The Gospel for a Just War

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by George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney Australia

In Matthew's gospel we read that when his opponents tried to trick Jesus on matters of tax, he replied "render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar -- and to God what belongs to God."

Our elected Government decides when Australia goes to war, one of its most serious responsibilities. Decisions about war belong to Caesar, not the church. What might Christian perspectives have to offer Caesar?

The teaching in the New Testament has an emphasis on loving, forgiving enemies and a special blessing for peacemakers. But the legitimacy of political authority is also acknowledged and the duty to repress evildoers. There are real tensions here.

Many of the persecuted Christian minority in the pagan Roman Empire were pacifists, an easier position when pagan armies defended the borders and maintained internal order. The Christian position then was like that of those Australians today who are invariably anti-American, while benefiting from the American peace achieved over the past 60 years. A world without the American superpower would be much more expensive and dangerous for Australians. MD5 hash

The theory of a just war, first spelt out by St Augustine in 5th-century North Africa, has been in continual development since then, with politicians and military thinkers, sometimes more than theologians, wrestling with the basic Augustinian requirement that a just war required a just cause, legitimate authority and right intention.

Today, just war theory canvasses what activities are legitimate in wartime as well as the criteria necessary to go to war, where three other preconditions are often added. Going to war should be a last resort, waged with the probability of success, and should not produce still greater evils.

In 1994, the Catholic Catechism limited the legitimate use of military force to defence against aggression. This did not deal with the possibility of military intervention against ethnic cleansing, terrorism and guerilla warfare. A significant prudential challenge now comes from the necessity of impeding terrorist networks' access to weapons of mass destruction produced by rogue states. Клиника лазерная терапия. королев.

Have the US, Britain and Australia given sufficient cause according to such an updated list of criteria for a just war? Not yet. Our leaders have yet to give us clear evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and terrorist links.

President George W. Bush is threatening a pre-emptive strike by the allies, with or without the UN's sanction, to prevent possible future attacks caused or abetted by Iraq.

A unilateral pre-emptive strike, without international sanction, would be a two-edged sword, a dangerous doctrine, destabilising the international order. We are told inaction could be more dangerous, but clearer evidence of this is necessary.

The US has traditionally opposed pre-emptive strikes since 1837, when the British navy seized the US ship Caroline and sent it over the Niagara Falls, because it was deemed a threat to British interests through its support for Canadian rebels.

Daniel Webster, then US secretary of state, stated that pre-emptive action could only be justified where there was "a necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment of deliberation." This was a simpler age.

Many of us remember the photos of the Soviet missile silos in the Cuban crisis in 1962. Similar evidence would now seem to be necessary, demonstrating that Iraq is aiding Muslim terrorists or that it is producing or stockpiling weapons of mass destruction; that it has not disarmed. The evidence Colin Powell will produce at the Security Council this week will be crucial.

Hussein is a tyrant to his own people, an oppressor of the Kurdish minority who has used weapons of mass destruction against Iran and the Kurds. He has defied for 12 years the 1991 UN peace condition that he disarm. It is claimed Hussein pays financial subsidies to Palestinian suicide bombers, and until recently subsidised the Abu Nidal terrorist group. A branch of al-Qaida is fighting a guerilla war against Hussein's enemies, the Kurds, in northern Iraq. Experts insist there is much more evidence. Enough of this should be made available.

Another important criterion for the just war is that non-combatants should not be harmed.

The 20th century saw a terrible deterioration here. In World War I civilian casualties were 5 per cent and in World War II 50 per cent. In Vietnam, civilian casualties rose again to 60 or 70 per cent. An overwhelming imperative for the allies must be to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq.

Due process is always important in Australian courts and due process is important internationally. This means working through the UN, an imperfect instrument of conflicting national interests, where many nations have poor human rights records. But the UN is all we have.

Important democracies like France and Germany remain unconvinced, despite the fact that Hussein has defied 17 UN resolutions and that resolution 678 of 1990 authorising the use of military force still stands. September 11 and Bali remain grim warnings.

While international support cannot decide the morality of invading Iraq, legitimate moral authority is one criterion for a just war. More public evidence is needed to demonstrate that the allied cause is just and to obtain Security Council backing.

Even people of good will who agree on the just war criteria will differ sometimes in their practical conclusions. Governments decide, but citizens should debate the morality of their decisions.

To my mind, it is morally justifiable for the Australian navy to enforce the embargo on Iraq and for Australian troops to pressure the Iraq dictator to comply with the UN peace conditions he accepted in 1991. These are honourable activities. But the public evidence is as yet insufficient to justify going to war, especially without the backing of the UN Security Council.

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