Just wars do not exist – including this one!

The new Iran-U.S.-Israeli war – like all wars – is a hellish nightmare where violence feeds upon violence, and the innocent suffer the most – especially the children.
 
Recently, United Nations human rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani confirmed that an airstrike killed and injured dozens of girls in a primary school in Minab in the south of Iran.
“Children, little girls…at the beginning of the school day being killed in this manner, backpacks with bloodstains on them - this is absolutely horrific,” she said. “If there is any image that captures the essence of the destruction, despair and senselessness and cruelty of this conflict, those are the images” (see: https://bit.ly/3N2Ri5J). 
But those are only the most recent images, of countless other images, depicting the human violence of war endlessly inflicted upon fellow human beings – worst of all the merciless violence inflicted upon countless little innocent children throughout the world – from children in the womb, to children in school, war’s missiles and drones are indiscriminately severing their limbs and ending their short lives.  
 
All of this carnage should raise the question: Is there such a thing as a just war? Can the massive death and destruction of armed conflict ever be morally justified by followers of the Prince of Peace?
 
For the first disciples of Christ the answer was a resounding “No!”
 
During the first 300 years of Christianity, it was unthinkable for followers of the nonviolent Jesus to kill a human being. They took most seriously Jesus’ command: “But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other as well. … Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
 
Typical of early church teaching on nonviolence, St. Clement of Alexandria said to wealthy Christians: “Contrary to the rest of men enlist for yourself an army without weapons, without war, without bloodshed, without wrath, without stain – pious old men, orphans dear to God, widows armed with gentleness, men adorned with love.”
 
In 1982, St. Pope John Paul II declared: “Today, the scale and horror of modern warfare – whether nuclear or not – makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences between nations.”
 
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Pope Benedict XVI – then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – prophetically said, “Given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war.’” 
 
The current war initiated by the U.S. and Israel against Iran is clearly immoral when weighed against Catholic Social Teaching – including the “just-war theory,” which states that a war can only possibly be just if it is waged as a last resort.
 
How can it be honestly claimed that waging war against Iran was a last resort when Iran was engaged in serious, ongoing nuclear negotiations with the U.S. – and yet Israel and the U.S. attacked their nation even during these negotiations! No grave evidence exists that Iran was an imminent nuclear threat. And thus, the “just-war” criteria of “last resort” did not and does not exist here. 
 
Therefore, it is imperative that within a prayerful, honest and respectful atmosphere, the Catholic Church and all Christian churches – from the Vatican to every parish – desperately need to seriously study, dialogue and reevaluate the “just war” theory in light of the nonviolent Jesus, the early church’s pacifist stance, the impossibility of satisfying all of the just war theory’s principles, the immeasurable indiscriminate harm caused by war – including the vast resources wasted that should instead be used to help the world’s poor – and the unhealthy nationalism and militarism adhered to by countless Christians.
 
In the words of the famous Trappist monk Thomas Merton: “The God of peace is never glorified by human violence.” 
 
Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at [email protected].