A
aquohn
Guest
Here’s a little ethical issue I conjured off the top of my head. It may sound rather like the plot of a video game or movie.
A charismatic American fundementalist Protestant pastor unites an enormous congregation and leads them in an uprising to replace the USA with a Protestant state. Using his followers amongst the ranks of the military, the pastor seizes tons of military supplies and uses them to arm his congregation, which capture and occupy huge swathes of land. Incidentally, he happens to be a Jack Chick in terms of theology. Any idiot could tell that his next target after the USA would be the Sancta Romana Ecclesia. The US military response is lethargic; corrupt officers with ties to the pastor’s movement obfuscate most attempts to take back captured territory.
A charismatic liberal American radical Protestant pastor unites an enormous congregation under the banner of naively simplified ‘love, tolerance and respect’, passed off as the teaching of Our Lord. Being brainwashed by the liberal media as it is, lots of people believe his message in an attempt to mix their longstanding Christian beliefs with the abomination that is liberalism. The pastor also sees the Sancta Romana Ecclesia as the major oppressive force in the US, and incites hatred against it.
The real trouble starts when the fundies and the radicals clash. The moment the first fundie shots are fired, the radical pastor arms his flock using similar tactics as the fundie and goes to war, attempting to stamp them out.
With America being torn apart by civil war and bureaucracy preventing any action by the legitimate government, some people aren’t going to take this nonsense anymore. An atheist General, a sort of Christopher Hitchens on crack, acts against orders, leading a large detachment of soldiers to massacre everything in their way until the fighting stops.
And now this is where the Church comes in. The UN is too afraid of offending the US government to do anything (and not to mention more than a little corrupt), and so the new Pope, who is extremely strong and excommunicates like a machinegun, takes matters into his own hands.
Question 1: Under the just war theory, is the Pope considered a legitimate authority should he decide to order all military personnel in North America to act against orders and battle both the murderously efficient atheists and the rampaging separated brothers and sisters, hopefully bringing an end to the conflict? How about to mobilise predominantly Catholic South America to invade USA to assist the Catholic forces there? Or to get a crack international team of Catholic special agents to enter and aid in the war with subtlety, tact and surgical precision?
The Pope does all of the above, and the spcial agents discover something horrible: the radical and the fundie are about to set aside their differences, destroy the atheist force, then set sail for Rome with all their captured ordnance and raze it to the ground. The only way to prevent this is to stop their negotiations immediately. The two are meeting on a rooftop, each with armed guards, the radical in experimental mechanical combat armour, and the fundie in casual clothes holding a Bible. A sniper on a distant building is armed with an explosive bullet which can make it look like one of the radical’s guards assassinated the fundie with a bazooka. But doing so would raise hell, and the fundie and radical forces would almost certainly annihliate each other.
Question 2: Although this tactical manoeuvre would almost certainly end the war (albeit leaving most of them dead), it is in direct contravention to the principle of double effect: we intend the guy to die. If the pastor doesn’t die, our plan will be foiled. Is this application incorrect? Or do the rules change in war?
A charismatic American fundementalist Protestant pastor unites an enormous congregation and leads them in an uprising to replace the USA with a Protestant state. Using his followers amongst the ranks of the military, the pastor seizes tons of military supplies and uses them to arm his congregation, which capture and occupy huge swathes of land. Incidentally, he happens to be a Jack Chick in terms of theology. Any idiot could tell that his next target after the USA would be the Sancta Romana Ecclesia. The US military response is lethargic; corrupt officers with ties to the pastor’s movement obfuscate most attempts to take back captured territory.
A charismatic liberal American radical Protestant pastor unites an enormous congregation under the banner of naively simplified ‘love, tolerance and respect’, passed off as the teaching of Our Lord. Being brainwashed by the liberal media as it is, lots of people believe his message in an attempt to mix their longstanding Christian beliefs with the abomination that is liberalism. The pastor also sees the Sancta Romana Ecclesia as the major oppressive force in the US, and incites hatred against it.
The real trouble starts when the fundies and the radicals clash. The moment the first fundie shots are fired, the radical pastor arms his flock using similar tactics as the fundie and goes to war, attempting to stamp them out.
With America being torn apart by civil war and bureaucracy preventing any action by the legitimate government, some people aren’t going to take this nonsense anymore. An atheist General, a sort of Christopher Hitchens on crack, acts against orders, leading a large detachment of soldiers to massacre everything in their way until the fighting stops.
And now this is where the Church comes in. The UN is too afraid of offending the US government to do anything (and not to mention more than a little corrupt), and so the new Pope, who is extremely strong and excommunicates like a machinegun, takes matters into his own hands.
Question 1: Under the just war theory, is the Pope considered a legitimate authority should he decide to order all military personnel in North America to act against orders and battle both the murderously efficient atheists and the rampaging separated brothers and sisters, hopefully bringing an end to the conflict? How about to mobilise predominantly Catholic South America to invade USA to assist the Catholic forces there? Or to get a crack international team of Catholic special agents to enter and aid in the war with subtlety, tact and surgical precision?
The Pope does all of the above, and the spcial agents discover something horrible: the radical and the fundie are about to set aside their differences, destroy the atheist force, then set sail for Rome with all their captured ordnance and raze it to the ground. The only way to prevent this is to stop their negotiations immediately. The two are meeting on a rooftop, each with armed guards, the radical in experimental mechanical combat armour, and the fundie in casual clothes holding a Bible. A sniper on a distant building is armed with an explosive bullet which can make it look like one of the radical’s guards assassinated the fundie with a bazooka. But doing so would raise hell, and the fundie and radical forces would almost certainly annihliate each other.
Question 2: Although this tactical manoeuvre would almost certainly end the war (albeit leaving most of them dead), it is in direct contravention to the principle of double effect: we intend the guy to die. If the pastor doesn’t die, our plan will be foiled. Is this application incorrect? Or do the rules change in war?