The Catholic Church should focus on promoting active nonviolence, rather than refining just war theory as conflicts continue to flare up around the world and threaten peace, U.S. Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego said.
“In the life of the church, just war theories are a secondary element in Catholic teaching; the first is that we should not engage in warfare at all,” he said in an interview with Vatican News published Sept. 23.
The cardinal, an adviser to the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence, which is scheduled to open in Rome Sept. 29, said that the use of just war theory as a justification for war “is a major problem.” The institute will be inaugurated by Pax Christi International, a global Catholic peace movement.
The cardinal’s comments echo a sentiment repeatedly expressed by Pope Francis. In a 2022 interview with Telam, Argentina’s public news agency, Pope Francis stated it is “time to rethink the concept of a ‘just war.’” Although he affirmed the right to self-defense, he said society must rethink how it uses the concept of just war, adding that “resolving conflicts through war is saying no to verbal reasoning, to being constructive.”
According to the Vatican, during a video call with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow that same year, the pope said, “There was a time, even in our churches, when people spoke of a holy war or a just war. Today we cannot speak in this manner. A Christian awareness of the importance of peace has developed….”
From the Southern Cross
How does the Cardinal feel about “Lawfare against conservatives”?
Liberals are pathetic with their pretense at having a higher moral ground. No death penalty. No war. No imprisonment. No police/defund them. Can’t you see how dangerously stupid liberals are?
I bet McElroy locks his car and his doors. Is there security at the chancery?
Liberals are totally divorced from reality.
In the Middle East how can you have a non violent peace when those you are fighting against like Hamas and Hezbollah and use their own people as human shields? Israel is fighting for its very survival as a nation. Pray for an end to war in the Middle East and Ukraine.
That entails praying for the eradication of Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, and such.
Check from Mossad is in the mail
They provide my checks in matzo balls.
What they did to Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie talkies was cunningly brilliant. Mossad doesn’t mess around.
That is not the historic Christian tradition. Are we to simply surrender to the Communists, terrorists and others?
War is always the last resort, but it is the last resort. Should we have surrendered to Imperial Japan and the Nazis?
LOL! So we should have allowed Hitler to continue massacring Jews and others? We should have allowed Hirohito to get away with murdering our heroes at Pearl Harbor? This guy requires history lessons as well as a reality check.
It would allow Putin to kill the people of Ukraine.
Liberal, sinister, cowardly, extremist McElroy should read his Bible carefully. It is one’s duty to God to protect and defend your family, neighbors, and country against all evil harms by violent aggressors. After the tragic attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on Dec. 7, 1941, Billy Graham and thousands of other, fine American young men ran to sign up for military service to valiantly defend their country. Clerics can and should become military chaplains. Graham was turned down repeatedly by the military because he was underweight and could not seem to overcome that problem.
There was the famous case of Sgt. Alvin York, a WWI hero of whom a famous movie was nade. York was a serious young Christian of a pacifist church in Tennessee, drafted into the military in WWI. He signed up yo be a Conscientious Objector, but was turned down, because his church was not registered as such. Several military officers who were devout Christians and pacifists at heart, helped York resolve his difficult dilemma. They showed him how a Christian can be a pacifist at heart– and also, fight in a war, killing a dangerous aggressor, to save lives and protect his country. Fighting in self-defense is also a part of Biblical teaching. When York saw the Germans kill several men in his unit, in a terrible battle– he understood, and jumped into action, with remarkable courage and unusual marksmanship. That day, he became a war hero, and was much-celebrated by Americans, after that day. He had helped America win the war, and save lives.
Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth, loved animals from childhood. She was not very happy with Billy, once, in 1940, when the two were dating, because Billy insisted on carrying a gun to protect her from a possible alligator or crocodile attack. During that time, Billy was attending a Bible college in Florida, and Ruth went to visit him. One day, a great, big, huge alligator, more than seven or eight feet long, appeared suddenly, as they were walking along. The alligator briskly moved towards the two– and Billy immediately shot it, and killed it. His girlfriend, Ruth, became very angry with him, and protested that the alligator had done nothing wrong, and deserved his life– and Billy had acted rashly. She refused to speak to him for a long time.
Billy had thought he was protecting his girlfriend from a possible alligator attack. He thought that Ruth did not understand how dangerous these creatures were, in Florida. Many of the Bible college students carried guns to protect themselves from a possible alligator or crocodile attack, because such attacks were very frequent. Billy and his girlfriend finally made up, and later, they got married. I have no idea if Billy or his future wife was the correct one, with the best judgment, in this situation. But I do know, that a Christian must only use force and violence in a special situation, for self-defense, or to protect others from harm. If the huge, scary alligator had been a violent human criminal, then Billy would surely have had to shoot the criminal, to protect his girlfriend. And if Billy was a coward, and refused to protect the girl from a violent attacker– he would be deemed unmanly, selfish, cruel, and worthless– like an accomplices to an act of violent murder. .
Sgt. York: The 1941 movie Sergeant York was directed by Howard Hawks, made by Warner Brothers starring Gary Cooper in the lead role. Cooper won the academy award best actor in a leading role. It’s a wonderful film well worth seeing. I highly recommend it.
I have always believed, since the day he became a priest in the SF Archdiocese, that McElroy should never have been allowed to enter a seminary nor serve the Church in any way. All he ever did, from Day One, was use his clerical position as a political force to elevate the immoral LGBTs and their agendas, everywhere in the Church and in our society. McElroy has no understanding of the Biblically-based righteousness of self-defense, saving lives, and protecting your beloved family, community and country. Self-defense, and fighting in a just war, is honestly a religious duty to God. If a terrorist attacked one of McElroy’s churches during Mass, hopefully a brave parishioner would jump to try to stop the violent aggressor, and if the terrorist is then killed, so be it. Many lives will be saved. That is exactly why the Vatican has the Swiss Guard to protect the Pope– and a police force, too, to protect everyone in the Vatican, and thousands of pilgrims and tourists, too. This is a duty to God, highly necessary and important, in a world of darkness, ignorance and sin. Common sense tells you that verbal reasoning cannot possibly be relied upon– and is extremely dangerous– in the case of highly irrational, mentally-disordered, would-be assassins, murderers and terrorists. And verbal reasoning would have been totally useless, on Dec. 7, 1941, that tragic, fateful Sunday morning, when thousands of good Americans lost their lives, in the brutal Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Billy Graham had hoped to become a chaplain for the military in WWII. He was too underweight to be accepted, and worse– he got the mumps. Both Billy Graham and Ven. Abp. Fulton J. Sheen said that war was a result of sin, as we live in a fallen, sinful world. All Christians should seek to live in peace. If you must jump into action to protect yourself or others from violence, then you must act quickly, in unselfish sacrifice, and do your best, without using any excessive force, only the force required to stop the evil, violent act. If a terrorist attacks Trump or the Pope, the Secret Service and Swiss Guards selflessly jump to protect Trump or the Pope,, and stop the assassin, at all costs. If the assassin is killed, so be it. The Secret Service, police, soldiers, and Swiss Guards–and anyone else– take no “glory” in killing, it is a terrible duty, that must be done. God helps you stop that terrorist, He is at your side immediately, and so be it, if the terrorist dies. You did your best, you stopped the evil terrorist! This is an act of great heroism and virtue, not a sin. Same thing in war. Our great country, America, has always believed in only going to war in self-defense, a “just war,” to protect her citizens from all violent, evil invaders. This belief is a part of ancient Biblical teachings.
Of course, negotiations for peace with a violent, dangerous aggressor, is also important, in the case of an attack on your country. But you also are called to jump into action, ASAP, to protect and defend your country and its innocent citizens. Instead of pacifism, negotiators ought to try to seek good effective solutions for lasting peace, with a violent aggressor, to try to stop their attacks on your country.
One of the biggest hypocrites in the church of all time.
All we are saying, is give peace a chance
“…give peace a chance.” One should always work for peace, to be sure. But when confronted by a violent aggressor, Marie Anne, how would you give peace a chance? Your notion works well when two or more parties in dispute bury the hatchet and proceed to “give peace a chance.” Hirohito and the MacArthur sat down on the battleship Missouri and then and there decided to give peace a chance, thus signaling the end of World War 2. But up until then, there was not the disposition in the parties involved to give peace a chance. It took two atom bombs to convince the Japanese high command to surrender, after which the parties involved gave peace a chance. And it has been a good peace, at that.
I don’t know who “we” are, but when peace fails and an enemy attacks, one has a right, even duty, to defend one’s self and other innocent persons.
Of course, give peace a chance. Work for it. Pray for it. But, when peace is broken, defend the innocent.
The idiocy level of this so-called Cardinal is fast approaching infinity.
Wonder if he has a security detail at the chancery and his home ?, clearly has no knowledge of history.
Cardinal John Lennon.
“There was a time before our time, it will not come again, when the best ships were the wooden ships, but the men were iron men.”
It’s obvious a girly man is in charge of the San Diego diocese.
Sometimes you just have to hope and wait for some leaders to die. I do a lot of that lately.
Pacifists have no grasp of and no experience with violent evildoers.
There is such a thing as moral violence. It’s necessary sometimes to stop immoral violence with moral violence.
If you refuse to resist evil with necessary violent defense due to cowardice posing as moral superiority, you are enabling and assisting the enemy, which makes you yourself evil and an accomplice.
Pacifism is evil.
I’m not surprised that someone who is soft on abortion and soft on gays would also claim to be against moral violence. Liberalism is a mental disorder. They are wrong about everything.
“The cardinal’s comments echo a sentiment repeatedly expressed by Pope Francis.” Always the pope’s man. In hearing Cdl. McElroy we are really hearing Pope Francis. Could it be that McElroy has his eye on the pontificate?
After having studied theology myself for a few years formally and many more in practical ways I disagree with Cardinal Archbishop McElroy. The “Just War” theory comes from the basic law of self defense and the defense of others. Take, for example, the imaginary case of a young couple sleeping in their home and waking to the sound of screams from their child’s room. They jump from bed and run to the room to find a man standing over their child’s bed with a knife. The husband grabs the boy’s baseball bat and hits the man over the head, not taking time to contemplate the morality. He is acting on instinct. The stranger drops to his knees, dizzy with pain. The young woman grabs the blanket from the bed and puts it over his head while the young man takes a lamp cord and and ties it around his neck. Together they shove him to the floor and call 911.
They have acted justly.
A “Just War” is based on the same principle.
So apparently not only did God not really mean it when he put in the Bible that capital punishment should be allowed, he also didn’t mean it when he told Israel to take up arms against their enemies. I’d like to know what the revised Bible under Francis and Robert will say.
The naval battle of Lepanto, fought off the west coast of Greece on the 7th of October 1571 was a crushing victory for the Holy League over the Ottoman Empire, which saw most of its fleet sunk or captured. It was the Rosary that saved Christianity at the Battle of Lepanto. Pope Pius V placed his trust in God and had many prayers said. Was the Battle of Lepanto not a just war?
If they had prayed harder they wouldn’t have needed artillery.
Does the State bear the sword in vain?
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. When the going gets rough, the tough get rough.
Those who oppose “jus ad bellum” principles are naive and weak-willed, and have forgotten history. At worst, these people can even be curiously immoral in their stated lack of desire to defend the homeland, which masquerades as a sort of moral high-ground “neutrality”. Political and church Leaders – even with apparent good intent – can be fooled by the evil intent of nations and political movements intent on expanding territory. In 1912, President Woodrow Wilson campaigned on a promise to keep the US out of war. He was caught flat-footed when he finally signed a formal declaration of war in April of 1917. Those five years could have been used to prepare and arm for war and thus hasten a quick end to WW I. Again, at the beginning stages of World War II, Pope Pius XII tried to maintain a stance of neutrality, going as far as to meet up with Nazi officials and create a Reichskonkordat (an agreement) with Hitler. Of course, we know the history of WW II, where so often, MORE people died because those people who should have called for defense at first did not, thinking that neutrality was the moral high ground. Being ready to defend one’s home and nation against unjust aggressors is always the moral high ground.
“’In the life of the church, just war theories are a secondary element in Catholic teaching; the first is that we should not engage in warfare at all’, he said in an interview with Vatican News published Sept. 23.”…cold comfort for 60 million unborn children killed by abortionists at war since 1973
Thank God all these Francis cardinals are spewing their heresy. When the next conclave happens they will not be in the running because they will have a record of heresy. We need an African cardinal to kick some butt and restore orthodox order. Suppress the Jesuits, clean house, reverse some recent doctrinal misstatements, get back on track with what JPII and BXVI accomplished. Most importantly, stop this synodality silliness.