(Deal Hudson is editor and publisher of CRISIS, America's fastest growing Catholic magazine. He is also an advisor to President Bush. You can reach Deal at hudson@crisismagazine.com.)
You don’t need to be a pollster to know that many professors — the product of post-Vietnam confusion — are probably biting their tongues as the president leads this nation into war with terrorists. Who knows how long they can hold their peace? After all, the forty-year habit of denigrating the American military is difficult to reverse.
My friends on college campuses tell me that anti-war rumbling has already begun and will be escalating in a hurry. The nostalgia for the 60s protest marches and flag-burning may well find an unfortunate outlet in the midst of the present search for Osama bin Laden, the rest of his Al-Qaida terrorist network, and other terrorist groups.
To avoid being drawn into this confusion, American Catholics have at their disposal a set of principles to establish whether or not a war is just. Before the anti-war onslaught begins, we need to get a clear handle on these principles and their likely application to the war on terrorism.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2309) states, in summary, that a just war must 1) have serious prospects for success, 2) be in response to the aggressor who caused grave damage on a nation or community of nations, 3) must not unduly affect non-combatants, and, 4) be a last resort.
It is impossible in advance to determine whether or not a prospective military conflict is just without knowing the details of its operation. Many of the judgments regarding the justness of a war can only be made with a firm grasp of contingent facts, such as the targets, weaponry, personnel, overall strategy, and outcome.
Some facts, however, are known and can be judged in favor of making war on terrorists. This war is a “last resort.” Protracted negotiations with Pakistan and Afghanistan resulted in time given to terrorists for the planning and implementation of a September 11th bombing.
In my opinion, only immediate action — by diplomats, intelligence agents, police, and soldiers — can interfere with, and hopefully eliminate, future terrorist attacks in this country and around the world.
Of the five Catholic moral theologians I consulted only one of them had serious reservations about whether this would be a just war. (Dr. Michael Baxter of the University of Notre Dame thought that the war could not be won, that innocent lives could not be protected, and other diplomatic solutions should be pursued. The United States is in a “morally dangerous moment,” he said.
Baxter’s colleague at Notre Dame, Dr. Ralph McInerny, disagreed saying the government is “judicious and determined” in using all means necessary in seeking out the enemy instead of targeting an entire country. Dr. Russell Hittinger, professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, called the war against terrorism “completely unproblematical” because of past and continuing threat of attacks against this nation.)
On September 27, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls reiterated Vatican support for the United States if the administration decides force is necessary in protecting its citizens against terrorism. Navarro-Valls called such a military action legitimate self-defense, “an action of active prevention against a threat [of something] that has already occurred in the horror of a few weeks ago and can happen again.”
American Catholics are extremely patriotic and consideration of the just war principles will give them an informed opinion to confront the post-Vietnam confusion.
