Just War Theory –
Is it time for a new paradigm?

Last autumn, the U.S. Catholic Bishops issued a Pastoral Letter entitled, "Living with Faith and Hope after September 11th," in which they assessed the government’s response to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Among other things, the bishops called for a Palestinian state and security (a term they said required redefining) for Israel as the only way to bring peace to the Middle East; condemned the deadly use of sanctions against innocent populations in Iraq; called on the U.S. to address terrorism in Sudan; pointed to U.S. failures in helping global development efforts aimed at overcoming poverty; criticized U.S. alliances with countries that violate human rights; urged the U.S. to reverse its predominant role in the international arms trade as well as in the growing proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; and urged the U.S. to promote a more effective, responsible and responsive United Nations.

A group of more than 65 individuals from Catholic institutions, religious communities and ministries that included Marie Dennis, Tom Cordaro and David Robinson of Pax Christi, James Hug of the Center of Concern, Kathy Thornton of NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, and Joan Chittister of the Erie Benedictine Community, applauded the bishops’ letter. In addition, the group raised some additional concerns in a statement entitled, "A Catholic Community Responds to the War Living with Faith and Hope."

"It is unfortunate that some media interpreted the bishops as judging [the War on Terrorism] to be ‘moral,’" the statement said. "Instead, what the bishops did was offer guidelines for making such a moral judgment," referring to Just War Theory.

In their 1993 statement, "The Harvest of Justice Is Sown in Peace," the U.S. bishops summarized the major components of this theory, which are drawn from traditional Catholic teaching: "First, whether lethal force may be used is governed by the following criteria: Just Cause: force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic rights of whole populations; Comparative Justice: while there may be rights and wrongs on all sides of a conflict, to override the presumption against the use of force the injustice suffered by one party must significantly outweigh that suffered by the other; Legitimate Authority: only duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war; Right Intention: force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purpose; Probability of Success: arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success; Proportionality: the overall destruction expected from the use of force must be outweighed by the good to be achieved; Last Resort: force may be used only after all peaceful alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted. These criteria (jus ad bellum), taken as a whole, must be satisfied in order to override the strong presumption against the use of force.

"Second, the just-war tradition seeks also to curb the violence of war through restraint on armed combat between the contending parties by imposing the following moral standards (jus in bello) for the conduct of armed conflict: Noncombatant Immunity: civilians may not be the object of direct attack, and military personnel must take due care to avoid and minimize indirect harm to civilians; Proportionality: in the conduct of hostilities, efforts must be made to attain military objectives with no more force than is militarily necessary and to avoid disproportionate collateral damage to civilian life and property; Right Intention: even in the midst of conflict, the aim of political and military leaders must be peace with justice, so that acts of vengeance and indiscriminate violence, whether by individuals, military units or governments, are forbidden."

Commenting on Just War Theory’s moral restrictions on war-making, the "Catholic Community" statement asserted the immorality of the War on Terrorism, "even though it appears to have a just cause. For example, the strong moral requirement of immunity for non-combatants and the inadmissibility of indiscriminate attacks on innocent people are violated in the ‘collateral damage’ suffered by innocent city dwellers in Kunduz, Kabul, Kandahar and elsewhere in Afghanistan."

The statement enumerated a number of other aspects of the War on Terrorism that also fail to meet Just War criteria, including that any military response must be a last resort, after all peaceful alternatives have been exhausted.

The authors of the Catholic Community statement admitted, however, that a problem with invoking the moral restrictions of Just War Theory is that – as Pope John Paul II noted in judging the Gulf War – for all practical purposes they rule out modern warfare. Therefore "a new Catholic paradigm" for judging 21st-century questions of war and peace is needed. Said the statement’s authors, "It is time."

– Julie A. Wortman