RC MILORD - ORDMIL CR
CANADA
After the above video by Brother Cole, OFM you will understand the reasons behind Fratelli tutti (EN), in regards to the just war comments of Pope Francis.
Remember -
JUST WAR DOCTRINE IS A
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Vous comprendrez les raisons qui se cachent derrière le document Fratelli tutti (FR), par rapport aux commentaires du pape François sur la guerre juste.
Souvenez-vous -
Pope Francis tries to lay out the reasons why there is so much injustice, inequality, and community breakdown in our world and how in faith and love these can be addressed.
Pope Francis proposes—but does not definitively teach—that given that the just war tradition of jus in bello is routinely violated, perhaps it is better to set aside the concept of just war
Fratelli Tutti goes about as far as one can go toward critiquing the notion of just war without rejecting it wholesale.
[W]e must also consider whether policy failure itself may be a reason to question military interventions for the purpose of humanitarian rescue.
Drew Christiansen, S.J. (Georgetown Univ.)
Pacem in terris is the charter of modern Catholic political theology, so what the Church says about R2P has a fundamental bearing on its view of political legitimacy. Of course, the defense of rights does not necessarily entail the use of armed force, but the Church would have to make a firm shift to pacifism to reject altogether the use of force in R2P missions. Despite the well-publicized entreaties from Pax Christi International and the advocates of just peace, it has not yet done so.
''Catholic activists praise pope's move away from just war theory''
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In a footnote...the pontiff appears to go a bit further, stating that Augustine (4th Century) "forged a concept of 'just war' that we no longer uphold in our own day." says Marie Dennis.
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Loreto Sr. Teresia Wamuyu Wachira, a current Pax Christi co-president, called the pope's words in Fratelli Tutti "a shift to a new way of thinking." Wachira, a Kenyan who attended both of the Vatican conferences, said the pontiff is saying simply that "war has failed."
Loreto Sr. Teresia Wamuyu Wachira of Nairobi, Kenya (CNS/Pax Christi International)"For me, he's not mincing his words," said Wachira, a member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. "He's kind of inviting us to think different and to act differently."
Rather than contradicting the just war theory initiated by Augustine and refined in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas, Francis appeals to Augustinian reasoning and the idea of proportionality to propose a novel interpretation of the theory.
Peter Isackson
(source Fair Observer)
(Novena news)
On the question of a just war, which the New Yord Times prefers to ignore, three distinct positions have now emerged.
The first is the Augustinian notion that in rare circumstances war can be justified.
The second is Francis’ position that, given the destructive force of war in our time, no war can be just.
The third version of a “just war” is the New York Times’ position, evidenced in its reporting and editorializing in recent decades with regard to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Venezuela. It could be paraphrased as: All we want in our foreign policy is war, just war and little else.
« Quant à ceux qui se vouent au service de la patrie dans la vie militaire, qu’ils se considèrent eux aussi comme les serviteurs de la sécurité et de la liberté des peuples, s’ils s’acquittent correctement de cette tâche, ils concourent vraiment au maintien de la paix »
(G&S n° 79-5 repris au n° 2310 du CEC (& 483 Compendium).
"Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace''.
(G&S no. 79-5 taken from no. 2310 of the CCC (& 483 Compendium).
Part of the seventh chapter, then, focuses on war: “a constant threat”, that represents “the negation of all rights”, “a failure of politics and of humanity”, and “a stinging defeat before the forces of evil”.
Moreover, due to nuclear chemical and biological weapons that strike many innocent civilians, today we can no longer think, as in the past, of the possibility of a “just war”, but we must vehemently reaffirm: “Never again war!”
The total elimination of nuclear arms is “a moral and humanitarian imperative”.
With the money invested in weapons, the Pope suggests instead the establishment of a global fund for the elimination of hunger
(Cf. see Par 255-262, Vatican News)
Cardinal Michael Czerny (Czechoslovakian-born Canadian), undersecretary of the Vatican's Migrants and Refugees Section,
(Photo, Rome, Sept. 27, 2019)
At a Nov. 18 event in Rome, Cardinal Czerny said that Pope Francis's teachings on the "just-war" theory are a crucial point of reflection in today's world where morally justified reasons for aggression and violence are often misused.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the justification for going to war is “subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy.” However, in Fratelli Tutti, the pope warned that “it is easy to fall into an overly broad interpretation of this potential right.”
Junno A Esteves
(Crux Now)
Junno A Esteves
(Maryknoll)
La «mécanique de la guerre, le matériel de guerre, est lui-même un argument contre toute justification possible», déclare le Pape.
“Such distinctions are very important. Peacekeeping, as nowadays understood by the international community, does not at all seem to be what Pope Francis has in mind in his condemnation of ‘war’,” Prof. P. Koritansky told Crux.
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D. Cosacchi said Francis is preparing the ground for his successor to make a more definitive judgement on the legitimacy of war.
On war, Pope Francis reaffirmed the traditional principle of the possibility of just war, while putting forth a strict warning about how it has been abused to justify every kind of war:
“The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the possibility of legitimate defence by means of military force, which involves demonstrating that certain ‘rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy’ have been met. Yet it is easy to fall into an overly broad interpretation of this potential right … 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!” (FT 258)
This cry from the heart for an end to all wars has a footnote (242), in which Francis laments how the concept of just war is not upheld today. As the basis for his own appeal for an end to all wars, Francis quotes St. Augustine, the Church Father who developed the concept of just war, who wrote, “It is a higher glory still to stay war itself with a word, than to slay men with the sword, and to procure or maintain peace by peace, not by war.”
Finally, Francis quotes Pope St. John XXIII, who wrote in his encyclical Pacem in Terris(1963), “It no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a fit instrument with which to repair the violation of justice.”
Mgr Antoine de Romanet
Ordinaire
Guerre juste et injustice de la guerre
Le pape développe l’impératif d’une authentique fraternité universelle et de la recherche d’un bien commun de toutes les Nations et Peuples de la Terre, bien commun qui sera toujours plus que la simple addition des intérêts personnels de chacun.
A quoi devons-nous accepter de renoncer personnellement pour le bien de tous ? Comment faire de tout homme mon prochain au-delà des frontières humaines, culturelles ou géographiques ? Ces questions que nous pose l’Evangile prennent une actualité renouvelée, de vie ou de mort, à l’heure où mondialisation et progrès techniques nous placent tous résolument devant la réalité incontournable de l’unité de notre destin (Mgr Romanet)