Pope Francis: “The spirit of war is to destroy everyone”
ROME. On Friday, Pope Francis reiterated his opposition to the “just war theory”, stating that “war always humiliates us.”
After the screening of the documentary film “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Struggle for Freedom” directed by Yevgeny Afineevsky in the Vatican, the pontiff, in an impromptu address to those present, including members of the Ukrainian community in Rome, condemned all wars without distinction.
“When God created man, he said to take the earth, make it grow, make it beautiful,” said the pope. “The spirit of war is the opposite: destroy, destroy, prevent growth, destroy everyone, men, women, children, old people, everyone.”
“Today marks the year of this war,” he continued. “Let’s look at Ukraine, let’s pray for Ukraine and open our hearts to sorrow.”
“Let us not be ashamed to suffer and cry, for war is destruction, war always belittles us. May God help us to understand this,” he concluded.
Francis’ words confirmed the assertion he had repeatedly made, namely that, contrary to millennia of Catholic tradition, there is no just war.
“Once upon a time, even in our Churches, they talked about a holy war or a just war,” Francis told Patriarch Kirill of Moscow last March. “Today you can’t say that anymore. Wars are always unfair.”
While the popes of the past carefully formulated their teachings on war and peace in precise terms, with great respect for the ancient church teaching on the conditions of a just war, Francis was ready to simply reject and discredit the entire tradition.
At 13th century, the great theologian and doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, expounded a careful doctrine of the conditions necessary to justify the conduct of war, on the basis that war is sometimes just and sometimes unjust.
Continuing the teachings of his predecessor Saint Augustine, Aquinas wrote that those who exercise state power have a duty to look after the common good, and thus “because it is lawful for them to resort to the sword in order to protect the common good from internal disturbances”, as well as “their business is to resort to the sword of war to protect the common good from external enemies.”
In the same vein Catechism of the Catholic Churcha collection of official church teachings, indicates that a number of conditions are necessary to justify the use of military force.
It states that “the damage inflicted by the aggressor on a nation or community of nations must be lasting, serious and undoubted; all other means of putting an end to it were bound to be impractical or ineffective; there must be serious prospects for success; the use of weapons should not lead to evil and disorder more serious than the evil that must be eliminated.
“These are the traditional elements enumerated in the so-called just war doctrine,” the Catechism says.
The Catechism also states that those who serve their country in the armed forces “are ministers of the security and freedom of nations. If they honestly do their duty, they really contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace.”
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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.
