Month: February 2022

INTRODUCTION

As Putin and the Russian military begin their version of “Shock and Awe” in their immoral invasion and the war they are waging in the nation of Ukraine, I remember vividly the night the George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld began their own immoral waging of war of “Shock and Awe” against the citizens of Iraq. Pope John Paul II several days before the anticipated attack condemned the United States invasion of Iraq as immoral act of war and concluded his remarks with the words, “WAR IS ALWAYS A DEFEAT FOR HUMANITY.” John Paul II having lived through not only the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland, but also the invasion and occupation of Poland by the USSR, knew by experience the complete evil of war.

The Christian Church, since the time of the Emperor Constantine has tried to justify the horrific violence of war and at the same time tried to control the brutality of war in fabricating the “Just War Theory,” something I believe is a betrayal of the core teachings of Jesus. The Just War Theory has been used and abused to justify some of the worse of atrocities perpetuated by one segment of human society against another segment of human society. Pope’s have continued to fall back upon the Just War Theory to try to prevent war, to govern war, and protect the destruction to society by war, but have failed utterly failed. Finally, in his encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis 1, is ready to pull the plug on this most impotent attempt to govern the worse of human behavior.

The intent of this essay is that as another horrific war being waged by the authoritarian state, Russia, against Ukraine, a fledging democracy, is it finally time to call the Just War Theory not only a failed teaching of Christendom, but a false teaching of the Christian Church. Has the time to call ALL war a sin against humanity, and that it is time to return to the official teaching of the early Christian Church to condemn ALL KILLING, even when it is done to defend oneself?

Here it the Outline of this Essay:

1. What are the condition placed on a war being “just.”
2. The application of the Just War Theory to the History of Wars in the United States.
3. Wars that were just
4. Wars that were immoral
5. The United States Most Recent Immoral War
6. History and background to the war.
7. The overall cost in life, money, and environment because of the war
8. AP summary
9. The Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs Study of the costs of the War in Afghanistan and Iraq
10. The teachings of Jesus on War and Violence
11. The teachings of the early Church on War and Violence
12. The Roman Emperor Constantine and the Development of the Just War Theory
13. War and Nonviolence
14. Francis of Assisi
15. Mahatma Gandhi
16. Thomas Merton
17. Dr Martin Luther King Jr
18. The End of the Just War Theory and a Return to the Teachings of Jesus
19. Pope Francis I: Fratelli Tutti
20. Conclusion: There is no just war. All war is evil.

AN IMPORTANT CAVEAT TO KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ THIS ESSAY.

Just because a war is immoral, and those who ordered a war to be fought may be immoral, it is important that those who are coerced to fight in those wars are not immoral, unless they commit a crime of war. Note: massacres are crimes of war that have happened in ALL nations during times of war and committed by ALL nations at one time or another in their history. A small list of massacres within the past 150 years include: 1) the Wounded Knee Massacre (General George Armstrong Custer and US Calvary against the Dakota Tribes in the American Indian War); 2) Medvedev Forest Massacre (Stalin ordered the NKVD to take a number of political prisoners held at Oryol Prison into Medvedev Forest and shoot them.); 3) the Babi Yar Massacre Ukraine (Nazi Einsatzgruppen killed the Jewish population of Kyiv); 4) Laha massacre (The Japanese killed surrendered Australian soldiers.); 5) Szczurowa massacre, Poland (Romani people were rounded up and murdered in the village cemetery by Nazi occupiers.); 6) Tantura massacre Palestine ( The Israel Defense Force’s Alexandroni Brigade attacked the village of Tantura and massacred up to 200 of its Palestinian Arab inhabitants.); 7) Liborista massacre Dominican Republic (The Dominican military dropped napalm on the Liboristas from airplanes—burning six hundred people to death.); 8)  Massacre at Huế  Vietnam ( During the 1968 Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, unarmed South Vietnamese civilians were massacred by North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong. Numerous mass graves were discovered in and around Huế after the Offensive. Victims included women, men, children, and infants. Estimated death toll was between 2,800 and 6,000 civilians and POWs); 9) My Lai Massacre Vietnam (U.S. soldiers murdered, tortured and assaulted 347–504 unarmed South Vietnamese villagers suspected of aiding the Vietcong, ranging in ages from 1–81 years, mostly women and children); 10)  Kent State massacre, United States (29 members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on the Kent State University college campus, killing 4 and wounding 9, one of whom was permanently paralyzed.).

WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS PLACED ON A WAR BEING “JUST”

While I will say more about what Jesus taught about war, and how the Just War Theory was developed, I would first like to list the conditions the Christian Church believe formulate a “just reason” to kill others in war. They are:

1. The war must be for a just cause.
2. The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority.
3. The intention behind the war must be good.
4. All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried first.
5. There must be a reasonable chance of success.
6. The means used must be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve.

THE APPLICATION OF THE JUST WAR THEORY TO THE HISTORY OF WAR IN THE UNITED STATES

How many of the wars, in which the United States has participated, been “Just Wars”.

Using the criteria above, here is the list, I believe, comprise what might be labeled “Just” in light of the Just War Theory.

1. American Revolution (fighting for the rights of Colonial citizens)
2. War of 1812 (a war fought to defend the United States against an invading Great Britain)
3. The Civil War (at least, on the side of the Union Army, which fought to defend the union of the United States against a Confederate aggressor)
4. World War I (a war in tnawhich the United States entered late, 1917, after German submarine warfare sank United States passenger ships and commercial shipping)
5. World War II (a war in which the United States was attacked by Japan and by the Axis powers of Germany and Italy)
6. The Korean War (initiated by the Stalinist USSR as a way of spreading the Russian Soviet influence in Asia, specifically the Korean peninsula).
7. The Gulf War (a war of a coalition of 35 nations, including the United States, against the nation of Iraq, when Iraq invaded its neighbor Kuwait, arising from oil pricing and production disputes.

Here is the list of wars in which the United States engaged that do NOT pass the criteria of a “Just War”, but were immoral and illegal wars.

1. The Mexican-American War (initiated by the United States to take territory from the sovereign nation of Mexico)
2. The Civil  War (which the Confederate or Southern Slave States of American sought to secede from the United States by declaring war on the Northern States and attacking U.S. military fort, Fort Sumter which led to the Northern or Union States to declare war in defense of the Union)
3. The American Indian War (in which the United States engaged in war and genocide against the Native American Tribes of America).
4. The Spanish American War (a war perpetuated by the United States upon Spain to annex the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands, and temporary control of the nation of Cuba).
5. The Vietnam War (the history as to why the United States entered this war is complicated. The bottom line was that the will of the Vietnam people to keep their nation united, even under the Communist rule of Ho Chi Minh was preferable to the splitting of the nation into two parts: North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, and South Vietnam, under the corrupt regime of the Diem family.)
6. The War of Afghanistan and Iraq

THE UNITED STATES MOST RECENT IMMORAL WAR: THE WAR OF AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ

I remember watching the rocket fire attack upon Baghdad, purportedly against “military targets”, knowing full well that in spite of the American military’s lauding of “smart bombs” and “smart rockets”, the bottom line is that they are neither smart nor are they inconsequential to the innocent human lives eviscerated and vaporized when they strike a civilian population. I went to bed anxious and nauseated because I knew that the invasion of Iraq was based on the lies of George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and General Colin Power. I also knew that this war which the United States initiated would be this century’s Vietnam for the United States. While this is my personal bias, I believe anyone with a semblance of intelligence knew that Bush and Cheney, both who were wealthy because of Big Oil, were eager to go to war, not just to get even with Saddam Hussein and end Middle East terrorism, but were greedily eyeing the vast oil reserves of Iraq and coveting those oil reserves for the wealth it could bring them. To accomplish this, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld invented the lie of Iraq manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. To get Congress and the world to buy this lie, they seduced General Colin Powell, Bush’s Secretary of State, to publicly lie for them to the United Nations and to Congress. The lie that Powell told weighed on his conscience so much so that prior to his death, Powell confessed that his one great sin, the one he regretted the most during his life was the Bush’s, Cheney’s, and Rumsfeld’s lie that he told to Congress and to the world.

At the time that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Powell were sounding their war drums, I told my Dad that just as the mighty American military with all its tanks, planes, bombs, and heavy artillery were destroyed and defeated in Vietnam by, in comparison, lightly armed Viet Cong, so will the mighty American military be destroyed and defeated by similarly armed Taliban warriors dressed in flowing robes and turbans. The lies upon which the Vietnam War was built and the immorality of the war split the Unites States in two. The same would happen to the United States with Bush and Cheney’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I wished I would be wrong, but as time has proven, I was correct.

We might wish to justify the past 20 year war in Afghanistan and Iraq as a moral good based on the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, and attempted attack on the White House (thwarted by passengers on the airplane). However, we have to ask exactly what moral good was accomplished by the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq?

The initial reason given for the invasion of Afghanistan was to shut down the terrorist camps that trained and produced the men who flew the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and, to assassinate Bin Laden the head of the terrorist organization, al-Qaeda. Bush quickly lost interest in going after Bin Laden and assassinating him. It would take another 10 years after 9/11, and under President Obama to finally find Bin Laden and kill him. Had we limited our military action to just those two reasons, we might have passed the Just War Theory. However, that was not enough.

The plans of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld did not consider that Afghanistan is not really a nation but is largely multiple layers made up of ethnic, tribal, clan, family, or qawm entities. As much has these entities fight with one another, they all participated in the common purpose of destroying any nation that seeks to occupy their land. The land of Afghanistan is the death place of those mighty colonial powers who sought to colonize and occupy the land with its armies, including Great Britain, the USSR and, now, the United States. The torn bodies of their war dead litter the land of Afghanistan and are a sign that Afghanistan will be NOT conquered by ANY outside power.

WHAT GOOD HAS COME FROM 20 YEARS OF WAR IN AFGHANISTAN AND ITS COSTS

As the old adage states, “The proof is in the pudding.” In the end, what good has come out of 20 years of intense fighting? Are the lives of the Afghanistan people any better after all these wars? No. Once the occupiers leave in utter defeat, Afghanistan society sinks back into the mire it was prior to invasion.

Did the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq make the Middle East more stabilized? Absolutely not! Terrorism has only grown more intense and more vicious than ever. The rise of the ISIS military state that has brutally destroyed so many human lives continues even though at the present, it is not as active. Iran, as a nation, has only grown more dangerous. Arab nations are at war internally and many are autocratic dictatorships, e.g. Turkey. Much of this horror can be placed directly on the shoulders of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and all the other chicken hawks in their administration and Congress.

As if all of the above was not enough, the greatest moral evil of this war is Bush and Cheney reintroducing torture as an acceptable tool to extract information from uncooperative prisoners even though torture has been proved to be one of the least effectual ways by which to get accurate information.

That war that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld manufactured has destabilized the United States (see the rise of white supremacy and militarism in domestic terrorist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers), and the loss of human life and the financial well-being of the United States.

In an article by Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press, August 16, 2021, the number of military lives lost in Afghanistan are:

1. American service members killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448.
2. U.S. contractors: 3,846.
3. Afghan national military and police: 66,000.
4. Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states: 1,144.
5. Afghan civilians: 47,245.
6. Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191.
7. Aid workers: 444.
8. Journalists: 72.

The costs in dollars, all of it borrowed by the United States, in waging 20 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, is 2 trillion dollars. The estimated interest costs by 2050 will be up to 6.5 trillion dollars.

The Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs from Brown University has the following cost of 20 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

1. At least 929,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers. 
2. Over 387,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting.
3. Many times more have died indirectly in these wars, due to ripple effects like malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.
4. Over 7,050 U.S. soldiers have died in the wars.
5. Official Pentagon numbers do not include the many troops who return home and kill themselves as a result of psychological wounds such as PTSD. Over 30,177 service members and veterans of the post-9/11 wars have committed suicide — over four times as many as have died in combat.
6. We do not know the full extent of how many US service members returning from these wars became injured or ill while deployed.
7. 38 million — the number of war refugees and displaced persons.
8. The US federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is over $8 trillion. The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century.
9. The US government is conducting counterterror activities in 85 countries.
10. The wars have been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties, in the U.S. and abroad.
11. Most US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.
12. The post-9/11 wars have contributed significantly to climate change. The Defense Department is one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters.

In just a reading through the horrific cost in life, in money, and the destruction that it caused society not only in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East, but in the United States, one is easily overwhelmed to the point of the sheer lunacy of it all. It brought me back to the Edwin Starr song from the 60’s, “War.”

I said, war, huh (good God, y’all)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, just say it again
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me

It ain’t nothing but a heart-breaker
(War) Friend only to The Undertaker
Oh, war it’s an enemy to all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest
Within the younger generation
Induction then destruction
Who wants to die? Oh

Refrain

It ain’t nothing but a heart-breaker
(War) It’s got one friend that’s The Undertaker
Oh, war, has shattered many a young man’s dreams
Made him disabled, bitter and mean
Life is much too short and precious
To spend fighting wars each day
War can’t give life
It can only take it away, oh

Refrain

It ain’t nothing but a heart breaker
(War) Friend only to The Undertaker, woo
Peace, love and understanding, tell me
Is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord knows there’s got to be a better way, oh

Refrain

“War”, Songwriters: Barrett Strong / Norman Whitfield
War lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

THE TEACHING OF JESUS ABOUT WAR

In contrast to the image of God as a warrior God found in the Hebrew Testament, the image of God that Jesus teaches is a God of love and compassion, Jesus being the human incarnation of the Divine God. Jesus acknowledged the existence of war and the destruction that war causes in human society, however, Jesus never advocated war. Jesus instead advocates love and nonviolence as the new order of humanity.

When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:1-12, NAB)

This is supported by the account of Jesus’ arrest in Matthew’s Passion. “Then stepping forward they laid hands on Jesus and arrested him. And behold, one of those who accompanied Jesus put his hand to his sword, drew it, and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels? But then how would the scriptures be fulfilled which say that it must come to pass in this way?” (Matthew 26: 50b-54, NAB).

Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel, “But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit [is] that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:27-36, NAB)

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (the former organization of United States Catholic Bishops) in their prophetic 1983 pastoral letter, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response, outlined the following summation of Jesus’ teaching on the Reign of God (see The Challenge of Peace, in b. Jesus and the Reign of God):

1. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God in his words and made it present in his actions. His words begin with a call to conversion and a proclamation of the arrival of the kingdom. (#44)
2. His words, especially as they are preserved for us in the Sermon on the Mount, describe a new reality in which God’s power is manifested and the longing of the people is fulfilled. In God’s reign the poor are given the kingdom, the mourners are comforted, the meek inherit the earth, those hungry for righteousness are satisfied, the merciful know mercy, the pure see God, the persecuted know the kingdom, and peacemakers are called the children of God. (#45)
3. Jesus’ words also depict for us the conduct of one who lives under God’s reign. His words call for a new way of life which fulfills and goes beyond the law. One of the most striking characteristics of this new way is forgiveness. All who hear Jesus are repeatedly called to forgive one another, and to do so not just once, but many, many times. The forgiveness of God, which is the beginning of salvation, is manifested in communal forgiveness and mercy. (#46)
4. Jesus also described God’s reign as one in which love is an active, life-giving, inclusive force. He called for a love which went beyond family ties and bonds of friendship to reach even those who were enemies. Such a love does not seek revenge but rather is merciful in the face of threat and opposition. Disciples are to love one another as Jesus has loved them. (#47)
5. The words of Jesus would remain an impossible, abstract ideal were it not for two things: the actions of Jesus and his gift of the spirit. In his actions, Jesus showed the way of living in God’s reign; he manifested the forgiveness which he called for when he accepted all who came to him, forgave their sins, healed them, released them from the demons who possessed them. In doing these things, he made the tender mercy of God present in a world which knew violence, oppression, and injustice. Jesus pointed out the injustices of his time and opposed those who laid burdens upon the people or defiled true worship. He acted aggressively and dramatically at times, as when he cleansed the temple of those who had made God’s house into a “den of robbers” (#48)
6. Most characteristic of Jesus’ actions are those in which he showed his love. As he had commanded others, his love led him even to the giving of his own life to effect redemption. Jesus’ message and his actions were dangerous ones in his time, and they led to his death – a cruel and viciously inflicted death, a criminal’s death (Gal. 3:13). In all of his suffering, as in all of his life and ministry, Jesus refused to defend himself with force or with violence. He endured violence and cruelty so that God’s love might be fully manifest and the world might be reconciled to the One from whom it had become estranged. Even at his death, Jesus cried out for forgiveness for those who were his executioners: “Father, forgive them . . .” (#49)
7. The resurrection of Jesus is the sign to the world that God indeed does reign, does give life in death, and that the love of God is stronger even than death. (#50)
8. Only in light of this, the fullest demonstration of the power of God’s reign, can Jesus’ gift of peace – a peace which the world cannot give be understood. The peace which he gives to them as he greets them as their risen Lord is the fullness of salvation. It is the reconciliation of the world and God; the restoration of the unity and harmony of all creation which the Old Testament spoke of with such longing. Because the walls of hostility between God and humankind were broken down in the life and death of the true, perfect servant, union and well-being between God and the world were finally fully possible (#51)
9. Jesus Christ, then, is our peace, and in his death-resurrection he gives God’s peace to our world. In him God has indeed reconciled the world, made it one, and has manifested definitely that his will is this reconciliation, this unity between God and all peoples, and among the peoples themselves. The way to union has been opened, the covenant of peace established. The risen Lord’s gift of peace is inextricably bound to the call to follow Jesus and to continue the proclamation of God’s reign. (#54)

THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH UP TO THE TIME OF CONSTANTINE

The early Christian Church took the words of Jesus to heart, believed his teachings and lived his teachings. In the early Christian Church, a Christian was forbidden to join any army. There were three criteria that would remove a Christian from the Christian community: 1) Murder, 2) Adultery, and, 3) Apostasy (denying the Christian faith). Murder, the killing of another human, is forbidden in the Ten Commandments (see Exodus) of the Hebrew Scriptures. And, as we read above in the passage from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus also forbids the taking of human life, even the life of an enemy. This is also echoed throughout the rest of the Gospels. Up to 312 AD, the teaching was very clear for Christians, KILLING IS ALWAYS WRONG. The most profound theological reason for this prohibition was the cross of Jesus. The execution of Jesus is the standard by which all Christians must live, that is, to love, not kill their enemies.

SO WHAT HAPPENED? THE JUST WAR THEORY

Plain and simple, the Christian Church got corrupted by the Emperor Constantine, when he made the Christian Church the religion of the Roman Empire. Basically, Constantine substituted all the symbols and worship of the god of war, namely, Mars, for that of Jesus. The Chi-Ro, the symbol of Christ was then emblazoned on the war shields of the Roman Imperial army. Within a hundred years, only Christians could be soldiers of the Roman Imperial army. At that time, with so many Christians now fighting in the Roman Imperial armed forces, Imperial Rome appealed to the Christian bishops, Ambrose and Augustine (Hippo), for a justification for war. And so, the Gospel of Jesus began to become watered down to allow the brutality of human war under the guise of a theology on a “Just War.” Later, the Christian theologian Thomas Acquinas combined the thoughts of pagan philosophers, e.g. Socrates and Aristotle with the theology developed by Ambrose and Augustine. (see above)

It was the use of the Just War Theology by which Pope John Paul II condemned the American invasion of Iraq. John Paul II argued that while the invasion was lawfully declared by a lawful authority, all the other criteria of the Just War Theology was NOT met. Perhaps, based on the immoral reason for the waging of war in Iraq, we should not be surprised that from that war emerge such terrorist organizations as ISIS, which is al-Qaeda on steroids. Perhaps we should not be surprised at the great destruction of not only human life, but the destruction of the human spirit of those who were involved in combat in that war. In many ways, evil only begets evil.

WAR AND NONVIOLENCE

Aside from the Gospels of Jesus in the Christian Testament and the early teachings of the Church Fathers up to the Emperor Constantine, there are relatively few Christians, with the exception of Francis of Assisi, and centuries later, Thomas Merton, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and Archbishop Desmond Tuttu, who taught Christian non-violence.

Francis of Assisi

While there have been numerous biographies written about Francis of Assisi, some by his contemporaries, e.g. Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure, Francis’ actual writings are limited to his religious rule of life, prayer, some letters, and how his followers are meant to live out their religious vocations as those following the principles of his way of spirituality. There are prayers attributed to Francis of Assisi that he did not write, e.g. The Prayer of St Francis, but sum up the way he lived his life.

What we know of Francis of Assisi from all the biographies of him, is that he was the son of a rich textile merchant, born in 1181 A.D. As a young man, he was spoiled rich and lived fully a life of decadence. Like many adolescents of his time, he had romantic dreams of being a knight. Italy did not really exist as a nation at that time, and many of the feudal states that comprised Italy engaged in war with one another. Assisi went to war against neighboring Perugia, a war Assisi lost, and Francis spent a year as a military prisoner of Perugia. He returned to Assisi after a year, There is a story by his biographers that while riding his horse, dressed in fine armor, on his way to join the Christian Crusades, he encountered a leper beggar along the road. He dismounted from his horse and embraced and kissed the leper and gave the leper his horse and armor. His life began to change following that encounter. Francis would later wander into the ruined chapel of San Damiano and while gazing on the icon of Jesus on the crucifix, hear Jesus speak to him from that crucifix. What Francis heard from the figure of Jesus was to “repair his Church which had fallen into ruin.” Francis’ life underwent many great changes as he began to understand that the Church he was to repair was not the ruined chapel into which he had wandered, but he was to enact a reform of the Christian Church which was being ruined by opulence and corruption.

Francis of Assisi, in seeing the presence of God in all living creatures, in all of the elements, and, especially in humanity, lived a life of nonviolence. He was known to pick up earthworms from the road pavement to prevent them from being crushed under the hooves of horses traveling on the road.

In 1219, he traveled with the Fifth Crusade into Palestine, not with the intention of supporting the violence of the Crusade, but with the intent of converting the Sultan of Egypt to Christianity, or to die a martyr’s death in that attempt. Along the way, he knew by the rape, killing, and pillaging inflicted by the Crusaders upon the places they went, the Crusade was going to fail miserably. Francis left the safe lines of the Crusaders and walked into the midst of the Muslim army. He got his chance to address the Sultan and tried to convert him. The Sultan declined to convert to Christianity, but admired the bravery and the integrity of Francis. He gave Francis permission to visit unharmed all the Holy Places of Jesus in Palestine. Francis returned to Europe via Acre.

Pope Francis I in his introduction to the encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti” summarizes the impact of Francis of Assisi’s teaching and way of life so succinctly.

1. “FRATELLI TUTTI”.[1] With these words, Saint Francis of Assisi addressed his brothers and sisters and proposed to them a way of life marked by the flavour of the Gospel. Of the counsels Francis offered, I would like to select the one in which he calls for a love that transcends the barriers of geography and distance, and declares blessed all those who love their brother “as much when he is far away from him as when he is with him”.[2] In his simple and direct way, Saint Francis expressed the essence of a fraternal openness that allows us to acknowledge, appreciate and love each person, regardless of physical proximity, regardless of where he or she was born or lives.

2. This saint of fraternal love, simplicity and joy, who inspired me to write the Encyclical Laudato Si’, prompts me once more to devote this new Encyclical to fraternity and social friendship. Francis felt himself a brother to the sun, the sea and the wind, yet he knew that he was even closer to those of his own flesh. Wherever he went, he sowed seeds of peace and walked alongside the poor, the abandoned, the infirm and the outcast, the least of his brothers and sisters.

3. There is an episode in the life of Saint Francis that shows his openness of heart, which knew no bounds and transcended differences of origin, nationality, color or religion. It was his visit to Sultan Malik-el-Kamil, in Egypt, which entailed considerable hardship, given Francis’ poverty, his scarce resources, the great distances to be traveled and their differences of language, culture and religion. That journey, undertaken at the time of the Crusades, further demonstrated the breadth and grandeur of his love, which sought to embrace everyone. Francis’ fidelity to his Lord was commensurate with his love for his brothers and sisters. Unconcerned for the hardships and dangers involved, Francis went to meet the Sultan with the same attitude that he instilled in his disciples: if they found themselves “among the Saracens and other nonbelievers”, without renouncing their own identity they were not to “engage in arguments or disputes, but to be subject to every human creature for God’s sake”. In the context of the times, this was an extraordinary recommendation. We are impressed that some eight hundred years at“subjection” be shown to those who did not share his faith.

4. Francis did not wage a war of words aimed at imposing doctrines; he simply spread the love of God. He understood that “God is love and those who abide in love abide in God” (1 Jn 4:16). In this way, he became a father to all and inspired the vision of a fraternal society. Indeed, “only the man who approaches others, not to draw them into his own life, but to help them become ever more fully themselves, can truly be called a father”. In the world of that time, bristling with watchtowers and defensive walls, cities were a theatre of brutal wars between powerful families, even as poverty was spreading through the countryside. Yet there Francis was able to welcome true peace into his heart and free himself of the desire to wield power over others. He became one of the poor and sought to live in harmony with all. Francis has inspired these pages.

The desire of Francis was to live as closely as he could, the life of Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospels. “From Gospel to life, from life to Gospel” is the rule of the Franciscan Orders, or way of spirituality, that Francis left his followers. In that desire to live as Jesus did, Francis renounced the use of force and the use of arms against others.

Mahatma Gandhi

The greatest non-Christian teacher of nonviolence is Mahatma Gandhi who lived by the Hindu principle of Ahimsa, an ancient Indian principle of nonviolence which applies to all living beings.

Here are some of the teachings that Gandhi spoke on nonviolence. In reading what Gandhi wrote below that for Gandhi, nonviolence is not just a philosophical theory, but as he writes is “the rule and the breath of his life.” To live nonviolently in world in which the evil of war is constant requires the utmost heroism, knowing that it is far preferable to sacrifice oneself and die rather than to act violently toward another human being. Hatred is an empty and ultimately bankrupt reason for entering into conflict, for in the end, while hatred may destroy one’s enemy, it also destroys the self. Violence leads, in the words of Gandhi, to gangsterism, and demonstrates that humanity has not advanced much above that of the animals in the jungle. In acknowledging the destructive hate and violence in Hitler and Mussolini, Gandhi observes, “ultimately, force, however justifiably used, will lead us into the same morass as the force of Hitler and Mussolini. There will be just a difference of degree. You and I who believe in non-violence must use it at the critical moment. We may not despair of touching the hearts even of gangsters, even if, for the moment, we may seem to be striking our heads against a blind wall.” In the overall destruction of human society, Gandhi writes, “Like opium production, the world manufacture of swords needs to be restricted. The sword is probably responsible for more misery in the world than opium.”

1. For me non-violence is not a mere philosophical principle. It is the rule and the breath of my life. I know I fail often, sometimes consciously, more often unconsciously. It is a matter not of the intellect but of the heart. True guidance comes by the constant waiting upon God, by utmost humility, self-abnegation, by being ever ready to sacrifice one’s self. Its practice requires fearlessness and courage of the highest order. I am painfully aware of my failings.
2. But the light within me is steady and clear. There is no escape for any of us save through truth and non-violence. I know that war is wrong, is an unmitigated evil. I know too that it has got to go. I firmly believe that freedom won through bloodshed or fraud is no freedom… Not violence, not untruth, but non-violence, Truth is the law of our being. (YI, 13-9-1928, p. 308)
3. Hatred, cannot be turned into love. Those who believed in violence will naturally use it by saying, ” kill your enemy, injure him and his property wherever you can, whether openly or secretly as necessity requires.” The result will be deeper hatred and counter hatred and vengeance let loose on both sides. The recent war (reference to World War II), whose members have yet hardly died, loudly proclaims the bankruptcy of this use of hatred. And it remains to be seen whether the so-called victors have won or whether they have not depressed themselves in seeking and trying to depress their enemies.” (H, 24-2-1946, p. 20)
4. If the best minds of the world have not imbibed the spirit of non-violence, they would have to meet gangsterism in the orthodox way. But that would only show that we have not got far beyond the law of the jungle, that we have not yet learnt to appreciate the heritage that God has given us, that, in spite of the teaching of Christianity which is 1900 years old and of Hinduism and Buddhism which are older, and even of Islam (if I have read it aright), we have not made much headway as human beings. But, whilst I would understand the use of force by those who have not the spirit of non-violence to throw their whole weight in demonstrating that even gangsterism has to be met by non-violence. For, ultimately, force, however justifiably used, will lead us into the same morass as the force of Hitler and Mussolini. There will be just a difference of degree. You and I who believe in non-violence must use it at the critical moment. We may not despair of touching the hearts even of gangsters, even if, for the moment, we may seem to be striking our heads against a blind wall. (H, 10-12-1938, p. 372)
5. “How could a disarmed neutral country allow other nations to be destroyed? But for our army which was waiting ready at our frontier during the last war we should have been ruined.”At  the risk of being considered a visionary or a fool I must answer this question in the only manner I know. It would be cowardly of a neutral country to allow an army to devastate a neighbouring country. But there are two ways in common between soldiers of war and soldier of non-violence, and if I had been a citizen of Switzerland and President of the Federal State, what I would have done would be to refuse passage to the invading army by refusing all supplies. Secondly, by reenacting a Thermopylx in Switzerland, you would have presented a living wall of men and woman and children, inviting invaders to walk over your corpses. You may say that such a thing is beyond human experience and endurance. I say that it is not so. It was quite possible. Last year in Gujarat, women stood LATHI charges unflinchingly, and in Peshawar, thousands stood hails of bullets without resorting to violence. Imagine these men and women staying in front of an army requiring a safe passage to another country. The army would be brutal enough to walk over them, you might say. I would then say you will still have done your duty by allowing yourself to be annihilated. An army that dares to pass over the corpses of innocent men and women would not be able to repeat that experiment. You may, if you wish, refuse to believe in such courage on the part of the masses o men and women, but, then, you would have to admit that non-violence is made of sterner stuff. It was never conceived as a weapon of the weak but of the stoutest hearts. (YI, 31-12-1931, p. 427)
6. Like opium production, the world manufacture of swords needs to be restricted. The sword is probably responsible for more misery in the world than opium. (YI, 19-11-1925, p. 397)

In Christianity’s rejection of the non-violent teaching of Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi had much to say:

1. Live like Jesus did, and the world will listen.
2. “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
3. It is a first class human tragedy that people of the earth who claim to believe in the message of Jesus, whom they describe as the Prince of Peace, show little of that belief in actual practice.
4. If all Christian acted like Christ, the whole world would be Christian.

Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, was well educated, and one of the greatest thinkers of Catholicism in the 20^th century, was also one who took the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi on nonviolence very seriously. Thomas Merton studied the life and writings of Gandhi and analyzed them in light of Christianity and the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. As Rasoul Sorkhabi wrote in his article, Thomas Merton’s Reflections on Mahatma Gandhi (Satyagraha Foundation for Nonviolence Studies, April 13, 2016, under Gandhi, Theory), “Merton quotes Gandhi as saying: “Jesus died in vain if he did not teach us to regulate the whole life by the eternal law of love.”

Rasoul Sorkhabi continues, “In “Gandhi: The Gentle Revolutionary” Merton remembers his first encounter with Gandhi in 1931 when Gandhi was visiting London as a representative of the Indian Congress to the Round Table Conference that the British government had convened to discuss the issue of India’s demands for independence. Merton was then a student at Oakham boarding school in Rutland, England. He was sympathetic to Gandhi’s ideals about a free India and recalls an argument he had with his school football coach who believed that Indians were primitive people and needed to be governed by the British Raj. Merton writes that “a dozen years after Gandhi’s visit to London there were more hideous barbarities perpetuated in Europe, with greater violence and more unmitigated fury than all that has ever been attributed by the wildest imaginations to the despots of Asia. The British Empire collapsed. India attained self-rule. It did so peacefully and with dignity. Gandhi paid with his life for the ideals in which he believed. … He singles out Gandhi “as a great leader, one of the noblest men of our century”, because he was truly and sincerely (not opportunistically or verbally) committed to peace politics. Gandhi objected to politics as a means to empower oneself and to humiliate or wipe out the other party in battle, and instead suggested svadharma (personal responsibility) as characterizing a political action based on a religious understanding of being, life, love and our place in the world. Merton quotes Gandhi: “If love is not the law of our being, the whole of my argument falls to pieces.” Merton refers to Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha (Truth Force) and defines it as “simply conforming one’s words to one’s inner thought.” Merton then explains that “our aims, our plans of actions, our outlook, our attitudes, our habitual response to the problems and challenges of life” more effectively than words speak of our inner being.”

In his essays and books, Merton wrote extensively about nonviolence and war, and how Christians MUST embrace the nonviolence and love of Christ if war is ever to be eliminated from the human condition. He writes that “Unless we set ourselves immediately to the task, both as individuals and in our political and religious groups, we tend by our passivity and fatalism to cooperate with the destructive forces that are leading inexorably to war. It is a problem of terrifying complexity and magnitude, for which the Church itself is not fully able to see clear and decisive solutions. Yet she must lead the road on the way toward nonviolent settlement of difficulties and toward the gradual abolition of war as the way of settling international or civil disputes.”

Merton refers that it was Christ who liberated human from the blood-drinking gods of war, “by the death of a God Who delivered Himself to the cross and suffered the pathological cruelty of His own creatures out of pity for them. In conquering death He opened their eyes to the reality of a love which asks no questions about worthiness, a love which overcomes hatred and destroys death.” However, Merton warns that humanity has once more “come to reject this divine revelation of pardons and they are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink blood and eat the flesh of men. It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism.”

Merton also states the principle that the cartoonist, Walt Kelly, said so succinctly by his character, Pogo, in the comic strip “Pogo”, “We have met the enemy and is he us,” when Merton wrote, “Do not be quick to assume that your enemy is an enemy of God just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy precisely because he can find nothing in you that gives glory to God. Perhaps he fears you because he can find nothing in you of God’s love, and God’s kindness, and God’s patience and mercy and understanding of the weakness of men.”

The last but not least invaluable insight has of what Christianity can bring to nonviolence is “precisely the advantage of nonviolence that it has a more “Christian and more humane notion of what is possible. Where the powerful believe that only power is efficacious, the nonviolent resister is persuaded by the efficacy of love, openness, peaceful negotiation, and above all of truth. For power can guarantee the interests of some men, but it can never foster the god of all man.”

Below are these thoughts in the words of Merton in their full context.

1. There can be no question that unless war is abolished the world will remain constantly in a state of madness and desperation in which because of the immense destructive power of modern weapons, the danger of catastrophe will remain imminent and probably at every moment everywhere. Unless we set ourselves immediately to the task, both as individuals and in our political and religious groups, we tend by our passivity and fatalism to cooperate with the destructive forces that are leading inexorably to war. It is a problem of terrifying complexity and magnitude, for which the Church itself is not fully able to see clear and decisive solutions. Yet she must lead the road on the way toward nonviolent settlement of difficulties and toward the gradual abolition of war as the way of settling international or civil disputes. Christians must become active in every possible way, mobilizing all their resources for the fight against war. First of all there is must to be studied, much to be learned. Peace is to be preached, nonviolence is to be explained as a practical method, and not left to be mocked as an outlet for crackpots who want to make a show for themselves. Prayers and sacrifice must be used as the most effective spiritual weapons in the war against war, and like all weapons they must be used with deliberate aim: not just as a vague aspiration for peace and security, but against violence and war. This also implies that we are also willing to sacrifice and restrain our own instinct for violence and aggressiveness in our relations with other people. We may never succeed in this campaign, but whether we succeed or not the duty is evident. It is the great Christian task of our time. Everything else is secondary, for the survival of the human race itself is depends on it. We must at least face this responsibility and do something about it. And the first job of all is to understand the psychological forces within ourselves and in society. (“The Root of War” I in the Catholic Worker 28, October 1961.)
2. Strong hate, the hate that takes joy in hating, is strong because it does not believe itself to be unworthy and alone. It feels the support of a justifying God, of an idol of war, and avenging and destroying spirit. From such blood-drinking gods the human race was once liberated, with great toil and terrible sorrow, by the death of a God Who delivered Himself to the cross and suffered the pathological cruelty of His own creatures out of pity for them. In conquering death He opened their eyes to the reality of a love which asks no questions about worthiness, a love which overcomes hatred and destroys death. But men have now come to reject this divine revelation of pardons and they are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink blood and eat the flesh of men. It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one only has to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or one’s neighbor. (New Seeds of Contemplation, 73-74, New York: New Direction, 1962)
3. Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you were capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy. Do not be quick to assume that your enemy is an enemy of God just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy precisely because he can find nothing in you that gives glory to God. Perhaps he fears you because he can find nothing in you of God’s love, and God’s kindness, and God’s patience and mercy and understanding of the weakness of men. Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God, for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice, your mediocrity and materialism, your sensuality and your selfishness that have killed his faith. (New Seeds of Contemplation, 77, New York: New Direction, 1962)
4. Instead of trying to use the adversary as leverage for one’s own effort to realize an ideal, nonviolence seeks only to enter into dialogue with him in order to attain, together with him, the common good of man. Nonviolence must be realistic and concrete. Like ordinary political action, it is no more than the “art of the possible.” But precisely the advantage of nonviolence that it has a more “Christian and more humane notion of what is possible. Where the powerful believe that only power is efficacious, the nonviolent resister is persuaded by the efficacy of love, openness, peaceful negotiation, and above all of truth. For power can guarantee the interests of some men, but it can never foster the god of all man. Power always protect the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. Any claim to build the security of all on force is a manifest imposture. (Passion for Peace: The Social Essays, pp. 254, ed. William H. Shannon, New York: Crossroads, 1995)

 In an article entitiled, “Thomas Merton, the problem of war and the character of Christian non-violence”, Gregory Hillis, an associate professor of theology at Bellarmine University, writes:

“One of my favourite Merton books is Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, published in 1965. It’s a unique book. It contains no narrative flow, but is rather a series of brief meditations on the world and the church. Merton holds nothing back in this book in his criticism of the dominant political climate of the 1960s and of the willingness of his fellow Roman Catholics to buy into a politics dominated by individualism and power. This Merton calls the “practical atheism” of many Christians who not only buy the dominant political culture, but who actually view power and coercion as the most appropriate and realistic approach to deal with adversaries.

“But Merton will have none of this. Throughout his writings, Merton emphasizes repeatedly that the genuine transformation of human society can never occur through violence. At best, violence begets hatred and more violence. At worst, in a nuclear age, violence results in the destruction of all life.

“Thomas Merton argues that Christ came to inaugurate a new way of being, a new Kingdom in which the predominant mode of doing politics in the world is rejected. Nonviolence is not to be rejected, as it so often is by Christians and non-Christians alike, as “phony and sentimental.” Rather, based as it is on a decidedly Christian understanding of humanity in light of the Incarnation, it is the only means of being political that can actually lead to genuine transformation, a transformation rooted in love. For, as Merton writes, “Love, love only, love of our deluded fellow man as he actually is … this alone can open to the door to truth.” Not only, therefore, is it “a style of politics for peace.” It is for Merton the only style of politics open to Christians.” (www.abc.net.au/religion/thomas-merton-the-problem-of-war-and-the-character-of-Christian-non-violence)

Dr Martin Luther King Jr

Much has been written by Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and about Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Dr Martin Luther King Jr, was a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, and adapted Gandhi’s teachings on nonviolence to his own Christian ministry and his work for the civil right of Afro-Americans in the United States. While King focused the majority of his life and his words to nonviolent change, at times, he would address the subject of warfare.

In a documentary on his life, it was said, “King came to view U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia as little more than imperialism. Additionally, he believed that the Vietnam War diverted money and attention from domestic programs created to aid the Black poor. Furthermore, he said, “The war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home…We were taking the Black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.” Martin Luther King Jr. speaks out against the war https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-king-jr-speaks-out-against-the-war A&E Television Networks November 16, 2009

Other notable quotes of Dr Martin Luther King Jr on nonviolent change are:

1. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Bartleby research.
2. “We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself.”
3. “Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment.”
4. “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”
5. “Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism.” Reference: borgenproject.org/martin-luther-kings-quotes-about-nonviolence/

THE END OF THE JUST WAR THEORY AND A RETURN TO THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS

It has become clear over the past 90 years, that those who have studied the teachings of Jesus are rejecting the Christian Church teachings on the Just War Theory. Whether it be Gandhi, Merton, the Catholic Bishops of the NCCB, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the ability of humankind to destroy itself, and ALL LIFE on Earth, war is a moral evil that must end once and for all. During the Cold War, the only thing that prevented the United States and the Soviet Union from launching nuclear weapons toward one another was a perverse, twisted doctrine of MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION. Both nations realized that in to engage in a nuclear war was to assure their own self destruction as a nation.

The development of the Neutron Bomb, also known as an “enhanced thermonuclear radiation weapon” is one of the most perverse of all weapons invented by humankind. Unlike the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb which vaporized buildings, environment, and human life, because it is a low yield thermonuclear weapon, the neutron bomb releases enough radiation to kill ALL LIFE, but has a minimum destructive effect on buildings and other structures.

Depending on the pulse of radiation and the range of human life to the blast site would decide who quickly immediate and permanent incapacitation would occur to human life and how quick the radiation sickness from the blast would kill people. It is estimated that within 900 meters from the blast site, there would be immediate and permanent incapacitation of human life, with death from radiation sickness coming within 1 to 2 days. For those who are @ 1300 meters to 1400 meters from the blast site, radiation sickness would occur after several weeks.

POPE FRANCIS 1 AND FRATELLI TUTTI

On October 3, 2020, Pope Francis I released to the world his encyclical, Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Friendship (All Brothers, the way Francis of Assisi addressed his followers in his Admonitions)  What follows is a helicopter ride through the encyclical.

Throughout the encyclical Pope Francis I goes into detail how humanity throughout the world is regressing back into brutality. How political ideologies are poisoning not only those who are non-Christian but how Christianity itself has become poisoned. His solution to the destructiveness of war and violence is embracing the teachings of Jesus on love and nonviolence, something I have already expounded upon in the words of Gandhi, Merton and Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Pope Francis then addresses the evil and injustice of war.

256. “Deceit is in the mind of those who plan evil, but those who counsel peace have joy” (Prov 12:20). Yet there are those who seek solutions in war, frequently fueled by a breakdown in relations, hegemonic ambitions, abuses of power, fear of others and a tendency to see diversity as an obstacle.[237] War is not a ghost from the past but a constant threat. Our world is encountering growing difficulties on the slow path to peace upon which it had embarked and which had already begun to bear good fruit.

257. Since conditions that favor the outbreak of wars are once again increasing, I can only reiterate that “war is the negation of all rights and a dramatic assault on the environment. If we want true integral human development for all, we must work tirelessly to avoid war between nations and peoples. To this end, there is a need to ensure the uncontested rule of law and tireless recourse to negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as proposed by the Charter of the United Nations, which constitutes truly a fundamental juridical norm”.[238] The seventy-five years since the establishment of the United Nations and the experience of the first twenty years of this millennium have shown that the full application of international norms proves truly effective, and that failure to comply with them is detrimental. The Charter of the United Nations, when observed and applied with transparency and sincerity, is an obligatory reference point of justice and a channel of peace. Here there can be no room for disguising false intentions or placing the partisan interests of one country or group above the global common good. If rules are considered simply as means to be used whenever it proves advantageous, and to be ignored when it is not, uncontrollable forces are unleashed that cause grave harm to societies, to the poor and vulnerable, to fraternal relations, to the environment and to cultural treasures, with irretrievable losses for the global community.

258. War can easily be chosen by invoking all sorts of allegedly humanitarian, defensive or precautionary excuses, and even resorting to the manipulation of information. In recent decades, every single war has been ostensibly “justified”. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the possibility of legitimate defense by means of military force, which involves demonstrating that certain “rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy”[239] have been met. Yet it is easy to fall into an overly broad interpretation of this potential right. In this way, some would also wrongly justify even “preventive” attacks or acts of war that can hardly avoid entailing “evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated”.[240] At issue is whether the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the enormous and growing possibilities offered by new technologies, have granted war an uncontrollable destructive power over great numbers of innocent civilians. The truth is that “never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely”.[241] We can no longer think of war as a solution, because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits. In view of this, it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a “just war”. Never again war![242]

259. It should be added that, with increased globalization, what might appear as an immediate or practical solution for one part of the world initiates a chain of violent and often latent effects that end up harming the entire planet and opening the way to new and worse wars in the future. In today’s world, there are no longer just isolated outbreaks of war in one country or another; instead, we are experiencing a “world war fought piecemeal”, since the destinies of countries are so closely interconnected on the global scene.

260. In the words of Saint John XXIII, “it no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a fit instrument with which to repair the violation of justice”.[243] In making this point amid great international tension, he voiced the growing desire for peace emerging in the Cold War period. He supported the conviction that the arguments for peace are stronger than any calculation of particular interests and confidence in the use of weaponry. The opportunities offered by the end of the Cold War were not, however, adequately seized due to a lack of a vision for the future and a shared consciousness of our common destiny. Instead, it proved easier to pursue partisan interests without upholding the universal common good. The dread spectre of war thus began to gain new ground.

261. Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil. Let us not remain mired in theoretical discussions, but touch the wounded flesh of the victims. Let us look once more at all those civilians whose killing was considered “collateral damage”. Let us ask the victims themselves. Let us think of the refugees and displaced, those who suffered the effects of atomic radiation or chemical attacks, the mothers who lost their children, and the boys and girls maimed or deprived of their childhood. Let us hear the true stories of these victims of violence, look at reality through their eyes, and listen with an open heart to the stories they tell. In this way, we will be able to grasp the abyss of evil at the heart of war. Nor will it trouble us to be deemed naive for choosing peace.

262. Rules by themselves will not suffice if we continue to think that the solution to current problems is deterrence through fear or the threat of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Indeed, “if we take into consideration the principal threats to peace and security with their many dimensions in this multipolar world of the twenty-first century as, for example, terrorism, asymmetrical conflicts, cybersecurity, environmental problems, poverty, not a few doubts arise regarding the inadequacy of nuclear deterrence as an effective response to such challenges. These concerns are even greater when we consider the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences that would follow from any use of nuclear weapons, with devastating, indiscriminate and uncontainable effects, over time and space… We need also to ask ourselves how sustainable is a stability based on fear, when it actually increases fear and undermines relationships of trust between peoples. International peace and stability cannot be based on a false sense of security, on the threat of mutual destruction or total annihilation, or on simply maintaining a balance of power… In this context, the ultimate goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons becomes both a challenge and a moral and humanitarian imperative… Growing interdependence and globalization mean that any response to the threat of nuclear weapons should be collective and concerted, based on mutual trust. This trust can be built only through dialogue that is truly directed to the common good and not to the protection of veiled or particular interests”.[244] With the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, let us establish a global fund[245] that can finally put an end to hunger and favour development in the most impoverished countries, so that their citizens will not resort to violent or illusory solutions, or have to leave their countries in order to seek a more dignified life.

It should not be any surprise that there are Christians and Christian Theologians who oppose Pope Francis condemnation of the Just War.

In the October 6, 2020 article,” Pope questions usefulness of Church’s ‘just war’ doctrine”, By Charles Collins, Collins quotes Peter Koritansky, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Prince Edward Island, who said, “To suggest that war is intrinsically evil would mean that God, in commanding the chosen people to take up arms, commanded them to commit intrinsically evil actions. Similarly, such a suggestion would be contrary to the teaching of the Church, which has clearly opted for a just war doctrine over a pacifistic one.”

Conclusion: There is no Just War. All War is sinful.

To Koritansky’s criticism, I would say that the world is no longer the Medieval Ages in which weaponry was more primitive and incapable of destroying all life on earth. With weapons, nuclear, chemical, and biological that are capable of destroying all life on Earth, war is a SIN, an AFFRONT TO GOD THROUGH WHOM ALL LIFE IS CREATED.

As this is being written, Putin and his Russian military are brutally at war with Ukraine. The sheer amount of violent force against the Ukrainian military will crush them. However, the crushing of the Ukrainian army will NOT be end of the conflict. Ukrainians have formed militia undergrounds that will continue to fight, and kill Russians, just as sure as the Taliban continued to fight and inflict casualties upon the American occupying armed forces. Death will continue to reign and as Thomas Merton wrote so chillingly back in the 1960’s, “But men are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink blood and eat the flesh of men. It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one only has to be blinded by collective passion.” As the bodies of dead Ukrainians will stacked one upon another, so, too, will the body bags of dead Russian soldiers will start to be stacked on upon another and sent back to Russia. George W Bush ordered the cessation of news coverage of all the dead bodies of soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan during the war because of its huge negative impact on the American people. Putin will learn from his own people that war and violence is a dead end, which may end up violently lead to his own death.

For Christianity to have any relevance in the world, Christians must embrace the teachings of Jesus as expressed in the Gospels, and MUST embrace fully the rule of the early Christian Church that the killing of human life is forbidden. To kill, even in defense of one’s self, may not possess the severity of the sin committed by the aggressor, but it must still remain a sin. ALL LIFE MUST BE SACRED, NO EXCEPTIONS.

If, that means, as it did in the early Church that the Christian die rather than take the life of another human being, so be it. Do we as Christians believe what Jesus taught or do we think that the core of Jesus’ teaching was foolery and ridiculous. The challenge and criticism that Gandhi leveled at Christianity must be listened to and taken to heart. ”It is a first class human tragedy that people of the earth who claim to believe in the message of Jesus, whom they describe as the Prince of Peace, show little of that belief in actual practice. I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

As much as I admire Mahatma Gandhi, I would love to change the present path of Christianity and prove him wrong. As the American Bishops wrote so well in the Pastoral Letter on War and Peace in 1983, ” Jesus Christ, then, is our peace, and in his death-resurrection he gives God’s peace to our world. In him God has indeed reconciled the world, made it one, and has manifested definitely that his will is this reconciliation, this unity between God and all peoples, and among the peoples themselves. The way to union has been opened, the covenant of peace established. The risen Lord’s gift of peace is inextricably bound to the call to follow Jesus and to continue the proclamation of God’s reign (45). In the parlance of American capitalism, “the time has come to put our money where our mouth is.”