Behind the Pope's Stringent Just-War Teaching
By Drew Christiansen, S.J. The Holy See's repeated denunciations over many months of American and
British air attacks on Iraqi military installations and its multi-faceted
commentary on the bombing of Kosovo have begun to force some American
Catholics to scrutinize contemporary Catholic teaching on the "just
war" and to question Vatican policy. In a recent
column in Crisis magazine, for example, Robert Royal of the Ethics
and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., commenting on Vatican criticism
of U.S. bombing of Iraq, wondered whether we are witnessing the emergence
of an official "Catholic pacifism." In a column on Jan. 23,
the New York Times religion columnist Peter Steinfels noted "a profound
ambivalence" on the part of the Pope about the use of military force.
"John Paul II," Steinfels commented, "swings between just-war
teaching and something approaching pacifism, between declaring 'the aggressor
must be disarmed' in regard to Bosnia and that war 'will never be an appropriate
way to solve problems' in regard to the Middle East," that is, Iraq. The same "swings" between advocacy of dialogue and diplomacy
and the need for intervention to prevent ethnic cleansing have marked
the Holy See's response to the NATO bombing in Yugoslavia. The Pope has
both condemned Serbian ethnic cleansing and decried NATO bombing. This is not the first time during this pontificate that questions have
been raised about the Holy See's pronouncements on the use of force in
international affairs. Many will recall that during the 1991 Persian Gulf
war, when asked by a journalist about his deep reservations over the resort
to arms in that conflict, Pope John Paul II is reported to have responded,
"I am not a pacifist." More recently, James Turner Johnson,
a respected historian of the theory of the just war, has taken exception
to "the presumption against the use of force" as it appears
in contemporary Catholic social teaching. The closest thing we have to an extended updating of just-war theory
from Vatican circles, however, is a 1991 editorial in what used to be
called "the semi-official," Jesuit journal, Civilta Cattolica.
That editorial, which proved quite controversial, asserted that the "theory
of 'just war' is untenable and needs to be abandoned." Interestingly,
the editors contended that the just war had never reached the level of
official Catholic teaching. In retrospect, the Civilta editorial corresponds
on many points to themes voiced by the Pope and other Vatican officials
in the following years. For example, when the Pope commented last Dec.
20 on the U.S. and British bombing campaign against Iraq, which was intended
to produce compliance with U.N. Security Council disarmament resolutions,
he said, "War has never been and never will be an appropriate way
to solve problems between nations!" At the same time, the Catechism of the Catholic Church continues to expound
the conditions for a just war, and Vatican officials have also referred
to the catechism to justify the legitimate use of force in Kosovo "once
every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted." Angelo Cardinal
Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State, moreover, twice in the last year
invoked "the duty and the right of intervention in order to disarm
one who intends to kill," contending that such intervention was "not
to encourage war, but to prevent [it]." What I would like to do here, with the admittedly fragmentary evidence
available, is to sketch the Holy See's emerging position on the use of
force. I sometimes call this a stringent just-war teaching, because in
affirming the value of nonviolence and strictly interpreting some just-war
canons, it makes for a far less permissive use of the just-war tradition. Altered Politics, Changing Norms. First, a cautionary note. Clarity and certainty are far less easy to
attain today on the ethics of using force than at times when the international
system was more stable. In the rapidly changing political, military, technological
and moral context in which we live, moral ambiguity may be unavoidable.
Let me note three factors contributing to this moral complexity: (1) The
application of military force for limited political ends; (2) the increasing
salience of moral norms in international affairs, and (3) the consequences
of protracted conflict with limited means. First, there is the question of using force for limited ends. Armies
used to confront armies on the field of combat. The combatants fought
for victory, and the victors determined the terms of peace, even if the
specific goals of war were discrete. In the last decade, armies and militias
have made war on civilians. Consequently outsiders have found themselves
under an obligation to intervene. The goals of intervention are limited,
and the results of intervention have fallen short of victory and hence
are ambiguous. For example, in stopping short of occupying Iraq and in
pressing its aims through economic sanctions, the international community
has reduced a whole country to ghastly penury. There were good reasons
for coalition forces not to press on to Baghdad in 1991, and the malfeasance
of Saddam Hussein's Government is primarily responsible for the continued
suffering of Iraq's people. The result, all the same, has been disastrous. Again, as the United States and Britain attempt to protect Kurds and
Marsh Arabs from repression by enforcing the no-fly zones, low-level intensity
conflict in the air continues with no foreseeable end. A modest measure
of good is attained. Yet peace is not in view; and a generation of Iraqis,
not to mention Arabs and Muslims throughout the region, grow up resentful
of American hegemony. Second, the ambiguity of ethical judgments on the use of force are also
affected by the changing place of morality in international affairs. The
rise of human rights concerns and heightened awareness of the evils of
genocide and related acts, like ethnic cleansing, have led to military
interventions that rarely would have been considered in the days when
Henry Kissinger's political realism reigned. Furthermore, following a
dilatory response in Bosnia and the appalling inaction in Rwanda, governments
now show increased readiness to respond to such horrors. After watching
ethnic cleansing first in Eastern Slavonia and Croatia proper, then in
Bosnia, both politicians and popular majorities in the major NATO nations
now seem ready to discharge the "duty to intervene" in Kosovo.
On the other hand, respect for human life affects not only the willingness
to use force, but the style of warfare, with sometimes disagreeable results.
The otherwise commendable aversion to civilian casualties in warfare,
along with a greatly heightened wish to protect military personnel, has
contributed to a restricted use of military power that tends to increase
the length of armed conflict. As the case of Iraq demonstrates, these restraints may lead to protracted
suffering on the part of civilians, especially when conflict is prolonged
with economic sanctions; or, as we have seen in Serbia, when military
targets are exhausted or inaccessible to air power, then targeting is
expanded first to "dual-use" facilities and then to civilian
governmental sites. In short, limited means applied over an extended period
will often produce disastrous consequences at the same time that they
yield limited results and promise conflict with no foreseeable end. From
the point of view of the just-war canons, such mixed results are problematic. What Defines Success? These trends create an extraordinarily difficult context in which to
apply the canons of the just-war tradition, particularly regarding the
expectation of success. A use of force that can be morally and politically
defensible on the grounds of just cause may only questionably satisfy
the canon of success--because of the elusiveness of the goals or the uncertain
duration of the conflict. "Success" comes to be defined in fine
shades of grey that are difficult for a keen conscience to accept over
the long term. The upshot is that a wedge is driven between at least some
moralists and religious leaders and the policymakers whom they hope to
guide. All this is not to say that moral clarity is not attainable on some points.
Rather, when so many factors are changing simultaneously, one can understand
why even experts will be of many minds. Tolerance of ambiguity may be
a defensible counsel for the interim. Over the long term, however, it
is a dubious and risky moral posture. It is at this point that moral theology turns to examine the deeper themes
underlying thinking on the use of force. When rational moral analysis
of armed conflict is stalemated, one must look at deeply held, underlying
beliefs to understand how the drift of thought has changed. In the case
of Pope John Paul II, it means taking a second look at his writings on
war, nonviolence and international affairs. Faith, Suffering and Nonviolence. The key international developments of Pope John Paul's pontificate came
with the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe. It is therefore useful
to reconsider his observations on nonviolence and the use of force in
that context. Reflecting on those events in Centesimus
Annus, the Pope proclaimed his belief that non-violence led to
the fall of Communist governments in eastern Europe. "It seemed,"
he wrote in the 1991 encyclical, "that the European order resulting
from the Second World War and sanctioned by the Yalta Agreement could
only be overturned by another war." He continued, "Instead,
it has been overcome by the nonviolent commitment of people who, while
always refusing to yield to the force of power, succeeded time after time
in finding effective ways of bearing witness to the truth." In Evangelium
Vitae (1995), the Pope claimed, "Among the signs of hope
we should also count the spread, at many levels of public opinion, of
a new sensitivity ever more opposed to war as an instrument for the resolution
of conflicts between peoples, and increasingly oriented to finding effective
but 'nonviolent' means to counter the armed aggressor" (emphasis
in original). Beneath the Pope's expressed trust in nonviolence, one finds an esteem
for those who show a willingness to suffer for the sake of justice rooted
in the Christian faith. "It is by uniting his own sufferings for
the sake of truth and freedom to the sufferings of Christ on the Cross,"
Pope John Paul wrote, "that man is able to accomplish the miracle
of peace and is in a position to discern the often narrow path between
the cowardice which gives in to evil and the violence, which under the
illusion of fighting evil, only makes it worse." This last point, namely, that there are forms of fighting evil that only
worsen the evils suffered, is one that Pope John Paul II makes often.
In his view, however, the avoidance of greater harm is more than a simple
question of proportionality. Rather, the Pope affirms that those who are
themselves willing to accept suffering acquire a heightened ability to
discern properly how to fight against evil, whether with nonviolence or
by the legitimate use of force. There is an implicit rejection of the
notion that just-war thinking is simply an abstract "calculus"
that can be applied independent of certain restrained, not to say pacific,
moral dispositions. The Pope's antipathy to the use of force and his constant
call for negotiation disclose a religious leader who is as much concerned
about the means employed to overcome evil as he is committed to struggle
against it. Finally, Centesimus Annus, with echoes of earlier 20th-century popes,
presents John Paul II's negative judgment about war as an instrument of
policy: No, never again war, which destroys lives of innocent people, teaches
how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the
killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred, thus making
it all the more difficult to find a just solution of the very problems
which provoked the war. This passage has become almost a leitmotiv in the Vatican's response
to the use of force, repeated again and again in papal statements and
other Vatican declarations. As a rule of thumb, I would suggest that here as elsewhere the Pope should
be taken at his word. While the form is rhetorical, the substance is serious.
The point is that the consequences of war are beyond calculation. We should
consider soberly whether the use of force does, in fact, do what the Pope
says. Above all, does it take the life of innocent people? Does it leave
behind a trail of resentment and hatred? Does it make finding a just solution
more difficult? These objections do not rule out resorting to force, especially
in case of humanitarian intervention. They do imply that every effort
must be taken to avoid the vastly unpredictable consequences of taking
up arms. The Culture of Death. I have already cited Evangelium Vitae's endorsement of alternatives to
war. That encyclical also paints war as part of "the structure of
sin" evident in the emergence of "a culture of death."
In this culture, because of the dissolution of solidarity and an excessive
concern for efficiency, persons "who [compromise] the well-being
or the lifestyle of those who are more favored [tend] to be looked upon
as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated." Such is the case with
innocent non-combatants in time of war. This conspiracy against life,
as the Pope calls it, "involves not only individuals in their personal,
family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to the point of damaging
and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples
and states." In John Paul's thinking, the traditional Thomist view of the political
order as a created good, which has guided Catholic political thought in
the 20th century, is supplanted by a quasi-Augustinian sense of disordered
relations. In this view, international relations and the world order are
so distorted that they too are an expression of the culture of death.
On this reading, war is prone to become an especially grievous manifestation
of the culture of death. No doubt, Evangelium Vitae (No. 55), which cites
the Catechism of the Catholic Church, affirms the legitimate right to
self-defense along with the duty of political authorities to defend the
common good against attack. But, in the context of an analysis of the
culture of death and its impact on international relations, the right
of self-defense and the duty to defend the common good must be understood
as limited. In light of the dynamic of sin, moreover, their assertion
in practice must be subject to question. Diplomatic Reasons. Finally, very briefly, there are diplomatic reasons for thinking that
papal policy toward Iraq and Kosovo represents a shift in the Holy See's
traditional approach to the use of force. For one, the style of Vatican diplomacy under John Paul II has changed.
It is far more open than in the past and more conscious of taking the
initiative as "a moral power" and "a voice of conscience"
in international affairs. This public diplomacy, according to the Catholic
News Service's Vatican reporter, John Thavis, "is in keeping with
the highly visible profile of the modern papacy." Pope John Paul
II has used every opportunity to speak out, seeking first to avoid and
then resolve the conflict over Kosovo. Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican foreign minister, in a recent
address at The Catholic University of America reviewing the role of Pope
John Paul II in the Persian Gulf war, listed the elements that have also
characterized Vatican action in subsequent crises over Iraq and Kosovo:
to invite the protagonists to engage in dialogue, to follow the path of
negotiation, to weigh the proportions between the remedies aimed at eliminating
a wrong and the negative humanitarian consequences. In urging negotiation and regarding the use of force as a failure for
humanity, Pope John Paul sees himself in the tradition of his 20th-century
predecessors, notably Benedict XIV. Where do these developments lead us? What Pope John Paul II has given
us is a doctrine of peacemaking that involves both nonviolence and, by
way of a rare exception, the justified use of force. Let me attempt to
summarize that teaching and then offer some suggestions on how to resolve
the moral perplexity that seems to surround the use of force for Catholics
today. Current State of the Question. Diminishing role. The tradition of just-war thinking
is playing a decreased role in official Catholic teaching. There is a
growing presumption against the use of force and an increased appeal to
strategies of nonviolence and negotiation. At the same time, the just
war has not been abandoned, and a promised Vatican working paper on nonviolence
has never been published. Theological suppositions. Part of the theological background
of this shift may be found in Pope John Paul's insight that the person
willing to suffer nonviolently is better able to discern the means with
which to defend justice, along with the suspicion that war represents
an egregious manifestation of the culture of death. Just-war canons. Just-war norms continue to be cited,
though in cautionary or critical, rather than permissive, fashion. Particularly
important are the constraints of civilian immunity, proportionality and
reasonable hope of success. Just cause. The canon of just cause seems to have been
greatly narrowed. It appears to admit only defense against aggression,
and in some readings only aggression already in progress, and humanitarian
intervention when whole populations are at risk. Proportionality and success. In the kind of high-tech,
low-risk warfare employed in humanitarian interventions and contemporary
police actions, judgments of proportionality and success are increasingly
difficult to make. Constraints on goals and methods make it difficult
to "succeed" without protracted conflict, which may lead to
potentially disproportionate harm. Voice of conscience. This apparently narrowed just-war
framework comports with the professed role of the Holy See as "a
moral power" and "a voice of conscience" in international
affairs. Such a role inevitably will put the Holy See from time to time
in a "Christ against culture" posture, distancing the church
from the classic posture of Constantinian accommodation with the state. Recommendations. If this sketch of the current state of Vatican thinking on the use of
force is a fair one, then we have moved quite far toward attenuating the
old teaching on the use of force--in the direction of a stringent application
of just-war principles and a more integrated approach to peacemaking.
At the same time, clear guidance is lacking for political and military
leaders, especially in cases of complex humanitarian disasters. Moral
assessments of Iraq or Kosovo depend on complex and detailed analyses
of proportionality and success. In such cases, only very careful arguments
will be persuasive. It does not help when Dr. Joaquin Navarro Vals of
the Vatican press office characterizes the bombings of Iraqi military
installations as "aggression." As Peter Steinfels observed,
"The episode adds to the impression that the extent of contemporary
Catholics' adherence to papal positions [on the use of force] will never
be separated from the strength of the arguments backing them." The late Protestant ethicist Paul Ramsey used to recommend the Catholic
practice of espousing broad, moral principles in contrast to the Protestant
habit of assigning moral weight to specific policy directives. Recent
Catholic practice has stopped just short of such policy directives. But
moral guidance on the use of force is made more difficult when the judgments
depend on unexplained and disputable estimates of consequences. Moral counsel to public authorities would seem to require either greater
explicitness about cases, along with the modesty that the church has traditionally
recommended for judgments about specific cases, or consolidation and clarification
of the teaching on the place of nonviolence and the just war in defense
of the common good. One is tempted to suggest that the Vatican might release
the apparently rejected study on nonviolence, or better yet, incorporate
it in an extended document on nonviolence and the use of force. But perhaps
thinking has not sufficiently matured over a wide enough segment of the
church to make such a document helpful at this time. A first step toward dispelling the present confusion would require acknowledgement
by church leaders, moral theologians, legal, political and military officials
that we live in a time when the expectations of international law and
the instruments for enforcing it are poorly matched. A second step would involve a conversation defining the just-war canons,
particularly those regarding proportionality and success, in ways that
can avoid the double-binds in which the world community currently finds
itself in responding to large scale humanitarian emergencies and the enforcement
of Security Council resolutions. The Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace has held such conversations on topics like international debt relief
and human rights. It could conceivably be the sponsor for a series of
conversations on nonviolence and the use of force in international affairs. A third step would be to rework international law to create mechanisms
for dealing with problems like Kosovo. For one, we might provide a limit
on the Security Council veto in cases of large scale humanitarian emergencies,
but require perhaps a two-thirds majority of the council to take action.
This might be a way to make the council an effective enforcer of international
peace rather than an institution that is incapable of opposing crimes
against humanity. In conjunction with this international legal reform, moreover, new institutions
for conflict resolution need to be funded, developed and utilized. It
is no wonder the United States, at least, resorts to force when faced
with hard problems, when the military is so well funded and diplomacy
is chronically underfunded, with many State Department positions staffed
by men and women recruited from the intelligence agencies. Pope John Paul II has been the pre-eminent moral leader of the last third
of the 20th century. The events of the last year have revealed him to
be a reformer in ways most people did not expect. Luigi Accattoli of the
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has said that until recently
the Pope's teaching on forgiveness was the great unnoted theme of his
papacy. Perhaps before long we will be able to add his teaching on peacemaking
and the use of force as yet another innovation.
America, May 15, 1999.
Copyright © 1999 by America Press
All rights reserved
Drew Christiansen, S.J., a former director of the United States Catholic
Conference Office of International Justice and Peace, is a senior fellow
at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C.
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