Reflections on the “Catholic Thoughts on War” of Prof. Paul
Griffiths
by
Albert Schorsch, III
From the Cardinal Newman Quarterly, 1(3):3,9-10,
Copyright, 2002, 2007, Albert
Schorsch, III.
In the
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Prof. Griffiths's arguments provoke my reflection on
five questions:
What can the citizen know with certainty of world events?
Are governments ever really capable of efficiently killing only the guilty?
Should the Church be in the business of justifying war?
In what ways is Prof. Griffiths's interpretation of
Catholic just war principles incomplete?
Does the threat of mass terror and destruction justify precipitous moral
action?
On Public Certainty.
Prof. Griffiths made the point that much of what is known of public events is
known incompletely if not falsely. On this point I agree. A recent
and well-known example comes from the early days of the Gulf War, in which
certain Iraqi atrocities at a Kuwaiti hospital were claimed, described to the
US Congress, and then later shown to be false. Accounts of these
atrocities were used in part to justify the
Public falsehood has many sources such as public shame, or in group loyalty.
The full horror and extent of lynchings of African
Americans in the
Public certainty may thus sometimes only arise a century after an event, after
stakeholders in falsehood have passed from the scene. And some public
falsehoods are remarkably enduring. Elizabeth I of
Public action does not often have the luxury of public certainty, which can
come centuries hence. Had we waited until the Gulag Archipelago was
opened up to find how bad it was and why it must be stopped, we might never
have stopped it in time to publicly know that it was really worth
stopping. But enough people in positions of responsibility made the
judgment the gulags must be stopped based upon information initially not
publicly available, and shaped Cold War public policy accordingly.
Remember, Churchill was roundly criticized at the time for his Iron Curtain
speech almost sixty years ago, which to some seemed a bit hasty.
It is here, therefore, that the Church differs a bit with Prof.
Griffiths. The Church recognizes that public decisions must be made in
the context of public uncertainty. It is not the citizens, who cannot
know all, but those responsible in government, who must in any case decide, who
make the choice for or against warfare. The Church recognizes this when
it states, "The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy
belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the
common good (Catechism, #2309)."
Government must thus do its best. And we must do our best as citizens to
keep government honest, by electing honest leaders, and preserving open systems
of information and government. Here research universities make a big
difference. But we'll never know for sure that what we are being told at
any given time is the whole truth. That is why it is best for citizens to
be extremely cautious in endorsing war. In this respect I agree
with Prof. Griffiths's cautious approach. He is
right that Americans do tend to take their government's word on this matter,
and factor this word into their moral judgment on war prior to examining the
moral questions. But I will disagree on a related matter further below.
On Whether Governments can Justly Kill
The answer here is generally no. Catholic teaching asks government to
make war to prevent something worse from happening, or to redress a
wrong. Government, being composed of compromises of every fashion, can be
just and sometime efficiently so in the long run, but has difficulties with the
short. Governments tend to shoot first and ask questions later when
public actions of self-defense are incumbent. War kills those in the
vicinity of the war, innocent or no, despite continual improvements in
technology. Technology, by the way, does not guarantee the rapid
transmission of true information, but simply rapid transmission. Thus we
rightly hesitate to begin war, should diligently attempt to avoid loss of life
during war, and should attempt to stop it as soon as the needs of self-defense
have been met.
Should the Church Justify Particular Wars?
Rarely. Abe Lincoln may have had the final word
on this one in his Second Inaugural Address: Each one of the belligerents
"pray to the same God." Hostilities generally begin with or
without the Church's help or justification. Nonetheless, this
justification is sought. Witness the well-crafted religious references in
the President’s speeches in the days before the attack on
What did Prof. Griffiths omit?
The specific role of responsible authority's prudential
judgment (see above), and the Catholic teaching on the necessity of disarming
the aggressor (also above).
Does the Threat of Mass Terror and Destruction Challenge the Just War Teaching?
Here I end by almost agreeing with Prof. Griffiths, that, outside of the moral
imperative to disarm the aggressor which he didn't address in detail, the
Afghanistan war may not yet be justified based on the conditions of last
resort, probability of success (a bit of argument here, too), or avoiding
greater harm. And now I further disagree by arguing that mass
terror is a special case, requiring further formal integration of self-defense
into the just war teaching.
Let's say there is a terror group traveling the world with weapons that could
destroy a city or a major portion of it (which there is), and has proven they
are more than a paper threat by killing thousands (which they
have). It would be necessary for the public good to disarm this
group (which the US and allies are trying to do). This group capitalizes
on weak or tolerant governments. It is just to pursue this group to the
end of the earth until they are disarmed?
Yes. The jus ad bellum, just
decision toward making war, case should be met in the case of mass destructive
terror on the self-defense argument alone, once an act of mass destruction has
been committed. Thus it was just, on self-defense grounds, to bomb the
terrorist training camps. Hot pursuit to disarm terror seems to suspend
the last resort condition, but not indefinitely. At this point jus in
A more difficult question not directly addressed by Catholic just war teaching
arises: Is preventative, violent intervention allowed at the point a
weapon of mass destruction is simply constructed? Such reasoning should
not serve as a “Trojan Horse” past the strictures of the just war
teaching. Any state could claim that another had a weapon of mass
destruction in development, and thus begin a war. But in cases where it
can be demonstrated that a regime had already used weapons of mass destruction,
the self-defense argument against mass destruction takes on more force.
Those who make war are obligated to remain to restore civil society, rather
than depart and leave a population in anarchy. American abandonment of
the Afghans after their war with the Soviets arguably left the door open for Al
Qaeda. The joint restoration of civil society by belligerents after war
thus should be formalized explicitly within the Catholic Catechism, where
currently it is only implicit. This restoration is mentioned in other
Catholic social documents.
Was the bombing of
The Catholic just war teaching grew over the centuries based upon assumptions,
as states grew, that war will take place between cities or states, and prior to
the invention of weapons of mass destruction. Terror has changed this
assumption, and brought self-defense justifications into a primary position in
moral evaluation of war against terror. But we should not ever forget how
war, no matter how justly begun, is earthly injustice itself, requiring
constant scrutiny and early end.
Further discussion is necessary to explore the capacity of terror to
demoralize, in every sense of the word, a world. We should not surrender
morality, and principally the just war teachings, in
order to fight terror. I thank Prof. Griffiths for reminding us of
that. But we should better incorporate into our just war imperatives the
obligation for self-defense by disarming aggressors, as well as the
obligation to rebuild society.
Copyright, 2002, 2007, Albert
Schorsch, III. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for publication in Cardinal Newman
Quarterly during 2002. Completed