Religion and Politics: On the Catholic Church’s Just War Theory

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.

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1. Aleksandar Brezar, “White House vs the Pope: What Is Behind the Clash and Catholic Just War Doctrine?” Euronews.com, 17 April, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Pope Leo Denounces Warmongers

With Easter, 2026, taking place amid the holocaustic genocide in Gaza, Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and the U.S./Israel attacks against Israel, Pope Leo used the occasion to speak out against war, and those who benefit politically and by profiting from war. The pope’s absolute rejection of war included excoriating Christians who had been using theological rationales to justify war. Although not in the pope’s field of vision at the time, such Christians have included the popes who had perpetuated four crusades—the last of which was waged against Constantinople (i.e., eastern Christians)—in Medieval European Christendom. The implication is that Jesus did not hear the prayers of those militarized Christians who thought they were defending Jesus and his Church.

The pope’s Easter message against war was unequivocal: “This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war.”[1] Compassion towards detractors and even enemies is antipodal to war, and thus the pope’s condemnation was indeed on solid ground. What are we to make, therefore, of the Catholic just war rationales? If Jesus rejects war, then even a war that is just is included in the rejection. Besides being a problem for Catholic social-ethics theory, should Jesus’s preachment of compassion for the Nazis as they committed genocide against Slavs, Jews, Communists, and other societal undesirables stand up against the just-war rationale to invade Germany to stop the wholesale slaughter? Asked about how India should have reacted to a Nazi invasion, Gandhi answered in line with the pope’s condemnation by saying that people should stand in non-violent resistance on India’s borders. Would Jesus agree? His distancing of himself from the Zealots in the Gospels may suggest that he would not join the armed resistance to the Nazis. His kindness to the Roman soldiers suggests that he would have compassion for individual Nazis in spite of their atrocities.

So in the wake of the pope’s condemnation of war, Catholic just-war theory may need to be revised. The pope also claimed that Jesus ignores the prayers of Christians who support or wage war. This would include even the prayers of Christians who were supporting Israel because of its role as a precondition for Jesus’s Second Coming even as Israel was committing crimes against humanity against the people of Gaza with impunity. Whether taking back Jerusalem for Jesus in the Middle Ages or enabling a genocidal government in the twenty-first century so Jesus could return, such rationales are ignored by the Christian deity.

The presumption that even positions that are antithetical to Jesus’s preachments in the Gospels are in some way Christian nonetheless reveals the susceptibility of the human mind to going too far without any self-check mechanism in the domain of religion. Faced with Christians who were looking the other way as Israel was committing a genocide, Jesus would probably retort that his second coming is in the righteous suffering of the Gazan people who were not guilty of having attacked Israel in 2023. He would no doubt apply his condemnation of the Jewish religious leaders in the Gospels to Netanyahu and his government, with something like, They still don’t get it, but even such a guttural condemnation does not go far enough, for the principle of selfless love even and especially against people we don’t like (and even hate) is in need of loudspeakers in being pronounced to be the way into the Kingdom of God in this life. Defending Jesus and protecting the way for the Second Coming, especially if by violence, pale in comparison to that principle, which can stand on its own without any anthropomorphism.

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[1] Joshua McElwee, “Pope Leo Says God Rejects Prayers of Leaders Who Wage Wars,” Reuters.com, March 29, 2026.

Jesus' Teaching on Love beyond Morality in Human Relations: The film "Forsaken" Falls Short

In an interview on the film, Forsaken (2015), Kiefer Sutherland remarks that the film is black and white in terms of the bad and the good guys. In other words, the film is a classic western. James McCurdy wears the “black” hat, while Rev. Samuel Clayton, played by Donald Sutherland, wears the “white” one (even though his clergy-wear is entirely black).  However, Samuel is hardly very nice, or forgiving, to his son at first. 

On the other side of the dichotomy, Brian Cox, who played McCurdy, said in an interview that his character has the virtue of business sense in that the man buys up area farms, albeit by ruthless means, because he anticipates that the anticipated railroad would drive up land prices. Nevertheless, that McCurdy is willing to take the risk does not justify killing farmers who refuse to be bought out. Michael Wincott, who played Dave Turner—McCurdy’s hired hand, said in an interview that he didn’t see McCurdy as at all grey; rather, his own character and John Henry Clayton, the reverend’s son, are grey in that both try to resist killing; they both know better and attempt to resist the temptation. Even such nuances from the traditional “black and white” western do not go far enough in describing the de facto religious complexity in John Henry. In fact, the screenwriters did not go far enough to capture a truly Christian response to even one’s enemies. Hence I submit that the film gives a superficial gloss that belies just how far a Christian much go to follow the teachings of Jesus.

The full essay is at "Forsaken."

Mandela’s Courage as Politicized Forgiveness

Whereas we grasp the interior sense in which Gandhi taught to forgive, the media promoted a false, politicized forgiveness as operating in Mandela’s case. I am of course impugning the aggrandizing press here, rather than Mandela himself.
In claiming that Mandela “insisted on forgiveness,” John Mahaha uses the following quote from the man himself: “To go to prison because of your convictions and be prepared to suffer for what you believe in, is something worthwhile. It is an achievement for a man to do his duty on earth irrespective of the consequences.”[1] The suffering being referred to here is neither suffering for its own sake nor suffering unnecessarily. In regard to being willing to suffer for what he believed in, Mandela had Gandhi as a role model, though (and this is crucial) Gandhi's social-moral principle of nonviolence cannot be reconciled with Mandela's prescription of violence. To the extent that advocating armed rather than non-violent resistance legitimated even just a portion of Mandela's prison time, the Father of South Africa could not have considered his own suffering in prison as strong (morally) as that of the Father of India. By moral strength, I have in mind a sort of power that had escaped Nietzsche's grasp; it is the sort of strength that Jesus evinces in the New Testament. Both Mandela and Gandhi endured great suffering to be true to their respective principles and see them realized in a more just world. This is not to say that both men forgave in the same sense, or that both deserved their respective suffering equally.
I submit that what Mahaha took in his piece to be forgiveness is actually something else. In philosophical terms, he unknowingly committed a category mistake. To be willing to suffer for one’s convictions is indeed laudable, but forgiveness is not necessarily entailed or even implied. I suspect that Mandela himself would admit that he did not feel any sense of forgiveness during the 27 years of imprisonment. I have seen video-taped footage of him on the prison-island refusing to speak with a group of people passing by while he was outdoors. His stiff glance and held silence belies any hint of forgiveness.
Lest it be claimed that Mandela forgave his former oppressors once he had regained his freedom, his second wife insisted on a television interview following her husband's death that Mandela had drew on an incredible strength of self-discipline and fortitude, rather than the interior sort of forgiveness that Gandhi preached and felt. Sadly, commentators and both print and broadcast journalists marveled in saccharine platitudes at Mandela's amazing forgiveness after suffering for nearly three decades in prison. Clearly, the journalists and pontificators had not done their research.
The research could have started with topical statements from Mandela himself. “If you want to make peace with your enemy,” he once said, “you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”[2] Insisting that such advice is none other than felt forgiveness artfully “gilds the lily,” as if dipping Mandela’s heart in gold with the benefit of hindsight. The working peace is political rather than interior; accordingly, any forgiveness would be likewise, for Mandela would not have said “you have to work with your enemy” were the enemy already forgiven. Instead, he might have said, “you must get to the point of caring about and for your enemy.” Although the term political forgiveness applies, the operative virtue here is actually closer to political courage than forgiveness. According to his second wife, Mandela used great self-discipline rather than forgiveness to resist the impulse to retaliate and instead work with the bastards.

Nelson Mandela reaching out to a former enemy. Political or religious forgiveness? (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

It takes interior courage to muster political courage, to deny oneself the convenient route politically. Mandela drew on his mighty courage in not only risking imprisonment by urging armed resistance, but also pushing himself to work with the party of his former oppressors. I suspect that humility, even if only in a political use, played a role after his arduous suffering in prison. Elongated pain has a way of resizing a man’s estimation of his own powers and proper stature. Interestingly, endured suffering may also rarify courage, for the downside is no longer of the unknown. While more difficult to unpack than saccharine forgiveness so often bandied about by dandies, tremendous self-discipline applied as courage as political forgiveness more closely fits the man who saved South Africa from itself.

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1.  John Dramani Mahama, “Mandela Taught a Continent to Forgive,” The New York Times, December 5, 2013.

2. William Welch, “South Africa’s Leader Transformed Nation, Self,” USA Today, December 27, 2013.