Invoking the Commandments in time of war
Invoking the Commandments in time of war
World leaders, the media, and everyday citizens–even religious leaders—seldom publicly invoke the Ten Commandments. Why not?
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/10/30/invoking-the-commandments-in-time-of-war/
A statue of Moses holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments, part of an architectural detail on a courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. (Image: Levi Meir Clancy/Unsplash.com)
Jesus teaches that the commandments to love God and neighbor form the foundations of the Ten Commandments. The first three Commandments teach us to love God; the following seven teach us to love neighbor. The temptation to dismiss the centrality of love in times of war is pervasive. But in such times, we must rediscover and apply the Commandments with vigor.
During the Civil War, Catholic priests accompanied both Northerners and Southerners. At Gettysburg, the statue of Father William Corby memorializes his blessing of the Irish Brigade before the battle. During WWII, Father Thomas O’Neil penned a prayer for General Patton’s troops before the Battle of the Bulge. A Jesuit priest who participated in the famous Saint Louis exorcism became a chaplain during the Korean War. He said he witnessed far greater evil during the war than during the possession.
During the Vietnam War, chaplains were fixtures among the troops. During the Iraq War, the Chicago Tribune featured a Catholic priest on its front page administering Extreme Unction to wounded Marines in the Battle of Fallujah. Historians suggest that the priests who accompanied the conquistadors helped to reduce the savagery of the Spanish conquest.
All of us are horrified by the murderous carnage in the Middle East. We’re all worried about an escalation that could engulf the entire region, if not the world. We increasingly hear that the Pope, bishops, and priests must support one side or the other. Some even damn the restraint of the generic prayers to end the violence as a moral failure to take the right side.
We all have our political points of view. Every priest has a right to express his private views as a citizen. But priests do not have the right to supplant the rights of the laity. From the pulpit and in our official teaching, with disciplined restraint, priests must enunciate Christian principles for the laity to apply (cf. Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Vatican II).
The Fifth Commandment reads, “Thou shalt not kill.” More precisely, it reads, “Thou shalt not murder.” A combatant has a right to kill an enemy while waging a just war (under the usual strict conditions) in national defense. However, there is no right to murder an enemy. Public authorities have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for the national defense.
Traditional Church teaching allows nations to wage just wars (cf. CCC 2309 ff). The rigorous conditions include:
§ The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.
§ All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.
§ There must be serious prospects of success.
§ The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
§ The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those responsible for the common good.
The Fifth Commandment, as understood by the Church over the years, also guides waging war (cf. CCC 2312 ff):
§ Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.
§ Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions.
§ Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out.
§ Thus, the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin.
§ One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.
§ “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” (cf. Vatican II, GS 80 #3).
We can justify, under strict conditions, attacks on the enemy (a good act within the context of a just war because it is an act of national self-defense) with the knowledge that non-combatants may be killed. The so-called traditional Catholic principle of double effect holds:
§ The nature of the act is itself good within the context of a just war.
§ The agent intends the good effect and does not intend the bad effect, either as a means to the good or as an end in itself.
§ The good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect, and the agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm.
Both sides should also consider the realism of Jesus in negotiating a settlement: “What king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace” (Lk. 14:31-32). We must not underestimate the value of face-to-face negotiations with enemies.
At some point, after the war runs its horrible course, the teaching of Jesus begins to make sense: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Mt. 5:38-40). The Church has always seen in these words not pacifism but long-suffering and a spirit of conciliation.
The Ten Commandments are not anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, or anti-Palestinian. They are pro-human. World leaders, the media, and everyday citizens–even religious leaders—seldom publicly invoke the Ten Commandments. Why not? After all, the Middle East is the cradle of the Jewish and Catholic faith.
For my part—as a Catholic priest from the pulpit—show me the action or incident supported with sufficient evidence, and I’ll try to evaluate its morality according to God’s law. But please do not ask me, as a Catholic priest, to make decisions that belong to the laity.
