In the Gospels, Jesus is
portrayed as an idealist, even other-worldly, from the standpoint of the political
domain. To be sure, he knows how to alienate the Temple hierarchy enough to be
put to death, but he stays clear of the Zealots in their militaristic rebelliousness
against the Roman occupation. Give what it Caesar’s unto Caesar. The just-war
theory developed by Augustine and Aquinas seeks to bring that gap—to make the
idealist of the Gospels more relevant practically to the politics of
international relations. To be sure, Jesus’s refusal to join the Zealots—symbolized
by Jesus including Romans among those whom he heals—could be used to argue convincingly
that attention to compassion for one’s enemy makes impossible even any just war.
Jesus is just as idealistic in the story of the rich man who will not give up
his wealth to follow Jesus—it is harder for a camel to get through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man (who will not give up his wealth to follow God) to
enter the Kingdom of God, whose very substance spiritually is epitomized by compassion
to one’s enemies, according to the American theologian, Samuel Hopkins. So,
Pope Leo was on solid ground in April, 2026 in the midst of the U.S.-Iran War when
he emphatically insisted that Jesus would oppose any war—not just any unjust
one—but where does that leave the Catholic Church’s just war theory as
promulgated by two theological giants, Augustine and Aquinas?
The just war theory “sets out
strict conditions for the moral use of military force. The threat must be
lasting, grave and certain, and success must be realistically achievable. Most
importantly, all other means of resolution must be genuinely exhausted, and the
harm caused must not exceed the harm it seeks to prevent.”[1]
World War II against Nazi Germany would certainly qualify, given the severity
of the Nazi threat in Europe both within and outside of that empire, and the force
of the Allies combined as against that of Germany. Nevertheless, the Catholic
doctrine can be viewed in relation to Gandhi’s prescription of moral rather
than military force set against the Nazis should they have invaded India. Jesus
in the Gospels furnishes yet another alternative: reaching out to be
compassionate even to Nazi soldiers in response to the humane needs even while
voicing opposition to the Nazi regime. In these terms, the Catholic just war
theory looks rather militaristic, although clearly not in terms of “anything
goes.” Israel’s holocaustic genocide of the people of Gaza would obviously fly
in the face of even just war, given the extreme disproportionality in Israel’s
over-reaction to the earlier attack by Hamas in which only about 1,200 Israelis
had died. Even in bombing Iran and Lebanon, Israel did not even attempt all
other means of resolution, and in fact dismissed even the American brief
cease-fire during in the spring of 2026. So too, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could
not be counted as just according to the Catholic theory, as the invasion was unprovoked
and President Putin had not attempted other means of resolution; his goal,
after all, was to restore the Russian Empire of Catherine the Great. Such a
naked power-grab cannot be reckoned as just, and in fact manifests Hobbes’
state of nature rather than anything normative.
It was in the context of
Russia’s invasion, Israel’s genocide, and America’s bombing of Iran that Pope
Leo became speaking in strong words against what was becoming a world order
characterized by Hobbes’ state of nature in which life can be expected to be short
and brutish. The pope’s criticism of the American bombings thus had larger
implications than merely to pressure the Trump administration to resort
exclusively to negotiation rather than deadly force. Three bullies on the world
stage were literally getting away with murder on a mass scale, while the UN and
the International Criminal Court by in large could only stand by and proffer impotent
verbal rebukes. As could be expected, the Pope’s opposition to the new status
quo was like a lightening rod for the bullies.
Even though U.S. Vice President
Vance was schooled in politics rather than in theology, and had only years
before even converted to Catholicism, he warned the pope to “be careful when he
talks about matters of theology.”[2]
I’m sure that rebuke from a recent convert went down well at the Vatican. Abstractly,
the over-reaching epistemologically and in terms of praxis of the political
domain onto the religious one, supervening the innate criteria and knowledge exclusive
to the latter domain, implies a category mistake and even a conflation of the
two distinct domains as if they were a seamless whole. President Trump’s
comments that the pope was “weak on crime” and “terrible on foreign policy” even
covered over the theological domain entirely with political pavement. The pope
had used distinctly theological, rather than just moral, not to mention
political, language to criticize the American use of military force as stemming
from the delusion of omnipotence and self-idolatry. Trump’s earlier threat to
destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” was thus “truly unacceptable” from a
distinctly theological standpoint (as well as moral one).[3]
In short, even though there
was arguably some daylight between the Catholic just war theory and Pope Leo’s
assertion that Jesus of the Gospels opposes war itself, it is not as if that
theory permits any and all wars. To be sure, especially up against the Hobbesian
state of nature, a normative constraint without powerful enforcement can safely
be ignored by bullies on the world stage. Theology is distinct from the
political realm, and this point is clear in the Gospels as Jesus distances
himself from even the Zealots. Hence compassion even (and especially) to enemies
and detractors can take place under Christian auspices even against enemies during
a war. Vance’s warning to the pope about the latter’s attempt to do theology is
thus ludicrous. Moreover, the pope’s alleged pacifism, which is arguably in
line with Jesus of the Gospels, implies that the Church’s just war theory may
need to be thought with more attention to the Gospels and less to trying to be
relevant in the political domain. The world was arguably careening away from the
message of peace through forgiveness and compassion that is in the Gospels in
break-neck speed, and Pope Leo’s decision to use stronger, more direct theological
language reflects just how potentially dangerous the collapse of the post-World
War II world order was, as government officials around the world merely looked
as at least three bullies were setting up a very different kind of world “order,”
one of “(military)might makes right” in which even the legal fiction of
international law is wantonly ignored with utter impunity. Antipodally, just
because Jesus’s preachments on how the Kingdom of God can be realized here and
now could have a significant impact on international relations does not mean
the theological domain is the same as, or reduces to, the political domain.
Ironically, were the Catholic Church to replace its just war theory with Pope
Leo’s statement that Jesus can not be used to justify war itself, this more
idealistic move could have a more significant impact on the world both
interpersonally and between governments because the ideal of compassion even to
enemies would be highlighted from the theological vantage point.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
