Cardinal Ratzinger: there's no "preventive war" in the catechism

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MikeWM:
Ah. So your opinion is that there isn’t any link between US Foreign Policy and morality? 🙂

Mike
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TOUCHE! http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon7.gif
 
people believe what they want to believe. we have catholics who think the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki was morally justified despite what the church says about indiscriminate bombing. the same is true here. it’s the same thing with capital punishment, or for “liberal” catholics, contraception.

catholicism is neither liberal nor conservative. politically, it is somewhere where both sides disagree with. i’m catholic first, american second. clearly, america has made mistakes but who hasn’t. war unfortunatly is part of life and will only get worse until the end of times. i accept it, as i accept poor leadership as punishment for sin.
 
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MikeWM:
Thanks for taking that in the humourous spirit it was intended. I hoped the smiley made it clear I was just getting an attack of Friday frivolity 🙂

Mike
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It was a great comeback! And yes I knew you were being tongue in cheek!
 
TRIESTE, Italy, SEPT. 22, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger does not believe that a unilateral military attack by the United States against Iraq would be morally justifiable, under the current circumstances.
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Well, since the war as it came about was not a “unilateral military attack”…

Also, it worth noting the “current circumstances” in September 2002 did not include public knowledge of the depths of the scandal involving the U.N., foreign governments opposed to the war, and the Hussein regime paying out bribes to eventually have sanctions lifted so that rearmament could begin in full.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
oat soda:
people believe what they want to believe. we have catholics who think the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki was morally justified despite what the church says about indiscriminate bombing. the same is true here. it’s the same thing with capital punishment, or for “liberal” catholics, contraception.
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You have two things wrong here. First, we Catholics who think Hiroshima and Nagasaki were morally justified, think so because we don’t think the bombing was indiscriminate. None of us believes contrary to Catholic Theology. We just think the bombing of an industrial center where arms were being produced, whose population had been militarized and warned of the impending doom, qualifies as very discriminate bombing.
See other thread for discussion on it: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=66510

Second, you’re mistaken on your Catholic Theology if you think you can’t be for capital punishment. You can be on either side of the issue and still be an orthodox Catholic. The same cannot be said about abortion and euthanasia.
 
Heads-up: Moving thread to moral theology forum where there may be more people who can contribute to this moral theology discussion.
 
Steve O'Brien:
Let’s settle this factual point: Catholics who insist on supporting the morally unjustifiable U.S. invasion of Iraq must acknowledge that they are doing so in opposition to the position taken by Pope Benedict XVI when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. This is simply a fact. “Against a fact, there is no argument.”

I’m appending a Zenit news report dated September 22, 2002. Please note that it contains direct quotations from Cardinal Ratzinger.

In addition, please pay special attention to this paragraph:

"The ‘concept of a “preventive war” does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,’ Cardinal Ratzinger noted."

Keep and spread the Faith.

Code: ZE02092202

Date: 2002-09-22

Cardinal Ratzinger Says Unilateral Attack on Iraq Not Justified

Gives Personal Opinion; Favors Decision from U.N.

TRIESTE, Italy, SEPT. 22, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger does not believe that a unilateral military attack by the United States against Iraq would be morally justifiable, under the current circumstances.

According to the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – who acknowledged that political questions are not within his competence – “the United Nations is the [institution] that should make the final decision.”

“It is necessary that the community of nations makes the decision, not a particular power,” the cardinal said, after receiving the 2002 Trieste Liberal Award. His statements were published Saturday in the Italian newspaper Avvenire.

“The fact that the United Nations is seeking the way to avoid war, seems to me to demonstrate with enough evidence that the damage would be greater than the values one hopes to save,” the cardinal said.

He said that “the U.N. can be criticized” from several points of view, but “it is the instrument created after the war for the coordination – including moral – of politics.”

The “concept of a ‘preventive war’ does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” Cardinal Ratzinger noted.

“One cannot simply say that the catechism does not legitimize the war,” he continued. “But it is true that the catechism has developed a doctrine that, on one hand, does not exclude the fact that there are values and peoples that must be defended in some circumstances; on the other hand, it offers a very precise doctrine on the limits of these possibilities.”

The Vatican official appealed to the three religions derived from Abraham to offer the Ten Commandments as the means to dissuade terrorists.

“The Decalogue is not the private property of Christians or Jews,” Cardinal Ratzinger said. “It is a lofty expression of moral reason that, as such, is also found in the wisdom of other cultures. To refer again to the Decalogue might be essential precisely to restore reason.”
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Let’s say that a Muslim cleric who has spent decades advocating nuclear terrorism against the United States takes over as Grand Ayatollah of Pakistan, and is silent when Western reporters ask, “Will you attempt to sneak nuclear weapons into major US seaposts?” All he does is whisper to his chief nuclear scientist, standing at his side, in a voice accidentally picked-up by a reporter’s microphone, “Did you tell me that you can make that thing generate two hundred megatons for ‘Project New York’?”

President Bush, when he reads the headline on Page 1 of the New York Times, sends a telegram to Pope Benedict XVI: “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease tell me that a preemptive attack is moral under these conditions!!!”

How should Pope Benedict XVI respond?
 
Just don’t forget to pray for all the soldiers seperated from their families and friends at this time. :gopray:
 
Sometimes it seems that there are Catholics who are more willing to follow what Bush says than what the Pope says.
 
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PiusXIII:
Sometimes it seems that there are Catholics who are more willing to follow what Bush says than what the Pope says.
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When the Magesterium today speaks contrary to 1,950 of solid theology on just war, I think we have reason to be a little skepical.
 
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BibleReader:
Let’s say that a Muslim cleric who has spent decades advocating nuclear terrorism against the United States takes over as Grand Ayatollah of Pakistan, and is silent when Western reporters ask, “Will you attempt to sneak nuclear weapons into major US seaposts?” All he does is whisper to his chief nuclear scientist, standing at his side, in a voice accidentally picked-up by a reporter’s microphone, “Did you tell me that you can make that thing generate two hundred megatons for ‘Project New York’?”

President Bush, when he reads the headline on Page 1 of the New York Times, sends a telegram to Pope Benedict XVI: “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease tell me that a preemptive attack is moral under these conditions!!!”

How should Pope Benedict XVI respond?
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Your point is well taken. Everybody is for preventative war. We all just have different criteria as to when it’s moral and when it’s not.

Of course, those of us who support our deposing of Saddam, know that preventative was but one of many reasons for our actions.
 
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mike182d:
When the Magesterium today speaks contrary to 1,950 of solid theology on just war, I think we have reason to be a little skepical.
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I don’t think the official Magesterium has spoken definitively on this issue.
 
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PiusXIII:
Sometimes it seems that there are Catholics who are more willing to follow what Bush says than what the Pope says.
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We are morally bound by what the Pope says when speaking “ex cathedra.” We are morally bound by what the Pope, in union with the Magesterium, says. None of us are morally bound by what every Pope says (or has said) about everything, at any point in his life.
 
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PiusXIII:
Sometimes it seems that there are Catholics who are more willing to follow what Bush says than what the Pope says.
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Until the Pope says that it is a sin for faithful Catholics to support any and all war efforts I’ll continue to decide based on the information available at the time. Given the circumstances at the start of the Iraq war, I support our decision. We may have different information now, but hindsight has been and always will be 20/20.

As for President Bush, I respect him as a leader of the country, not of my religion. The only people I’ve seen using the President as a deciding factor in their views are those who oppose everything that he supports.
 
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qmvsimp:
I don’t think the official Magesterium has spoken definitively on this issue.
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Over the past 50 years the Church has inserted “last resort” and “presumption against war” into the theology where it really has no place. If a war is just, from whence does it follow that it is to be used as a last resort? If it is good, do it. If its not, don’t. Our role as Catholics isn’t to minimize the amount of evil we do in the world by performing “lesser evils for the greater good” but that is pretty much what the Church has defined war as - always evil, but can be used for good - and that is *completely *contrary to the most influential just war theologians in the history of the world. If this isn’t explicit in contemporary thinking on war, it is absolutely implicit.

I highly recommend the following article:

firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0501/articles/johnson.htm
 
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qmvsimp:
I don’t think the official Magesterium has spoken definitively on this issue.
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If my last post seemed trite and angry, I do apologize as that was not my intended effect. I’ve just been on a roll with a couple posts back to back on just war and the adrenaline is pumpin’ 😃

I better stop now…
 
I don’t think the Pope is a good American. And if he doesn’t vote Republican, I know he is not a good American.
 
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