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19 - Conscience and the Roman Catholic “Just War” Tradition

from Part III - Applied Topics in Law and Conscience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2021

By
Joseph E. Capizzi
Edited by
Jeffrey B. Hammond  and
Helen M. Alvare
Jeffrey B. Hammond
Affiliation:
Faulkner University
Helen M. Alvare
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
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Summary

Joseph Capizzi lays out Catholic just war theory and its tie to the Church’s teaching on conscience. The scriptural context for just war teaching is Jesus’ discourse in John 14, in which he promises to give peace, but not as world gives. The world’s peace is often tainted with the temptation to sacrifice neighbors and innocents. War can be an expression of conscience, but only if ordered toward peace, guided by morality, and open always to the conversion of self and neighbor. The just war approach excludes objectives such as vengeance. It prohibits direct harm to noncombatants. Both sides in a conflict are potential members of the community for whom peace is a goal. As against any duty of military service, US law currently protects the conscience of conscientious objectors (COs) who oppose all wars on the basis of religion or nonreligious morals. It does not, however, protect “selective conscientious objectors” (SCOs), those who oppose only unjust wars. Finally, consistent application of conscience protection instructs that soldiers with moral agency as rational beings with a conscience, should refuse to follow orders against their conscience and the moral law.

Keywords

combatantsnon-combatantsconscientious objectorsjust warMilitary Selective Service Actnation-statepeaceRoman CatholicismSelective Service Systemwar
Type
Chapter
Information
Christianity and the Laws of Conscience
An Introduction
 , pp. 375 - 394
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Recommended Reading

Anscombe, G. E. M. “Mr. Truman’s Degree.” In Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. 3, Ethics, Religion and Politics, 51–71. Minneapolis, mn: University of Minnesota Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Augustine, . The City of God against the Pagans, translated and edited by Dyson, R. W.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Capizzi, Joseph E. Politics, Justice, and War: Christian Governance and the Ethics of Warfare. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437 (1971).Google Scholar
Greenawalt, Kent. “All or Nothing at All: The Defeat of Selective Conscientious Objection.” The Supreme Court Review (1971): 31–94.Google Scholar
Johnson, James Turner. Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Murray, John Courtney SJ. “Remarks on the Moral Problem of War.” Theological Studies 20, no. 1 (1959): 40–61.Google Scholar
National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response (1983). www.usccb.org/upload/challenge-peace-gods-promise-our-response-1983.pdf.Google Scholar
Negre v. Larsen, 394 U.S. 968 (1969).Google Scholar
O’Donovan, Oliver. Just War Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Pope John, XXIII. Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), encyclical letter (1963).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsey, Paul. “The Uses of Power.” In The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility, 3–18. Lanham, md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.Google Scholar
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United States v. McFadden, 309 F. Supp. 502, 506 (1970).Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York, ny: Basic Books, 2015.Google Scholar
Zahn, Gordon. In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter. New York, ny: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964.Google Scholar

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