking on the entire question.

In addition, one must recognize that the Christian position

changed according to the time and place. When Christians did

begin to serve in the imperial forces, toward the end of the

second century, those who were stationed on a threatened

frontier could hardly look at the question with the same de-

tachment as a professor at Carthage or Rome. The problem,

one must remember, was a live one, constantly changing its

16



dimensions from one decade to another and from one century

to another; it had to be solved, not in the abstract but accord-

ing to the demands of the specific situation. One thing is clear:

The Christian attitude toward military service and war changed

sharply in the age of Constantine.

Under Diocletian, who reigned in the latter part of the third

century, the Church was subjected to perhaps its worst era

of persecution. There was no corner of the empire where

Christians were not sought out, commanded to offer sacrifices

before idols, and if they refused, subjected to torture and death.

In 305, however, Diocletian abdicated. Constantine rapidly

rose to power and contested with Maxentius for control of the

empire. Their fateful struggle was ultimately decided by the

famous battle of the Milvian bridge, at the very gates of Rome.

By popular tradition, it was there that Constantine and his

army saw in the sky a sign of the cross with these words in-

scribed: “In hoc signo vinces” (By this sign you shall conquer).

In this battle Constantine won a great victory, and his triumph

marked a crucial turning point in the history of the Church.

The following year, Constantine’s Edict of Milan proclaimed

Christianity a licit religion and provided for full freedom of

worship. This was the beginning of an intimate relationship

between the emperor Constantine and the Church.

“We, Constantine and Licinius the Emperors, have met in

concord at Milan and having set in order everything which

pertains to the common good and public security, are of the

opinion that among the various things, which we perceived

would profit men, or which should be set in order first, was

to be found the cultivation of religion. We should therefore

give both to Christians and to all others free facility to follow

the religion which each may desire, so that by this means

whatever divinity is enthroned in heaven may be gracious

and favorable to us and to all who have been placed under

our authority . . . Wherefore it is necessary for Your Excel-

lency to know that it is our pleasure that all restrictions which

were previously put forward in official pronouncements con-

17



cerning the sect of the Christians would be removed, and
that

each one of them who freely and sincerely carries out the pur-

pose of observing the Christian religion may endeavor to
prac-

tice its precepts without any fear or danger.”

Under Constantine the wheel came almost full circle. Soon

the enemies of the church became the enemies
of the state.

Paganism and superstitution were warred against,
much as

Christianity once had been. Constantine himself, although
he

did not in fact accept Baptism until his death-bed,
flung him-

self into Church affairs with a vengeance. The effects
of this

marriage of Church and state were profound, for that
time and

for subsequent Christian history. Church and
state were no

longer hostile forces but were closely linked.

It was in this context that St. Augustine lived
and worked

at the end of the 4th and the beginning of
the 5th centuries.

Augustine wrote, not as a leader of a persecuted
minority but

as a bishop of a Church closely allied with
the state and co-

extensive with the empire; he wrote at a time
when Christians

had been serving in the army for some 200 years;
he wrote at

a time when the Roman empire was under attack both
in Eu-

rope and in Africa by the Vandals. Confronted
with this situa-

tion, St. Augustine produced the first authoritative
Christian

teaching that man can serve Caesar in the army and still
serve

God.

This is not to say that St. Augustine shared
any pagan

glorification of war and violence. On the contrary, the blood-

shed of his age inspired in him a great hatred
for war and

scorn for those who exalted military conquest. On the
sub-

ject of military accomplishments he said:

“Why allege to me the mere names and words of
‘glory

and ‘victory’? Tear off the disguises of
wild delusion and

look at the naked deeds; weigh them
naked, judge them

naked.”

Nonetheless, like his mentor St. Ambrose, St.
Augustine

flatly rejects the antimilitarism of earlier
Christian writers. If

18



they are acting in a public capacity, Augustine wrote, Chris-

tians are not enjoined by the Gospel teaching to abstain from

the use of force or from killing: they could, he said, serve in

the army and fight the enemies of the state.

What St. Augustine elaborated was a natural law argument

setting forth the conditions under which war could be justified,

an argument somewhat like that of Cicero much earlier. War,

he taught, is always an evil, but sometimes it may be necessary

in order to prevent greater evil.

To St. Augustine, a war of defense was obviously justifiable,

perhaps even obligatory. A war of aggression could be just if

it were carried out with the proper authority and with both a

just cause and a right intention. The purpose of war was always

to seek peace; war should only be fought if it is really necessary,

and should be fought with mercy.

“Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be

waged only as a necessity, and waged only that God may by

it deliver men from the necessity and preserve them in peace.

For peace is not sought in order to the kindling of war, but

war is waged in order that peace may be obtained. There-

fore, even in waging war, cherish the spirit of a peacemaker,

that by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead

them back to the advantages of peace.”

For St. Augustine, it is quite clear, killing or wounding an

enemy was not in itself incompatible with love for him, and

he held that Christians not only could but should fight on

occasion. This, many Christians insist, is precisely the position

we are in today in Vietnam, and they hold that it is our duty

to protect the weak against Communist aggression. At the

same time, other Christians hold just as sincerely and just as

strongly that our course in Vietnam is unjustified and our con-

duct of the war immoral.

How would St. Augustine have felt? In this dispute over

the rightness or wrongness of our role in Vietnam, no one can

19



claim that St. Augustine is
necessarily on this or that side; no

one can say with any certainty
whether St. Augustine would

approve or disapprove of the
Vietnamese war. One thing,

however, can be said with certainty:
with St. Augustine, Chris-

tian thinking reached an
entirely new stage of development

For centuries to come, Augustine’s
position that war could

be just was to remain essentially
unchallenged in the Christian

world.

20



II

THE MIDDLE AGES

In one month’s time during 1966, it is estimated that 2,000

Vietnamese civilians were wounded and another 1,000 killed

by allied action, and some argue that these estimates were in

fact too low. At the same time, as if balancing on the other

end of the scale, another estimate was cited: over the past

decade, this one went, 20,000 persons have been assassinated

in Vietnam by Communist terrorists.

In a world that grows ever more complex, the Christian to-

day weights and balances the moral pro’s and con’s of the

war in Vietnam. In doing so, he is simply repeating once

again a procedure as old as the Church itself.

For Greeks, Romans and barbarians alike, conversion to

Christianity in the first centuries of the Church meant a sudden

change in their whole way of life. St. Athanasius described

that change:

“Since they became acquainted with Christian teaching, these

men who previously could not live for an hour without their

weapons have now laid them aside, in order to become

farmers; and now their hands, which had been accustomed

to holding swords, are raised to heaven in prayer. In place

of the wars which they waged against each other, war is now

pressed against the devil for virtue and purity of soul.”

Jesus had said to turn the other cheek, and many early

Christians thought they were obeying His command when they

refused to serve in the Roman army. A famous example is

21



that of Maximilian, a young Numidian who would not join the

imperial army when ordered to do so. Brought before the

Roman consul, he persisted in his refusal to bear arms, say-

ing, “I cannot fight; I am a Christian.” Ordered again to take

up arms, he said: “I cannot fight if I die; I am not a soldier

of this world, but a soldier of God.” For this refusal, Maxi-

milian was beheaded.

The evidence in these matters is somewhat scattered and

intimately related to particular situations. For that reason, it

is not easy to determine the exact meaning for us of the attitude

of the early Christians toward war. Nonetheless, it is
clear

that in the early days of the Christian era, the followers
of

Christ did not serve in the army of the pagan state, and many

prominent Christian commentators condemned military service

outright.

The early Christians in the Roman Empire were frequently

in doubt as to their status and were often persecuted and
even

put to death. This was hardly surprising. From the begin-

ning, Christianity showed that it was a universal religion, and

one in which there was no room for the worship of Roman

gods. Aside from anything else, this factor alone would have

worked to keep Christians out of the army, where such worship

was almost unavoidable. Roman emperors who claimed

divine authority found it hard to tolerate those who would

give adoration to God alone and until Constantine the lot of

the early Christians were never secure.

Constantine embraced the Church, however, and under Con-

stantine and his successors Christianity became almost the state

religion. And in this period St. Augustine broke with the

anti-militarism of the past, vigorously defending the idea that

there could be such a thing as a just war; in some circum-

stances, St. Augustine insisted, Christians even had a duty
to

serve in the imperial forces.

By the early Middle Ages and the time of Charlemagne,

emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, history had reversed it-

22



self. When Charlemagne fought the barbarians, he had mis-

sionaries follow his conquering forces to evangelize the de-

feated enemy. Church and State were closely linked, and

Charlemagne took a large view of his role. Said the emperor

in a letter to Pope Leo III

:

“Just as I entered into a pact with the most blessed father

your predecessor, so I desire to conclude with your Holiness

an unbreakable treaty of the same faith and charity; so that

with Divine peace being called down by the prayers of your

Apostolic Sanctity, the Apostolic benediction may follow me

everywhere, and the most Holy See of the Roman Church

may always be defended by the devotion which God gives to

us.

It is our part with the help of Divine holiness to defend

by armed strength the holy Church of Christ everywhere

from the outward onslaught of the pagans and to strengthen

within it the knowledge of the Catholic Faith. It is your

part, most Holy Father, to help our armies with your hands

lifted up to God like Moses, so that by your intercession and

by the leadership and gift of God, the Christian people may

everywhere and always have the victory over the enemies

of His Holy Name and that the name of our Lord Jesus

Christ may be glorified throughout the world.”

After Charlemagne’s death, the power of the empire de-

clined, and that of various princes and lords arose to take its

place. It was in this way that feudalism developed. Dukes,

counts and bishops grew more and more independent and more

and more powerful, not only driving back invading Moslems

and Northmen, but very frequently fighting among themselves.

It was in this context that the Church’s concern for peace and

for restraining and lessening violence showed itself once more.

St. Augustine had been a most respected figure — indeed,
he is one of the most influential theologians the Church has

produced, and his doctrine of the just war has remained the

majority view among theologians since he first enunciated it.

23



But there were other currents in Christian thought which helped

to temper the violence of the age.

From the sixth to the twelfth centuries, a considerable body

of opinion in the Church considered killing, even in a just and

public war, to be in some degree wrong. Confessors of the

period commonly were guided by private penitentials in giving

penances. These were not official documents, but they were

widely used. In them, the usual penance for killing in a public

war was for forty days. The penance would involve fasting,

prayer, charitable works and on occasion isolation from Church.

The battle of Soissons in the early tenth century provides an

illustration. This was a particularly savage encounter, a battle

marked by great cruelty and one in which over half of each

army was destroyed. After the battle, a synod of bishops

decreed that all who had taken part in it should do penence

for forty-day periods for three years. Throughout these periods

they had to “abstain in bread and water on the second, fourth

and sixth days of each week ...”

A comparable example is provided by the victory of William

the Conqueror in England. William had Rome’s agreement

to his claim to the English throne and had his banner blessed

by the Pope. Nonetheless, after the battle of Hastings, a

council of bishops prescribed a set of penances on all ranks

of his army. One year’s penance was imposed for every man

killed, forty days for each man struck. If a man did not

know how many he killed, penance was to be performed at

the discretion of his bishop one day a week for the remainder

of his life.

Such pentitential practices were part of a Christian climate

which tried, so to speak, to civilize warfare as far as that was

possible, to keep violence within reasonable bounds. There

were many in the United States who thought the idea of a

truce at Christmas in Vietnam was extraordinary, but in fact

there was ample historical precedent for such a move. In

24



addition to the penitential practices imposed on those who

killed, even in war, there developed in the Middle Ages what

was called first the Peace of God and then the Truce of God.

In the tenth century, there grew up an institution called “the

Peace of God,” a device of the church to lessen violence by

anathematizing all persons who attacked non-combatants or

violated the rights of clerics and holy places.

Early in the next century, “the Peace of God” developed

into “the Truce of God,” an extension of the same idea. In

the beginning “the Truce of God” prohibited armed hostilities

from Saturday night to Monday morning. Toward the middle

of the century the truce was lengthened to last from Wednesday

night to Monday morning. In addition, the Synod of Clermont

decreed that the Truce should extend from Advent to the

octave of the Epiphany, and from Septuagesima to the octave

of Pentecost — a rule which soon became general thoughout
Christendom under penalty of excommunication.

All this is not to say that the Middle Ages were quiet and

peaceful. The Church tried to restrain warfare, but the princes

and lords were powerful; the age was a violent one, and in-

termittant warfare was the rule. The most famous of all wars

in the period were the Crusades, and in these the Church itself

played a leading part. Asked for assistance by the Eastern

Emperor against the attacking Moslems, Pope Urban II in

1095 called Christians to a holy war:

“Most beloved brethren, moved by the exigencies of the

times, I, Urban, wearing by permission of God the papal

tiara, and spiritual ruler of the whole world, have come to

you, the servants of God, as a messenger to disclose the

divine admonition ... You must carry succor to your
brethren dwelling in the East, and needing your aid, which

they have so often demanded. For the Turks, a Persian

people, have attacked them . . .

Wherefore, I pray and exhort, nay not I, but the Lord prays

and exhorts you, as heralds of Christ, by frequent exhorta-

25



tion, to urge men of all ranks, knights and footsoldiers, rich

and poor, to hasten to exterminate this vile race from the

lands of our brethren, and to bear timely aid to the wor-

shippers of Christ. I speak to those who are present, I pro-

claim it to the absent, but Christ commands. Moreover, the

sins of those who set out thither, if they lose their lives on

the journey, by land or sea, or in fighting against the heathen,

shall be remitted in that hour; this I grant to all who go,

through the power of God vested in me.”

Urban himself probably never expected the reaction ac-

corded his appeal to arms. All over Europe, men of every

rank and nationality left home to put on the cross and save

Jerusalem from the unbelievers. Peasants and artisans, knights

and nobles, married and single, even men accompanied by their

wives and children, undertook the long trip to the East. Even

children by the thousands left home and parents forever, under

the influence of the Crusaders’ cry, “God wills it.”

Today, few historians glamorize the Crusades. Many Cru-

saders set out with the highest motives, but too many saw the

Crusades as an unparalleled opportunity for the violence

frowned on at home. For some of the Crusaders, anyone who

spoke an unknown language was an infidel, fit only to be

killed; along their path to the Holy Land, many strangers and

particularly many Jews were cruelly treated and even mur-

dered.

The effect of the Crusades on the relationship between East-

ern and Western Christians was tragic, particularly after Chris-

tians of the West sacked and looted Constantinople, the capital

city of Eastern Christians. Intended to heal the wounds that

kept East and West apart, the Crusades in fact deepened these

wounds and increased hostility — a hostility which has lasted
900 years. Only the symbolic embrace of Pope Paul VI and an

Orthodox representative of Eastern Christians at the recent

Vatican Council marked the beginning of a possible end to

the enmity.

26



The Crusades represented a great danger . . . the holy war.

When violence becomes holy, the danger is that the enemy will

be seen as diabolical, and that any means will be seen as per-

missable. And indeed it must be said that for too many Cru-

saders, this came to be true. At home in Europe, however,

the Church did not abandon efforts to restrain warfare and

reduce violence.

A striking example of this may be seen in the knight in the

age of chivalry. Here the picture can be romanticized out of

all recognition, and it should not be. The knight was the

child of violent times. Nonetheless, the ideals of knighthood

were lofty, to be embraced only after prayer and penance and

an overnight vigil before the altar.

Fighting remained an essential part of knightly activity, but

it was exalted on a moral basis. Knights stood ready to take

arms against every wrong. In the romantic literature of

chivalry, many valiant knights sought the Holy Grail, but only

Sir Galahad succeeded in the quest because his heart was pure.

If a man was a true knight, he was to be chivalrous, fair

and honorable; his sword was to be at the service of the poor

and the oppressed; he was to be the defender of women and

children. Granted, there were many who deviated from these

high standards, but this was the ideal, a knight like the one de-

scribed by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales:

“A knight there was, and that a worthy man,

That from the time he first began

To ride out, he loved chivalry,

Truth and honor, freedom and courtesy,

* * *

And though that he was worthy, he was wise,

And of his port as meek as is a maid.

He never yet no villainy has said

In all his life, unto no manner wight.

He was a very parfit gentle knight.”

27



Writers of this period generally accepted the concept of a

just war. It was commonly held that clerics should be exempt

from war and that a just intention was essential. In the

thirteenth century, Raymond of the Pennafort held that wars

of self-defense were permissable, but that a just war must be

conducted in a spirit of piety, justice, and obedience, and this

view was typical.

The most authoritative voice to speak on the subject of war

in this period was St. Thomas Aquinas, although his treatment

of the topic was rather brief. In his summa St. Thomas asks,

“Is it always sinful to wage war?” — a significant way of
phrasing the question. In his answer he leans heavily on St.

Augustine. Like most writers at this time, he tended to accept

the autonomy of a multitude of petty princes as quite natural.

Following the lead of St. Augustine and of Gratian in the

eleventh century, St. Thomas rejected both the notion that might

makes right and the idea that war was always completely un-

justifiable. For a war to be just, St. Thomas saw three condi-

tions as necessary: right authority, sufficient cause, and right

intention.

“A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges

wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished for re-

fusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its sub-

jects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly.”

For St. Thomas, war can be transformed into true peace by

the spirit in which it is fought. War’s obvious horrors can be

redeemed by a purpose of bringing peace to both sides, and

one can be peaceful in spirit even though carrying on a war.

For a just war, a good intention is essential, such as that of

securing peace, punishing evil-doers and helping the good. A

wicked intention can render war unjust.

Theologians in the centuries immediately after Aquinas

elaborated more precisely on the concept of the just war.

Capetan held that an independent prince who had been attacked

could justly wage war and punish his attackers. Martin of

28



Lodi argued that another nation could legitimately fight in

the aid of a nation that had been attacked.

Increasing attention was paid to the means to be used in

waging a just war, and to the chances of winning it. Francis

de Vitoria in the sixteenth century put the question of the just

war on the plane of natural law and of the law of nations.

Vitoria agreed that a war of defense would be just, but he

insisted that an offensive war could be just only because of a

serious injustice suffered. Even in such a war, Vitoria said,

there should be a proportion between the evils of war and the

good to be gained, and he stressed that the good to be sought

should be that of all, not simply that of one nation or one

people. Vitoria already had a concept of an order of universal

justice and of an international community of nations. In

Vitoria, very importantly, the principle of immunity for non-

combatants was strongly expressed, and although he taught

that soldiers on both sides could be acting in good faith,

Vitoria insisted that a subject who was convinced of the in-

justice of a war could not serve in it.

To almost all of these theologians after Aquinas, the true

justification of war, defensive or aggressive, was seen as the

maintenance of justice and order and the safeguarding of the

common good of the community. Friends and allies were to

be aided, but war was only a last resort for maintaining or

restoring justice after all other means of settlement had been

tried and failed.

So said the theologians, and their views were echoed by a

man who was probably the most distinguished humanist of the

16th century, Erasmus. Wrote Erasmus in 1514:

“If one would consider well but the behavior and shape of

man’s body, shall he not forthwith perceive that nature, or

rather God, hath shaped this creature, not to war, but to

friendship, not to destruction, but to health, not to wrong,

but to kindness and benevolence. For whereas nature hath

armed all other beasts with their own armor, as the violence

29



of the bulls she has armed with horns, the ramping lion with

claws; to the boar she hath given the gnashing tusks; she hath

armed the elephant with a long trump snout, besides his great

huge body and hardness of skin . . . some she provideth to

save by swiftness of flight, as doves; and to some she hath

given venom instead of a weapon; to some she hath given a

much horrible and ugly look . . . man alone she hath brought

forth all naked, weak, tender and without any armor, with

most soft flesh and smooth skin. There is nothing at all in

all his members that may seem to be ordained to war, or to

any violence.”

Humanists and theologians alike might write against war,

but new forces were at work in the world, and not everyone

was prepared to listen to the moralists. One who spoke for

the new ways was Nicolo Machiavelli of Florence, bom in

1469. Machiavelli recognized the growing power of the

nation-state. Where theologians had always insisted that

political affairs were necessarily subject to moral considera-

tions, he argued that success was based on force, and he di-

vorced politics from morality entirely. In Machiavelli s think-

ing, war was a natural condition in the relations between states;

he scorned limited warfare and argued that when states fight

for their existence, there can be no limitation on war:

“A prince should therefore have no other aim or thought,

nor take up any other thing for his study, but war and its

organization and discipline, for that is the only art that is

necessary to one who commands, and it is of such virtue

that it not only maintains those who are born princes, but

often enables men of private fortune to attain to that rank

. . . He ought, therefore, never to let this thoughts stray

from the exercise of war; and in peace he ought to practice

it more than in war, which he can do in two ways: by action

and by study.”

By the end of the 15th century, growing national strength

and sentiment helped to weaken the sense of Christian unity.

Centralized monarchies developed in Spain, Portugal, France

and England. Soon the development of vernacular literatures

30



and the fact of the Protestant Reformation further contributed

to the rising spirit of nationalism.

Luther’s protest began against abuses but ultimately became

an attack on Catholic authority in general and papal authority

in particular. The Protestant Churches established themselves

on a national basis, and this in itself was a major blow to the

sense of Christian unity in Europe. Added to all this was the

successful employment of gunpowder during the late Middle

Ages, particularly in the sphere of seigecraft. The new artillery

was to render the fortified castle obsolete, and with it went the

last remnants of prestige for the feudal knight and the age of

chivalry.

It was this alliance of gunpowder with the growing resources

of the emerging states that was to produce the beginnings of

modern war in the 16th century, a time when almost continual

fighting was the rule as new weapons and tactics were tried

out. Particularly savage were the religious wars which in the

last half of the century spread from Germany all over Europe.

The intensity of the passions which religious conviction aroused

embittered already emerging national rivalries, and in these

conflicts men on both sides tended to throw off all restraints;

in the name of God and religion, war became less and less

limited, more and more ruthless. The shadow of modern

ideological warfare was cast over Europe for the first time.

Before the modem world emerged, however, Christendom

produced another famous exponent of natural law — the
Protestant Hugo Grotius, a Dutch jurist who died in 1645.

Between the time of Augustine and Grotius or even of Aquinas

and Grotius the world had changed radically. The Empire had

disintegrated, powerful nation-states arose, and Christian unity

was shattered. In this context, Grotius tried to translate nat-

ural law into the secular sphere, writing what is generally con-

sidered to be the first definitive text on international law. In

it he urged moderation at all times

:

31



“Even when justice does not require us to spare men’s lives

in war, it is often agreeable to goodness, to moderation, to

magnaminity . . . An enemy, therefore, who considers not

what human laws permit, but what is his duty, what is

righteous and pious, will spare hostile blood; and will never

inflict death, except either to avoid death, or evils like death,

or to punish crimes which are capital in desert. And even

to some who have deserved that, he will remit all, or at least,

capital punishment.”

Writing at a time when nations were becoming facts of

central importance, Grotius argued that natural law prescribed

rules of conduct for nations as well as for private individuals.

Indeed, he argued that more humanity and justice are due to

nations than to individuals, because nations are larger:

“Equity, which is required, and humanity, which is praised

toward individuals, are the more requisite and praiseworthy

toward nations and parts of nations in as much as the injury

or kindness is greater with the number.”

The equity and humanity of which Grotius spoke have all

too often been conspicuously absent in the years since he wrote.

War has not been abolished or even controlled — indeed, man
today lives under the threat of the H-bomb, and behind every

discussion of the Vietnam war lurkes the danger of thermo-

nuclear destruction.

Yet Grotius was not a lonely, misguided idealist, but a man

who stood in the best Christian tradition. If he had a single

theme, it was that international relations should be based on

righteousness and morality. Although transferred to the secu-

lar sphere, the natural law theory of Grotius was clearly in line

with the thinking of Augustine and Aquinas, Vitoria and

Suarez. That tradition was of increasing importance, for as

the weapons of war became ever more efficient, it became in-

creasingly clear that international society would surely be de-

stroyed if the only law of conduct for nations was not the

natural law of Grotius but the jungle law of Machiavelli.

32



Machiavelli and Grotius — one the voice of cynical na-
tional expediency, the other a spokesman for

international law.

As the world moved toward the modern era,
Machiavelli had

his disciples, but there could be no doubt that the
Church would

throw her wei ght on the side of morality and law
— indeed,

the words of Grotius on international morality
foreshadow in

a striking way the views of the modern Popes, as
they con-

fronted the facts of nationalism and the horror of
all-out war,

soon to be unleased upon the world.

33





Ill

THE MODERN WORLD

Wars have a way of escalating. In the
Battle of Britain,

the German Luftwaffe dropped 67,000
tons of bombs on

England — an impressive figure, but not much more than
the 50,000 tons the United States

dropped on Vietnam in one

month during 1966. Furthermore, to see
both figures in con-

text, one must remember that China’s
nuclear explosion

in May of 1966 was by itself the equivalent
of 200,000 tons

of TNT.

To us in the twentieth century, war without
gunpowder

or its equivalent — is unimaginable, and in a way this view
is correct. It was the successful use of

gunpowder plus the

rise of the nation state which in the
16th century produced

the recognizable birth of modern warfare.
Wrote Shake-

speare on gunpowder:

“And it was great pity, so it was,

This villainous saltpetre should be dragg’d

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed

So cowardly.”

In his protest against gunpowder,
Shakespeare wrote in an

old Christian tradition. From the beginning
of the Church,

Christian moralists had argued for limitations
on war and vio-

lence; they had spelled out the conditions
that must be met

if a war was to be called just, and they
had urged on princes

35



and people such expedients as the Truce of God and the Peace

of God to lessen and confine violence.

Despite the Church, wars did take place, and the Thirty

Years War in the seventeenth century was one of the most

savage. Toward the end of that violent conflict, wild beasts

hid in the ruins of towns whose inhabitants had taken to the

woods like wild beasts. Plague and famine killed thousands

every month. The Swedes were charged with the destruction

of 1500 towns and 18,000 villages. Bohemia claimed the loss

of three-fourths of her people during the war, Nassau of four-

fifths. A modern historian estimates Germany’s total deaths
at 7,500,000 — more than one-third of the entire population.

Ironically enough, the very savagery of the Thirty Years War

produced a strong revulsion against further fighting. Wars were

not abandoned, by any means. But the important thing about

the wars of the eighteenth century was the essentially limited

nature of their objectives. Wrote English historian Edward

Gibbon in 1782:

“In war the European forces are exercised by temperate

and indecisive conquests. The Balance of Power will con-

tinue to fluctuate, and the prosperity of our own or the

neighboring kingdoms will be alternately exalted or depressed;

but these partial events cannot essentially injure our general

state of happiness, the system of arts and laws and manners,

which so advantageously distinguish, above the rest of Man-

kind, the Europeans and their colonists.”

Those who are accustomed to the nature of modern warfare

find it hard to imagine limited war and what it was like. Fur-

ther testimony on this point is provided by the famed Swiss

jurist Emric de Vattel. Wrote Vattel:

“At the present day war is carried on by regular armies; the

people, the peasantry, the townfolk take no part in it, and

as a rule have nothing to fear from the sword of the enemy.

Provided the inhabitants submit to him who is master of the

country, and pay the contributions demanded, and refrain

36



from acts of hostility, they live in safety as
if they were on

friendly terms with the enemy; their property
rights are even

held sacred; the peasants go freely into
the enemy camp to

sell their provisions, and they are protected
as far as possible

from the calamities of war.”

Wars in this period did not seek the absolute
destruction of

an enemy, but rather a military decision
which would favor-

ably affect the diplomatic bargaining
to follow. Wars were

fought by relatively small armies, and their
objectives were not

such as to inflame entire peoples.

All this changed with the French Revolution.
On August 23,

1793, the French Committee on Public
Safety issued a decree

announcing universal conscription for the first
time in modern

history, making that day one of the most
memorable dates in

the history of warfare. Said the Committee

:

“The young people shall fight; the married
men shall forge

weapons and transport supplies; the women will make
tents

and serve in the hospitals; the children
will make up old linen

into lint; the old men will have themselves
carried into the

public squares to rouse the courage of the
fighting men, and

to preach hatred of kings and the unity
of the Republic. The

public buildings shall be turned into
barracks, the public

squares into munitions factories; the earthern
floors of cellars

shall be treated with lye to extract
saltpetre. All suitable fire-

arms shall be turned over to the troops;
the interior shall be

policed with fowling pieces and with cold
steel. All saddle

horses shall be seized for the cavalry;
all draft horses not

employed in cultivation will draw the
artillery and supply

wagons.”

Even more important than the introduction
of conscription

was the fact that the new army reflected the
spirit of the French

Revolution itself — it was driven by patriotic fervor, even
fanaticism, and the result was a change in the

very nature of

warfare. War had been limited; now it was on
the way to

becoming “total.” Wars had been fought to
seize this or that

piece of land or to gain this or that
advantage; now the purpose

37



of war became the complete overthrow of the enemy.
Thus

when Napoleon became the leader of the Revolutionary
armies,

he said

:

“There must be a superior power that dominates all the
other

powers, with enough authority to force them to live in
har-

mony with one another — and France is best placed for
that purpose.”

Napoleon was not without his admirers, among them the

philosopher Hegel. In Hegel we find a recurrence of the

Renaissance admiration by the thinker for the
practically suc-

cessful man. He glorified the hero, not only as a superior

man but as the embodiment of great historical forces. Con-

vinced that Napoleon synthesized self-interest and
revolutionary

idealism, Hegel said:

“Such world figures have no consciousness of the
general

idea they are unfolding while prosecuting their
own private

aims. On the contrary, they are practical political men, but

possessed of an insight into the requirements of the
time, an

understanding of what is ripe for development. It is theirs
to

realize this nascent principle; the next step forward
which their

world is to take. It is theirs to make this their aim and
spend

their energies promoting it. They are the heroes of an
epoch;

must be recognized as its clear-sighted ones.
Their deeds,

their words are the best of their time.’

Under Napoleon, the French armies became a war
machine

such as the world had never seen, and at the
peak of his in-

fluence, Napoleons international domain included
a larger

area than the European holdings of the Caesars.
Eventually

the French Emperor went down in defeat before a
combina-

tion of enemies, but the lessons he taught the
world were not

easily unlearned.

In the United States, for example, nationalistic
passions ran

high during our struggle with Mexico, and later
in the century,

as war with Spain came closer, some of the
fervid oratory

about America’s Manifest Destiny would not have
sounded too

strange in Napoleon’s ears. Our Ambassador
to England

38



referred to that struggle as
a “splendid little war,” and

Senator

Henry Cabot Lodge said

:

“We have a record of conquest,
colonization and expansion

unequalled by any people in the
19th century We are not

to be curbed now by the doctrines
of the Manchester school,

which ... as an importation are
even more absurdly out o

place than in their native land
. . . From the Rio Grande o

the Arctic Ocean there should
be but one flag and one coun-

try.”

In spite of Napoleon, however,
or perhaps because of him,

the 19th century did see
some positive efforts to curb

violence

or to limit war by international
treaty. Efforts to restrict

war-

fare sought to limit hostilities
to combatants, to prevent

long-

drawn-out wars of attrition, and to
localize wars. Quarter was

given in battle, and even in the
bitter American Civil War, e

parole system was regularly employed.

In 1864, 26 nations, gathered
in Geneva, agreed to respect

regulations governing the care
of the wounded, the rights

of

prisoners of war, and of hospitals
protected by the new Red

Cross. America’s Florence
Nightingale, Clara Barton, fought

for American acceptance of this
Geneva Convention; it too

until 1882, but in the end, she
won.

In all these efforts, the
Church took relatively little

part.

Throughout the centuries, the
Church had served as a re-

straining influence on war and
violence. War could be just,

Augustine and Aquinas and a host
of other lesser commenta-

tors had said, true enough.
But the corollary of this dictum

was that war could also be
unjust, and over the years the

theologians spelled out conditions
which must be met it a

Christian in good conscience were
to participate in war.

By the time modern warfare
began, however, the Church

had fallen on difficult times, and
its influence was sharply re-

duced. For many, scepticism
and rationalism replaced re-

ligion. Wrote the famed Abbe
Lamennais about the rationa

-

ists:

39



“They adore Science under the name of human reason. Sci-

ence for certain minds, is the God of the universe. They

have no faith save in this God, they hope for nothing save

through him; his wisdom and his power shall replenish the

earth, and by rapid advances elevate man to a degree of

felicity and perfection that transcends his imagination.”

The Protestant Reformers had created national churches
—

no longer was there one accepted voice to speak for all
Chris-

tendom. Secular leaders became jealous of their autonomy;

the Popes found themselves excluded from the council of Eu-

ropean sovereigns. Nationalistic rivalries became increasingly

sharp. At the end of the 19th century, Pope Leo XIII gave

his estimate of the situation:

“As a result of the repudiation of those Christian principles

which have contributed so efficaciously to the unity of
nations

in the bonds of brotherhood and have brought all
humanity

into one great family, there has gradually arisen in
the inter-

national order, a system of jealous egoism. Nations,
con-

sequently, now watch each other, if not with hate, at least

with the suspicion of rivals . . . Actuated solely
by the de-

sire to increase their national riches, these nations
regard only

the opportunity afforded by present circumstances,
the ad-

vantages of successful enterprises and the tempting bait of
an

accomplished fact, in the certainty that no one will trouble

them in the name of right or respect due to rights and justice.

Such are the fatal principles which have consecrated
material

power as the supreme law of the world; on these principles

rests the blame for the limitless increase of military
estab-

lishments and an armed peace in many respects equivalent

to a disastrous war.”

Augustine and Aquinas, Suarez and Gratian all
had

insisted that war was subject to moral judgment in the
light

of natural law. The natural law, as Grotius and others
taught,

bound nations as well as men. But by late in the 19th
century,

the whole idea of natural law as Aquinas
understood it had

largely fallen into the discard, and few international
lawyers

were interested in the traditional concept of a
just war. In

40



1898 the Papal Secretary of State,
Cardinal Rampolla, gave

Pope Leo’s views on this matter:

“The Pope holds that peace cannot
possibly be established

if it does not rest on the foundation of
Christian public law

Men have wished to regulate the relations among
nations

by a new law founded on utilitarian
interests, and predomi-

nance of force, the success of
accomplished coups, and on

other theories which negate the eternal
and immutable prin-

ciples of justice. This is the capital
error which has brought

Europe to a state of disaster.
*

The Pope was not alone in his concern over
war and peace,

and many contemporary commentators described
the horrors

that would inevitably accompany large-scale
modern warfare.

As early as 1909, Italian theorist Giulio
Douhet predicted

that aircraft would play a decisive part
in future wars. In a

work translated into nearly all European
languages, Douhet

accurately predicted the nature of the
air raid of the future,

although he underestimated the ability
of the populace to

endure such attacks. Wrote Douhet:

“Let us leave poetry to the poets. The
population can and

must be inured to the horrors of war, but
there is a limit to

all resistance, even human resistance. No population
can steel

itself to endure aerial offensives forever.
A heroic people

can endure the most frightful offensives
as long as there is

hope that they may come to an end; but
when the aerial

war has been lost, there is no hope of
ending the conflict

until a decision has been reached on the
surface, and that

would take too long. A people who are bombed today
as

they were bombed yesterday, who know that
they will be

bombed again tomorrow and see no end to
their martyrdom,

are bound to call for peace at length.”

In 1899 and 1907 a conference of
nations was called at

the Hague to face the threats of war. The
Hague Conference

did manage to ban dum-dum bullets and
poison gas, and it

did establish an optional International
Court; other than that,

little was accomplished. No matter what proposals
were made

41



to restrain or restrict warfare, it was clear that the nations

were unwilling to yield any part of their sovereignty or limit

their own freedom of action in any serious way — at the first
conference, for example, the United States representative voted

against the motion to prohibit poison gas. Again Pope Leo’s

Secretary of State gave the Pontiff’s views on what was needed,

in an analysis to be echoed by each of his successors in the

Papacy:

“There is lacking in the international consortium of nations

a system of legal and moral means to determine and guarantee

the rights of each. Only an immediate recourse to force re-

mains. Rivalry among nations and the development of their

military power are the results of these policies. In view of

such an unfortunate state of things, the institution of media-

tion and arbitration appears to be the most opportune rem-

edy; it corresponds in all respects to the aspirations of the

Holy See.”

Not the spirit of the Pope, however, but that of philosopher

of war Karl von Clausewitz proved stronger. War, Clausewitz

taught, is the exercise of force for the attainment of a political

purpose, unrestrained by any law except expediency, and war-

fare must always tend to become more and more “absolute”

in order to bring about the complete destruction of the enemy’s

means and will to resist . Said Clausewitz

:

“Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skillful

method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without caus-

ing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of

the Art of War. However plausible this may appear, still

it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous

things as War, the errors which proceed from a spirit of

benevolence are the worst.”

As World War I approached, it was Clausewitz, not the

Pope, whose voice spoke louder in the chancelleries of Europe.

The causes of World War I are complex, and historians still

quarrel over them. Nationalism, pride, the armament race,

commercial rivalries — all these things played their part.

42



In August 1914, Pope
Pius X died. His successor was

Benedict XV, a former diplomat
and Under Secretary of a

e.

Throughout the war, Pope
Benedict steered a neutral

course,

promising only that he
would “leave nothing undone

to hasten

the end of this calamity.”

The first move toward peace
made by the Pope was an

attempt to revive the
traditional “Truce of God so that

fig

would come to a halt on the
first Christmas of the war,

as was

the custom on holy days
in the Middle ges

-

oeace

’

he did not succeed, but
he did not cease his

efforts P •

Thus in 1915 Pope Benedict
addressed a typical plea to

the

belligerent peoples and their
leaders

.

“Whv not from this moment
weigh with serene mind

the

riS «”d lawful aspirations of the
peoples? Why no. ,a«

with a good will an exchange
of views . . . and thus

succeed

in putting an end to the
monstrous struggle, as has been

done

LP«, other similar circumstances? Blessed be he who w.l
first raise the olive

branch and hold out his
right han

enemy with an offer of
reasonable terms of peace . .

.

But these and other similar
pleas by Pope Benedict

-proved

fruitless. The savage war went
on, at terrible cos , w y

nations involved and 65 million
men under arms. By the t

the war ended, it had
caused indescribable suffering,

had sen

12 million men to their death,
and had directly or

indirectly

cost more than three hundred
billion dollars.

During the war, Benedict
had made specific suggestions,

he urged the abolishment
of compulsory military

conscription,

the establishment of a
tribunal to decide

international con-

troversies the employment of
sanctions against any nation

tha

violated international
peace. But while he made

these positive

recommendations for peace-keeping
111ac n

^

CI
-

'

on t i, e

worried about the lasting
effects of World War I upon

the

post-war world:

“The dreadful tempest which
has passed over the

earth has

left behhid many sad traces of
its havoc. It is even

more

to be feared that it has
left in the hearts of

men distressing

43



vestiges of ancient rancors, the unwholesome germs of dis-

cord, revenge, and selfish reprisals . .

No stable peace or lasting treaties could be signed, the Pope

said, unless there was a return to mutual love and respect. In

this he was surely right, but short-sightedness and a spirit of

revenge prevailed in the treaty-making at Versailles. When

Pope Benedict died in 1922, his last words were “We offer

our life to God on behalf of the peace of the world.” These

were noble words, but the lasting peace he sought was not

to be. In Russia, the first Communist state came into being,

and one year after the Pope’s death, Adolph Hitler staged his

abortive Munich Beer Hall Revolt and wrote the first words

of MEIN KAMPF. Few realized it, but the seeds of World

War II were sown.

Despite these uneasy portents of the future, the early days

after the armistice saw a widespread revulsion against war.

If revenge was part of the motivation for the reparations

exacted from the conquered countries, the conviction that the

guilty should be punished also played a part. Above all, men

were determined that World War I should be the war to end

all war.

Written into the peace treaties ending World War I were

provisions for a new type of international organization, the

League of Nations. The basic idea behind the League was

collective security: it was hoped that solemn pledges to avoid

recourse to war and the threat of sanctions against offenders

would avert future wars. However, the nations were not yet

ready for such a concept, and from the very beginning the

refusal of the United States to join seriously weakened the

League. In his encyclical on the Kingdom of Christ, Pope

Pius XI described the post-war situation:

“Peace indeed was signed in solemn conclave between the

belligerents of the late war. This peace, however, was only

written into treaties. It was not received into the hearts of

men . . . Nor has the illusory peace, written only on paper,

served as yet to awaken noble sentiments in the souls of

44



men. On the contrary, there has been born a spirit of vio-

lence and of hatred which, because it has been indulged
in

for so long, has become almost second nature in
many men

Men today do not act as Christians, as brothers, but as

strangers, and even enemies.”

Failure to bring about general disarmament was one of
the

chief causes of the failure of the League of Nations.
The

League was too weak to enforce collective security, and
no

nation would disarm until it felt reasonably secure. By 1933,

Hitler had withdrawn Germany from the League, and the

arms race was in full cry once again.

Like the Communist Revolution in Russia, the rise of Hitler

in Germany and to a lesser extent of Mussolini in Italy
was

brought on by World War I. In a post-war Germany of de-

pression and unemployment, the Nazis insisted that Germany

had never been defeated but had been stabbed in the
back.

They denounced the peace treaty of Versailles; they
insisted

that dermany was destined for world leadership. Said Hitler,

in MEIN KAMPF

:

“What a use could be made of the Treaty of Versailles! . . .

How each one of the points of that Treaty could be branded

in the minds and hearts of the German people until 60 mil-

lion men and women find their souls aflame with a feeling

of rage and shame; and a torrent of fire bursts forth as
from

a furnace, and a will of steel is forged from it, with the
com-

mon cry: ‘We will have arms again!’
”

And as early as September of 1933, the German demagogue

had proclaimed a basic credo. Said Hitler:

“Brutality is respected. Brutality and physical strength! The

plain man in the streets respects nothing but brutal strength

and restlessness — women, too, for that matter, women and
children.”

In 1933 Rome signed a concordat with Germany, a move

considered a grave error by many, then and now. Four years

later, however, there was no room for doubt about the char-

45



acter of Nazism, and it was then that Pope Pius XI wrote his

famous encyclical to the German people, Mit Brennender

Sorge. In it the Pope solemnly warned against those who

would deify the concept of race or state. Said Pope Pius:

“It is with deep anxiety and growing surprise that we have

long been following the painful trials of the Church and the

increasing vexations which afflict those who have remained

loyal in heart and action in the midst of a people that once

received from St. Boniface the bright message and the Gospel

of Christ and God’s Kingdom ... He who takes the race,

or the people, or the State, or the form of government . . .

out of the system of their earthly valuation, and makes them

the ultimate norm of all, even of religious, values, and deifies

them with an idolotrous worship, perverts and falsifies the

order of things created and commanded by God . . . None

but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national

God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the

frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a

single race, God, the Creator of the Universe . . . Whoever

wishes to see banished from church and school the Biblical

history and wise doctrines of the Old Testament, blasphemes

the name of God . . .”

But in the end the words of the Pope and the anxieties of

millions all over the world counted for nothing. The totalitarian

philosophy that regarded peace as merely a preparation for

war carried the day. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria. In

1935, despite the disapproval of Pius XI, Italy invaded an

almost defenseless Ethiopia, and the League of Nations proved

powerless to halt the aggression. In 1936, both communists

and fascists tried out new weapons and methods of warfare

in Spain. In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a treaty

assuring the German dictator a free hand; the next month,

the German blitzkreig struck Poland, and World War II began.

Before it was to end, the major cities of Europe were to be

turned into rubble, and twenty-two million men, women and

children were to die in the most total war Christians have yet

known.

46



IV

IN OUR TIME

From the day of his election as Pope, Pius XII strove to

eliminate the threat of World War II. “Conquests and empires

not founded on justice cannot be blessed by God,” he said
in

August of 1939. “Nothing is lost by peace, but
everything

may be lost by war.” But the Pope’s words were not heeded,

and a week later, Europe was at war.

The second World War quickly became the most cruel of

all wars. Aggression against small nations,
enslavement of

captive people, concentration camps and wholesale
slaughter

of the innocent, the murder of 6 million Jews, terror
bomb-

ings of cities — such features made World War II the most
savage conflict since the Thirty Years’ War.

Confronted with

a totalitarian enemy, the allies constantly faced the
temptation

to ignore all moral restraints in the name of victory.
Thomas

E. Murray, a distinguished Catholic layman and
member of

the Atomic Energy Commission, later commented on this
fact.

Said Mr. Murray:

“The Christian effort at peace-making, from its origin,
under-

took the task of civilizing warfare. It set itself
against

pacifism: the notion that war is always immoral. But it
set

itself even more strongly against barbarism: the notion
that

the use of armed force is not subject to any moral
restraints.

Against these two extremes, tradition asserts that war can
be

a moral action, but only if it is limited in its
purposes and

methods by the norms of justice.

47



The fact today is that the Christian tradition of civilized war-

fare has been ruptured. The chief cause of the rupture has

been the doctrine of total war fought to total victory: the

kind of victory that looks to the total ruin of the enemy

nation. This doctrine of totalization of war represents a

regression toward barbarism. It is contrary to the central

assertion of the civilized tradition that the aims of war are

limited, and the use of force in war is likewise limited, not

merely by political and military counsels of expediency, but

primarily by the moral principle of justice.”

From the time of St. Augustine, Christian moralists have

always asserted that war could be just, but only under certain

conditions. Wars, the theologians said, must be fought for a

just cause by proper authority and with a right intention; the

ultimate object of every just war is the creation of a just and

lasting peace. Always the principle of proportionality must

be observed; greater good than evil must result and there must

be a porportion between the means used and the likely results.

To many Catholics today, these principles have a strange

and unfamiliar sound. Father John Courtney Murray, of the

Society of Jesus, one of America’s most distinguished theo-

logians, discussed this point:

“I think that the tendency to query the uses of the Catholic

doctrine on war initially rises from the fact that it has for

so long not been used, by Catholics. That is, it has not been

made the basis for a sound critique of public policies, and

as a means for the formation of a right public opinion. The

classic example, of course, was the policy of ‘unconditional

surrender’ during the last war. This policy clearly violated

the requirement of the ‘right intention’ that has always been

a principle in the traditional doctrine of war. Yet no sus-

tained criticism was made of the policy by Catholic spokes-

men. Nor was any substantial effort made to clarify by

moral judgment the thickening mood of savage violence that

made possible the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I

think it is time to say that the traditional doctrine was ir-

relevant during World War II. This is no argument against

48



the traditional doctrine. The ten commandments do not lose

their imperative relevance by reason of the fact that they are

violated.”

London and Berlin, Rotterdam and Coventry — during
World War II, the cities of both sides suffered all-out assault

from the air. In England, more than fifty thousand people

died in air raids; in Europe, three hundred thousand. British

and American airmen dropped 2,700,000 tons of bombs in

the European war — almost one-quarter of this total on cities.
Said Pope Pius XII early in the war:

“Not rarely we witness with the greatest sadness violations

of the laws that regulate the relations among civilized peoples.

It happens that open cities, agricultural villages and hamlets

are terrorized, set on fire and devastated by bombardments;

citizens without defense, the sick, even helpless old people

and innocent children, are deprived of their homes and often

killed.”

The principle of unchecked national sovereignty had brought

Europe to ruin. In 1944, Pope Pius described what he saw

as a remedy for this mentality

:

“The decision already published by international commis-

sions permit one to conclude that an essential point in any

future international arrangement would be the formation of

an organ for the maintenance of peace, of an organ invested

by common consent with supreme power to whose office it

would also pertain to smother in its germinal state any threat

of isolated or collective aggression.

No one could hail this development with greater joy than
he who has long upheld the principle that the idea of war

as an apt and proportionate means of solving international

conflicts is now out of date. No one could wish success to
this common effort, to be undertaken with seriousness of pur-

pose never before known, with greater enthusiasm, than he

who has conscientiously striven to make the Christian and

religious mentality reject modern war with its monstrous

means of conducting hostilities.”

49



After years of bitter hardship on both sides, Germany sur-

rendered in May, 1945, but Japan continued the struggle.

On Monday, August 6, 1945, the United States dropped on

Hiroshima the first atomic bomb to be used against a populated

target. The explosive force of the first A-bomb was the

equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT — by itself, almost one-
fifth of the total amount that had been dropped on Japanese

cities throughout the course of the war. As the mushroom

cloud rose over the doomed city, from seventy to eighty thou-

sand people lay dead, and fifty thousand were injured.
Almost

five square miles of Hiroshima were completely flattened,
and

more than 80% of all the city’s buildings were destroyed by

the one bomb.

Are nuclear weapons moral? There is no simple answer

to this question. Some tactical nuclear weapons deliver
only

from five to ten percent of the power of the Hiroshima A-

bomb. The more recent hydrogen bomb, however, measures

its power not in thousands but in millions of tons of
TNT

indeed, the H-bomb for the first time raises the very real

spectre of a weapon that could wipe out the human race, in

large part because of the deadly radioactive fall-out
that would

follow any use of such bombs. In its nuclear stockpile,
the

U. S. now possesses the equivalent of 6 tons of TNT for every

man, woman and child on the planet. In any all-out H-bomb

war, casualty estimates for the United States are
counted in

the tens of millions, depending on the national state
of readi-

ness, with many estimates in the 100,000,000 category.

There are those who say H-bomb attacks on cities can be

justified. One who has long disagreed is American theologian

Father John C. Ford, S.J., who said:

“Terror bombing means killing and maiming innocent
non-

combatants in order to frighten the resistance out of
those who

survive. We did this in Germany. If we do not intend to do

it again, why are we stock-piling large quantities of
high-

megaton H-bombs? The military targets for such bombs
are

50



few and far between. If we are really intending to hit only

military targets, why do we not concentrate on the smaller

nuclear weapons which can be honestly aimed at military

objectives? It is academic and unreal to talk about the prin-

ciple of double effect when it is clear that the actual intent

will be to win the war by wiping out everything in sight.”

Given the nuclear dilemma, what is the Christian to do?

Many are convinced that the excesses of World War II have

left modern man morally insensitive. Wrote Thomas Merton,

famed Trappist monk and author of The Seven Storey Moun-

tain :

“It must be frankly admitted that some of the military com-

manders of both sides in World War II simply disregarded

all traditional standards that were still effective. The Ger-

mans threw those standards overboard with the bombs they

unloaded on Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry and London. The

allies replied in kind with the saturation bombing of Ham-

burg, Cologne, Dresden and Berlin. Spokesmen were not

wanting on either side, to justify these crimes against humanity.

And today, while ‘experts’ calmly discuss the possibility of

the United States being able to survive a war if ‘only fifty

million’ of the population are killed; when the Chinese speak

of being able to ‘spare’ three hundred million and ‘still get

along,’ it is obvious that we are no longer in the realm where

moral truth is conceivable.

The only sane course that remains is to work frankly and

without compromise for the total abolition of war. The

pronouncements of the Holy See all point to this as the only

ultimate solution.”

The abolition of war — this is precisely what the allied
nations sought at the end of World War II, when they turned

their wartime alliance into a permanent organization to keep

the peace and prevent World War III. The United Nations,

like the League of Nations, sought to outlaw war, except as

a collective police action to keep the peace. At the end of

the war, however, the Soviet Union quickly showed that it had

51



no intentions of cooperating. By refusing to withdraw its

troops, it forced many of the East European countries into

satellite status, and it soon threatened Communist aggression

in Greece, Turkey, Korea and elsewhere. It is in this
harsh

context of the Communist threat that the morality of modern

warfare must be viewed today.

There have always been pacifists in the Church, such as

Dorothy Day of the “Catholic Worker” in our country today,

and as the methods of modern warfare grow ever more
hor-

rible, their number may increase. One who holds a pacifist

position, for example, is Gordon Zahn, a Catholic sociologist,

a sponsor of the Catholic Peace Fellowship and the
author of

German Catholics and Hitler’s Wars. Wrote Mr. Zahn about

Vietnam:

“In the light of my now extensive writings about the failure

of the Church in Nazi Germany with respect to Hitler’s wars,

there would be little justification for remaining silent in my

conviction that American Catholicism and its leaders are well

along the way toward matching the same pattern of tragic

failure by not openly opposing this nation s present policies

in North Vietnam. And one must go even further and add

that in our failure we have far less claim to the measure of

justification afforded by mitigating circumstances: the Ameri-

can government has not shown the inclination nor has
it

the monopoly of totalitarian power to support any such in-

clination — to crush any ecclesiastical spokesmen who might
dare to voice dissent, something the Nazis most likely

would

and probably could have done. My position is that the

United States, at this moment of writing, is conducting an

unjust war of aggression against North Vietnam.”

Like the Christian pacifists, the modern Popes have always

favored peace, but by the same token, they have always in-

sisted on the right of nations to self-defense. In 1953,
Pope

Pius XII said:

“The community of nations must reckon with unprincipled

criminals who, in order to realize their ambitious plans,
are

52



not afraid to unleash total war. This is the reason why other

countries, if they wish to preserve their very existence and

their most precious possessions, and unless they are prepared

to accord free action to international criminals, have no alter-

native but to get ready for the day when they must defend

themselves. This right to be prepared for self-defense can-

not be denied, even in these days, to any state.”

Pope Pius not only upheld the right to self-defense; he

reiterated that other nations should go to the aid of the inno-

cent. At the same time, his concern over nuclear weapons

was very great, as in his description of what would result if

large scale nuclear weapons were ever put to use:

“This is the spectacle offered to the terrified gaze as a result

of such uses; entire cities, even the largest and richest in art

and history, wiped out; a pall of death over pulverized ruins,

covering countless victims with limbs burnt, twisted and

scattered while others groan in their death agony. Meanwhile,

the specter of a radioactive cloud hinders survivors from

giving any help and inexorably advances to snuff out any

remaining life. There will be no song of victory, only the

inconsolable weeping of humanity, which in desolation will

gaze upon the catastrophe brought on by its own folly.”

Few statesmen would disagree with this vision of what would

occur if nuclear warfare became a fact. But does the grim

possibility of such an event completely rule out all atomic war-

fare, or the bacteriological and chemical war that the Pope

tended to classify with it? Such a war can only be com-

templated, said the Pope, if it were forced on one by what he

called “an obvious, extremely serious and otherwise unavoid-

able injustice.” He went on:

“Even then, however, one must strive to avoid it by all pos-

sible means through international understanding or to impose

limits on its use that are so clear and rigorous that its effects

remain restricted to the strict demands of defense. When,

moreover, putting this method to use involves such an ex-

tension of the evil that it entirely escapes from the control

53



of man, its use must be rejected
as immoral. Here there

would be no longer a question of
‘defense’ against injustice

or a necessary ‘safeguarding’
of legitimate possessions, but

the pure and simple annihilation of
all human life within

the radius of action. This is not
permitted for any reason

whatsoever.”

In 1958, Pope Pius XII died, but the
peacemaking efforts

of the Papcy were continued by his
successor, Pope John XXIII.

In Pacem In Terris, Pope John reaffirmed
that in the atomic

era, war is no longer a reasonable instrument
of policy. Urging

step-by-step moves towards arms control
and disarmament,

he said:

“Even though it is difficult to believe
that anyone would

deliberately take the responsibility for
the appalling destruc-

tion and sorrow that war would bring
in its train, it can-

not be denied that the conflagration
may be set off by some

uncontrollable and unexpected chance.
And one must bear

in mind that even though the
monstrous power of modern

weapons acts as a deterrent, it is to be
feared that the mere

continuance of nuclear tests undertaken
with war in min ,

will have fatal consequences for
life on earth.

Justice then, right reason, and humanity
urgently demand

that the arms race should cease;
that the stockpiles which

exist in various countries should
be reduced equally and

simultaneously by tbe parties concerned,
that nuclear weapons

should be banned; and that finally a
general agreement should

be reached about progressive
disarmament and an effective

method of control.”

One of Pope John’s greatest acts was the
summoning of the

Second Vatican Council. At the Council,
the subject of war

was taken up in the pastoral Constitution
on the Church Today,

voted by the Fathers and promulgated
by his successor, Pope

Paul VI in the fourth and last session.
Because of modern

science, the Council Fathers pointed
out, “the fierce character

of warfare threatens to lead the
combatants to a savagery far

surpassing that of the past.”
Guerilla warfare and sheer

54



terrorism complicate international relations. Given these facts,

the Council Fathers reaffirmed the binding force of the tradi-

tional principles of the universal natural law, condemned all

actions which conflict with these principles, then went on to

say:

“On the subject of war, quite a large number of nations have

subscribed to various international agreements aimed at mak-

ing military activity and its consequences less inhuman . . .

Agreements of this sort must be honored. Indeed, they

should be improved upon so that they can better and more

workably lead to restraining the frightfulness of war.

All men, especially government officials and experts in these

matters, are bound to do everything they can to effect these

improvements. Moreover, it seems right that laws make

humane provisions for the case of those who for reasons of

conscience refuse to bear arms, provided however, that they

accept some other form of service to the human community.”

Having thus recognized the citizen’s right of conscientious

objection to bearing arms, the Fathers also reasserted a nation’s

right to legitimate self-defense in view of the absence of a suf-

ficiently powerful international body to settle grievances. At the

same time, the Fathers cautioned against believing that “the mere

fact that war has unhappily begun means that all is fair be-

tween the warring parties.” The Council Fathers then dis-

cussed the question of total war:

“.
. . this most holy Synod makes its own the condemnations

of total war already pronounced by recent Popes, and issues

the following declaration: Any act of war aimed indiscrimi-

nately at the destruction of entire cities or of extensive areas

along with their population is a crime against God and man

himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemna-

tion.

The unique hazard of modern warfare consists in this: it

provides those who possess modern scientific weapons with

a kind of occasion for perpetrating just such abominations.

Moreover, through a certain inexorable chain of events, it

55



can urge men on to the most atrocious decisions. That such

in fact may never happen in the future, the bishops of the

whole world, in unity assembled, beg all men, especially

government officials and military leaders, to give unremitting

thought to the awesome responsibility which is theirs before

God and the entire human race.”

After apparently ruling out any counter-city nuclear strategy,

the Council Fathers took note of the argument that the accumu-

lations of arms served as a necessary deterrent of enemy attack.

Nonetheless, they said . . the arms race is an utterly treach-

erous trap for humanity,” and they discussed the possibility of

outlawing war entirely. Said the Fathers:

“It is our clear duty, then, to strain every muscle as we work

for the time when all war can be completely outlawed by

international consent. This goal undoubtedly requires the

establishment of some universal public authority acknowl-

edged as such by all, and endowed with effective power to

safeguard, on behalf of all, security, regard for justice, and

respect for rights.”

In this endorsement of the idea of a universal public au-

thority able to keep the peace, the Fathers of the Vatican

Council were saying nothing new; they were instead merely

reiterating the aspirations of all the modern Popes. In his

historic trip to the United Nations in 1965, Pope Paul dra-

matically illustrated the same concern. Describing himself

as convinced “that this organization represents the obligatory

path of modern civilization and of world peace,” Pope Paul

said to the delegates

:

“In saying this, we feel we are making our own the voice of

the dead and of the living: of the dead, who fell in the ter-

rible wars of the past; of the living who survived those wars,

bearing in their hearts a condemnation of those who would

try to renew wars . . . The edifice that you have constructed

must never fail; it must be perfected, and made equal to the

needs that world history will present ... Is there anyone who

does not see the necessity of coming thus progressively to

56



the establishment of a world authority, able to act efficaciously

on the juridical and political levels?”

The U.N. then, must be strengthened. In the meantime,

however, before there is a world authority able always to act

effectively in situations like Vietnam, what should we do?

One thing is clear: Catholics should exert their influence to

keep the fighting within moral bounds. Even though he felt

the U. S. position in Vietnam was honorable, Lawrence,

Cardinal Shehan of Baltimore pointed out in a pastoral letter

last July:

“It is difficult for a nation to wage war with restraint and

to nourish sentiments of peace at the same time. This is

true particularly when its own casualties begin to mount

and the conflict threatens to grow in duration and intensity.

In such circumstances, those who argue against restraint and

against keeping a nation’s warmaking acts within moral bounds

are likely to win an ever greater hearing. Within our nation

it seems that such harsh voices are growing stronger and are

attempting to pressure our leaders into decisions which the

Christian conscience could not endorse.

If we are to resist such lethal appeals to our understandable

impatience, we must constantly recall that only on moral

grounds can our course in Vietnam be just. If our means

become immoral, our cause will have been betrayed. Let

us also avoid the narrowness of supposing that all the vice

and bad will lie on one side of any major conflict, and that

all the virtue and good will lie on the other.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by the National Confer-

ence of Catholic Bishops in a November statement on world

peace. Said the Bishops:

“While we cannot resolve all the issues involved in the

Vietnam conflict, it is clearly our duty to insist that they be

kept under constant moral scrutiny. No one is free to evade

his personal responsibility by leaving it entirely to others to

make moral judgments . . .

57



Americans can have confidence in the sincerity of their

leaders as long as they work for a just peace in Vietnam.

Their efforts to find a solution to the present impasse are well

known. We realize that citizens of all faiths and of differing

political loyalties honestly differ among themselves over the

moral issues involved in this tragic conflict. While we do

not claim to be able to resolve these issues authoritatively,

in the light of the facts as they are known to us, it is reason-

able to argue that our presence in Vietnam is justified . . .

But we cannot stop here. While we can conscientiously sup-

port the position of our country in the present circumstances,

it is the duty of everyone to search for other alternatives.

And everyone — government leaders and citizens alike —
must be prepared to change our course whenever a change

in circumstances warrants it . . .

On the basis of our knowledge and understanding of the

current situation, we are also bound always to make sure

that our government does, in fact, pursue every possibility

which offers even the slightest hope of a peaceful settlement.

And we must clearly protest whenever there is a danger that

the conflict will be escalated beyond morally acceptable

limits . . .

There is a grave danger that the circumstances of the present

war in Vietnam may, in time, diminish our moral sensitivity

to its evils. Every means at our disposal, therefore, must

be used to create a climate of peace ... In the spirit of

Christ, the Christian must be the persistent seeker in the

Gospel, the man willing to walk the second mile. He walks

prudently, but he walks generously and he asks that all men

do the same.”

As Cardinal Shehan noted, the issues in Vietnam are com-

plex, and in discussing them, “Christians of equal sincerity

and of equal devotion to the Gospel may honorably differ in

their conclusions.” But is it possible to achieve agreement

on what our central aim should be? Is there one goal of

Christian thought on war and peace, a goal that should be the

common property of hawk and dove alike? It was at the

58



U.N. that Pope Paul answered this question, in words that put

a fitting end to this series. Said Pope Paul:

“Listen to the lucid words of the great departed John Ken-

nedy, who proclaimed, four years ago: ‘Mankind must put

an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.’ Many

words are not needed to proclaim this loftiest aim of your

institution. It suffices to remember that the blood of millions

of men, that numberless and unheard of sufferings, useless

slaughter and frightful ruin are the sanction of the pact that

unites you with an oath that must change the future history

of the world: no more war, war never again! Peace, it is

peace that must guide the destinies of peoples and of all

mankind.”

59



DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

I

1. “Christianity is a religion of peace, not of war. Violence and

war are repugnant to the Christian spirit.” Comment.

2. How would you sum up the attitude of the early Christians

on military service and war?

3. To what extent might the historical situation of the early

Christians have influenced this attitude?

4. What change did Constantine’s victory make in the situation

of Christians?

5. How would you sum up St. Augustine’s attitude toward war?

II

6. How did Charlemagne’s conception of his role and his prac-

tice in war represent a break with the past?

7. The just war teaching of St. Augustine was widely accepted,

but what other Christian practices and customs in the Middle

Ages tended to “civilize” warfare and restrain violence?

8. Describe some good and bad features of the Crusades.

9. What part did chivalry play in the Christian attitude toward

war and violence?

10. In general, what was the theory of the just war as found
in

St. Thomas Aquinas and the theologians who came after him?

11. How would you compare the attitude of Grotius and

Machiavelli?

60



Ill

12. “It was the successful use of gunpowder plus the rise of the

nation-state which in the 16th century produced the recog-

nizable birth of modern warfare.” Comment.

13. How did the French Revolution change the nature of modern

war?

14. Describe the efforts to limit warfare in the 19th and the

early 20th century. What was the role of the Church and

of the United States in these efforts?

15. What concrete proposals were made and steps taken by Rome

to bring peace during World War I?

16. Why did the League of Nations fail?

17. How did World War I further the rise of Communism and

Fascism?

18. What was the attitude of Pope Pius XI toward Nazism?

IV

19. How does the doctrine of total war represent a break with

Christian tradition?

20. How would you sum up the traditional Christian principles

regarding a just war? Would you say many Catholics are

familiar with them?

21. Did all concerned in World War II ignore the standards re-

quired for a just war, at least to some extent?

22. Is the use of nuclear bombs justified? Explain.

23. Why did the Vatican Council uphold both the right to self-

defense and the right to conscientious objection against bear-

ing arms?

61



The Church and War

Bibliography

Abbott, Walter M., Ed., The Documents of Vatican II, (paper),

Guild Press, America Press, Association Press.

Barry, Colman J., Ed., Readings in Church History, Vol. I, Vol.

Ill, Newman Press.

Bullock, Alan, Hitler : A Study in Tyranny, Harper & Row.

Cadoux, C. J., The Early Church and the World, Clark, Edin-

burgh.

Cadoux, C. J., The Early Christian Attitude Toward War, Headley,

London.

Concilium, Vol. 7, Historical Problems of Church Renewal, Paulist

Press.

Deane, H. A., The Political and Social Ideals of St. Augustine,

Columbia Univ.

Flannery, Harry W., Ed., Pattern for Peace (Catholic Statements

on International Order), Newman Press.

Gershoy, Leo, From Despotism to Revolution, 1763-1789, Harper.

Grandi and Galli, The Story of the Church, Doubleday.

Guerry, Emile, The Popes and World Government, Helicon.

Herold, J., The Age of Napoleon

,

American Heritage.

Hormann, Karl, Peace and Modern War in the Judgment of the

Church, Newman Press.

Irving, David, The Destruction of Dresden, Holt, Rinehart and

Winston.

Lawler, Justus George, Nuclear War: The Ethic, The Rhetoric,

The Reality, Newman Press.

Leclercq, Jacques, The Christian and World Integration, 20th Cen-

tury Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Hawthorne.

62



Montross, Lynn, War Through the Ages, Harper.

Nagle, William J., Ed., Morality and Modern Warfare , Helicon.

Nef, John U., War and Human Progress, Harvard Univ. Press.

O’Brien, William V., Nuclear War, Deterrence and Morality,

Paulist Press.

Preston, R. A., Werner, Wise, Men in Arms, Praeger.

Regamey, P., O. P., Non-Violence and the Christian Conscience,

Herder & Herder.

Riga, Peter, Peace On Earth (A commentary on Pope John’s

Encyclical), Herder & Herder.

Stein, Walter, Ed., Nuclear Weapons and Christian Conscience,

Merlin Press, London.

Stein, Walter, Ed., Peace on Earth; the Way Ahead, Sheed & Ward,

London.

Stratmann, Francis, O. P., War & Christianity Today, Newman.

Tooke, Joan D., The Just War in Aquinas and Grotius, S.P.C.K.,

London.

Windass, Stanley, Christianity Versus Violence, Sheed & Ward,

London.

63



'#0%^ 6

NOTES



PRICE SCHEDULE

THE CHURCH AND WAR

Single Copy

10 Copies

25 Copies

50 Copies

100 Copies

Special quotations available on larger orders.

MINIMUM ORDER $3.00

THE CHURCH AND WAR

N. C. C. M.

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D. C. 20005

$.75 each

.50 each

.45 each

.40 each

.35 each