Vatican II

The Second Vatican Council condemned our nation’s use of the atomic bomb and the Catechism repeats its denunciation verbatim in No. 2314 (which someone quoted in the comments section):

“Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”

The council fathers certainly had the atomic bomb in mind when they put that sentence into Gaudium et Spes (as well as Dresden and Hamburg and even London). The Church’s condemnation is Biblical in its severity : a “crime against God and man.” If you want to fudge on an issue of Catholic morality, don’t pick this “firm and unequivocal” one.

But don’t make the opposite mistake either, concluding that America’s position in World War II was the moral equivalent of our enemies’. Pope John Paul II told our National Prayer Breakfast in the year 2000 that he was “personally grateful for what America did for the world in the darkest days of the 20th century.” Given our achievements in World War II, it seems clear that the dropping of the atomic bomb wasn’t “American Bloodlust” as Brad Birzer had it. No one seriously advocates following the Hiroshima example today. The U.S. military in the 21st century is a leader in weaponry and tactics that avoid harm to civilians (yes, I know there are horrific and disquieting exceptions. But these are not the rule).

Rather, the atomic bomb was a temptation to end the war the easy way — to end the war even if it meant vaporizing children. We didn’t do it out of bloodlust, we did it out of desperation and weariness (and in justified anger at the atrocities Japan was guilty of). The only problem is, once we took the devil’s bait, we found that the only way to rationalize what we did was to abandon moral logic. To obliterate cities, we had to obliterate right and wrong along with them.

Pope Paul VI said “few events in history have had such an effect on man’s conscience.” Pope John Paul II here includes Hiroshima and Nagasaki on a list of pilgrimage sites we should visit and remember in reparation on a par with the “holy cities” of the earth.

As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said in “What Now America?”

“When, I wonder, did we in America ever get into this idea that freedom means having no boundaries and no limits? I think it began on the 6th of August 1945 at 8:15 am when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. … Somehow or other, from that day on in our American life, we say we want no limits and no boundaries.”

Shortly before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said much the same thing. He associated the use of the atomic bomb with a host of modern abuses of freedom, including terrorism and biomedical attacks against human life.

“There no longer exists a ‘knowing how to do’ separated from a ‘being able to do,’ because it would be against freedom, which is the absolute supreme value. … Man knows how to clone men, and so he does it,” he said. “Man knows how to use men as a store of organs for other men, and so he does it; he does it because this seems to be a requirement of his freedom. Man knows how to build atomic bombs and so he makes them, being, as a matter of principle, also disposed to use them. In the end, terrorism is also based on this modality of man’s self-authorization, and not on the teachings of the Koran.”

American democracy is only as good as American morality. The only way for America to be a moral force in the world is for it to embrace the “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” it was founded on.

For Americans, the culture of life is built on the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The culture of death is built on “crimes against God and man.”

Tom Hoopes is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., where he teaches in the Journalism and Mass Communications department and edits the college’s Catholic identity speech digest, The Gregorian.

Former Ambassador Jon Huntsman

Carson’s got a great write-up on Jonah Goldberg taking NPR’s Mira Liasson to task for her sloppy use of the word isolationism. As Carson notes, Goldberg regrettably criticized Patrick Buchanan unfairly. But all in all, good that Goldberg didn’t let just Liasson get away with using the term like that.

It is true that Republican candidates are (finally) less zealous about foreign wars, which Liasson noted. Bachmann questioned why America should be involved in a Libyan civil war. Gingrich suggested that after 8 years in Iraq and 10 years in Afghanistan, that perhaps it was time to end our involvements there. Jon Huntsman suggested that we exit Iraq because we could no longer afford it.

With the exception of Bachmann’s comments on Libya, none of these suggest the current Republican field is dovish. Just that they see some limit on American military action overseas. That doesn’t make them isolationists. Perhaps the term non-interventionists would be closer to the mark.

But I have to tip my hat to columnist Tim Carney who offered a more forceful and passionate rebuke to Mira Liasson and Time writer Adam Sorenson for their use of isolationism. Carney has his guns blazing in an article titled: “Isolationist: n. Someone who, on occasion, opposes bombing foreigners.”

Carney suggests that calling Huntsman an isolationist just because he was less zealous about military action would mark the term’s descent into “permanent and utter meaninglessness.”

Hunstman was an AMBASSADOR TO CHINA! He speaks Mandarin. He was deputy assistant secretary of Commerce and ambassador to Singapore. His degree from U Penn is in international politics. He was deputy U.S. Trade Representative who launched the Doha free-trade talks. Wikipedia tells me he is or has been on the boards of “the Pacific Council on International Policy … the Brookings Institute Asia Policy Board, the Asia Society in New York, and the National Bureau of Asian Research.”

But he could be an “isolationist” if he wants us to do less bombing, policing, and shooting in the Muslim world?

Carney reminds us that just because some conservatives don’t want to fight in foreign wars, that doesn’t mean they are xenophobes. (NB: I’m not calling Huntsman a conservative — after all he supports civil unions, but I like what Huntsman is saying on foreign policy.)

Again Carney:

But someone can support — and applaud — the free interchange of people, money, goods, and ideas among nations, but if he doesn’t also want to trade fire with other nations, he’s an “isolationist”?

Carney is a good friend of mine. We were even roommates about ten years ago. I remember the arguments we got into over the Iraqi War. He warned me about the dangers of Bush’s Wilsonian foreign policy. I wish that I and fellow conservatives had listened to him (and Bob Novak) back then.

It appears now that more and more conservatives are thinking clearly about the limits of military action all across the globe. Thank God.

In the raid that bagged Osama bin Laden, the United States sent a military team into another country without that country’s explicit authorization or involvement to conduct a military operation against a target within that country’s borders. The team accomplished its narrowly defined mission and then left, without even considering further military action against the country.

That’s still an act of war, isn’t it?

I mean, I’m with Josh: I’m happy that Osama bin Laden breathes death and destruction no more. I also pray that he saw the Light and made some act of conversion before the SEALs’ bullets entered his face after he refused to surrender, thus ending his earthly journey.

I’m also happy that pretty much every single other terrorist leader is likely a little less comfortable these days.

But what does this means from the perspective of the Just War tradition?

I’ll state right out, I believe the invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, as well as the multi-national invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein were both justified. Part of the reason is the realities of modern, non-linear warfare.

Gone are the days when the greatest threats to a nation-state were neighboring nation-states and their infantry, canon, and cavalry. Gone are the days when wars consisted of battle lines drawn on maps, criss-crossing national boundaries, pitting war machine against war machine. We have entered an age when non-state organizations establish bases in sympathetic countries, train non-uniformed, militarized civilians, seek to acquire terrible weapons for use in non-conventional ways, and intend to wreak havoc in other countries, with no advance warning or declaration, usually against civilian targets, for ideological or sectarian reasons. That simply does not fit anywhere into the Christian Just War tradition.

And any thought that the domestic law enforcement and domestic judicial structures are the proper arena to deal with such threats is just silly. Prosecuting as a common criminal the terrorist who gets caught alive while not addressing the larger organization that produced that terrorist and many like him does nothing to uproot the problem. It’s like picking a few leaves off of a tree that threatens your house, but ignoring the drooping branch and the leaning trunk planted in your derelict—perhaps openly hostile—neighbor’s yard. International politics are Hobbesian rather than Lockean, and we best not forget that.

Now, we cannot jettison the principles of Just War doctrine in formulating our response to such acts of aggression as 9/11 (or even the bombing of the USS Cole), but it certainly calls for a consideration of what the Just War tradition can allow; how the tradition must be further developed in light of technological advances and the threat posed by such non-state aggressors. Threats that were simply unfathomable to Ambrose, Augustine, and Aquinas, but are all-too-real nowadays.

Is it really “pre-emptive war” if the despotic leader of the target nation has already committed acts of war, even if not conventional military invasion of other countries, through sponsorship of aggressive actions by international terrorist organizations, and is also known to be pursuing greater means of inflicting harm against neighbors? Or does a state of war already exist between the despotic leader and the targeted nation, even if not declared, thus taking the “pre-emptive” tag away?

Is it legitimate to topple a government known to sponsor and/or give safe harbor to international non-state aggressor organizations that have carried out aggressive actions against other countries?

Is it legitimate to send strike teams into another country with whom you are not at war—but who either lacks the political will or the ability to handle certain situations on their own—to eliminate individuals known with certainty to be responsible for acts of international aggression? This is with the explicit understanding that the strike teams mean no proximate threat to the sovereign government and will leave upon completion of the task at hand.

I don’t propose that I have the final answer, but at this point I believe all three cases are legitimate expressions of Just War in the new and continuing age of international non-state aggressor organizations that usually target civilians. I’m sure many here disagree, but it is a discussion that needs to be had.

I think Dr. Kreeft’s final example—that of an incapacitated father lying to prevent his daughter being raped in front of him—deserves more consideration and fleshing out.

If the father were not tied down, what would he have done to prevent his daughter’s rape? LIkely anything he possibly could. He would fight for her, doing everything in his physical power to prevent the rapist from carrying out his diabolical intention.

Physical violence is justifiable in defense of another, up to the point of taking the assailant’s life if the situation warrants. But this is not murder, because the assailant had surrendered his right to his own life by posing a mortal threat to one who did not merit capital punishment. It also is not proportionalism, because we are not weighing possible outcomes “in the grand scheme of things” and opting for the one we deem “less bad;” rather we are observing a reality and the extraordinary moral considerations it poses, and acting appropriately.

But what gift is more precious than the gift of one’s life? We are, after all, discussing this within the “pro-life” movement and in defense of life.

So we agree, and it is established beyond the this small discussion, that violence against another’s person up to and including severing them from their very life can be morally permissible and even morally correct in some circumstances. (Indeed, civil policing and waging a just war rest upon this point.) And this is not proportionalism or nominalism, or any of the other heretical moral systems; this is Catholic morality. (Absolute pacifists, stand down: you renounce violence for yourselves, but yours is not the binding teaching of the Church.)

So what of the case of a father telling a lie to prevent his daughter’s rape? What is he violating? The Catechism definition of a “lie” seems to condemn a lie to prevent a rape, while allowing for physical violence to prevent the very same rape. The principle against lying cites Christ’s self-identification with the truth: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” This indicates, the thinking goes, that the truth is an inviolable and sacred unity as is Christ, and any intentional violation of truth is a violence to the body of Christ, which is Truth. But note the third self-identification in that quote: “I am…the life.” We have already noted that one can surrender one’s God-given right to this earthly life through one’s actions, so can one surrender one’s right to be told the truth in all cases also?

Read the pertinent paragraphs from the Catechism, thinking the entire time about the “victim” of the lie being a would-be rapist, and the one telling the lie as the father trying to protect his daughter’s virtue. I’ve bolded some parts for emphasis:

2483 Lying is the most direct offense against the truth. To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead someone into error. By injuring man’s relation to truth and to his neighbor, a lie offends against the fundamental relation of man and of his word to the Lord.

2484 The gravity of a lie is measured against the nature of the truth it deforms, the circumstances, the intentions of the one who lies, and the harm suffered by its victims. If a lie in itself only constitutes a venial sin, it becomes mortal when it does grave injury to the virtues of justice and charity.

2485 By its very nature, lying is to be condemned. It is a profanation of speech, whereas the purpose of speech is to communicate known truth to others. The deliberate intention of leading a neighbor into error by saying things contrary to the truth constitutes a failure in justice and charity. The culpability is greater when the intention of deceiving entails the risk of deadly consequences for those who are led astray.

2486 Since it violates the virtue of truthfulness, a lie does real violence to another. It affects his ability to know, which is a condition of every judgment and decision. It contains the seed of discord and all consequent evils. Lying is destructive of society; it undermines trust among men and tears apart the fabric of social relationships.

Those paragraphs were written clearly and unequivocally condemning telling lies to one who is good and trusting and will act in good faith based on what you say. There is no doubt that you cannot lie to a neighbor who has every reason to trust you and who, to be sure, would never tell a lie to you.

But we know who a “neighbor” is from the parable of the Good Samaritan. A neighbor is not just the person who lives next door; a neighbor is someone who is in need of your good will and/or someone who is able and willing to help another in need.

In other words, a neighbor is not someone who would invade your home, subdue you, tie you to a chair, and make ready to rape your daughter in front of you. A would-be rapist is not your neighbor and has earned the violence (against his body or mind) that would be necessary to prevent him from raping your daughter. That the Catechism does not treat upon this does not mean it isn’t so, or that we should set aside what are legitimate lacunae in the official consideration of lying.

Now consider another case, and one that is more directly analogous to what Live Action did. A police officer poses as a 13 year-old girl on Facebook, as a ruse to find criminal perverts. Is it immoral for the officer to engage in discussion with others under that false pretense? The officer engages in discussion with others as a fictional girl, sharing status updates, talking about tests at school that didn’t happen, talking about fictitious friends and their relationships, fictional pets, a mom and dad who don’t exist, and even how much she loves the pink curtains in her non-existent bedroom. None of it is real, but is it wrong?

Again, by the strictest of strict interpretations of the definition of a “lie” provided in the Catechism, quoted above, it seems like it would be. But note: the “victim” of the lie (the pedophile) will only be “vitimized” by the lie if he chooses to act in a horribly immoral manner. As with the would-be rapist above, the “victim” of the lie is not a neighbor, and has no claim on truth in the circumstances into which he has placed himself.

As Dr. Kreeft said, men are neither angels nor computers and thus neither immediately grasp all moral considerations, nor operate according to strict programmatic principles in all cases without exception.

What Lila Rose and company did was indeed deceptive, but they did not put into the mind of the folks at Planned Parenthood to act in an immoral manner, thus the “victims” of the lie were only “victimized” because they pursued an un-neighborly course of action.