Trump administration has riled head of Catholic church over use of theology to justify conflict in Iran
The contrast in experience between the two men disagreeing over war and theology was striking.
On the one side was Pope Leo XIV, the first North American to head the Catholic church and the first cleric from the Augustinian order, who this week visited the modern Algerian city where Saint Augustine once lived. For Leo, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine’s ideas, it was the culmination of a lifelong intellectual interest.
On the other, the US vice-president, JD Vance, a very recent adult convert to Catholicism with no academic background in the history of the church’s thinking.
The surest way to peace is to round up Trump and all his cabinet and deliver them to Iran with an apology note and a promise that it will never happen again.
They can deal with punishing Trump, Vance, Miller, etc.
This is the only way forward that will begin to heal the world from the damages the US has caused.
I call it the Throw The Fuckers Under The Bus solution and if it doesn’t work. Well, at least we don’t have to look at these dumb fucks that created this most recent shit show to begin with.
This sounds pretty reasonable to me. We could even start with some sort of third party impartial place interested in Justice, like the Hague. We deliver them there and let Iran and the world decide how we get to a Just end to this conflict.
Let Netanyahu come defend trump in person too if he wants to. Israel is definitely invited to the trial at the Hague.
We could even start with some sort of third party impartial place interested in Justice, like the Hague. We deliver them there
and the Us would be obliged to invade, it’s euphemistically called the Hague Invasion Act in case that ever happens.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-becomes-law
Depends on who is in charge after they get deported. From that article: “The administration never misses an opportunity to gratuitously antagonize its allies on the ICC,” said Dicker. “But it’s also true that the new law has more loopholes than a block of Swiss cheese.”
Theologian here, although not Catholic.
We could see this debate as the Catholic church being more progressive than the US and in part it’s true. But it’s a quite conservative view within the Catholic tradition: in the beginning of Christianity, all violence were deemed unjust, and people preferred to die than to be violent. Then Augustine and others theorized the just war, which is the base of the international war law. But in the 20^th century, the Catholic church evolved on the subject, stating again that all war were unjust:
- Any apotheosis of war is to be condemned as an aberration of mind and heart. (Pope Pius 12, 1953)
- It becomes impossible to believe that war is the appropriate means to obtain justice for a violation of rights. (Pope John 23)
- There is no just war (Pope Francis, 2022)
The current version of The Catechism of the Catholic Church never use the expression “just war”, and justifies only violence in case of defense.
So the fact that the pope is arguing about just war is not the church being progressive, but being in fact fusty according to its own tradition. I think the definition the pope has to just war is not the Augustinian one, but one that limit war to defense, so the difference between him and Francis on the ideas is in fact non-existent, but the usage of the expression is by itself a defeat.
There is no just war (Pope Francis, 2022)
I dont think a lot of people understood what a groundbreaking, radical change this was when Francis made it. Doctrine says clearly that there are a limited number of conditions for a catholic to participate in violence, basically self defense, to prevent others from certain harm, or a just war. Francis removed one of the key reasons cited for catholic to engage in nationalistic warfare without damning their souls.
And given-- Francis was also far from perfect. But he had giant balls and a sense to at least try to do the right thing. Even as an atheist, I miss that guy. What a legendary Chad. (the modern complimentary form of chad).
And stuff like this is exactly why the vatican is generally hostile to popes with a Jesuit background.
(I’m a Gen X ex-catholic)
I would love to have a belief that there is no just war but then I just think of WW2
Maybe it’s wouldn’t be Just, but it’s not like there was any other option. You wouldn’t be able to talk Hitler out of invading and taking over Europe.
Definitely not the case with Iran though, that was America being the aggressor like Hitler was.
Sometimes, we need to do something evil to prevent something worse. But that doesn’t make the evil thing good, right or just.
Apparently only atheists read the catechism these days:
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. the gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: - the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; - all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; - there must be serious prospects of success; - the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. the power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
Vance’s war of choice meets none of the criteria. There was no certain damage (Iran has been “Two Months Away”™ from having nukes for 20 years, and even if they had them doesn’t mean they would use them), negotiations were still officially ongoing, they went in without even having concrete goals let alone a plan to end the war, and then started by bombing a school.
Does he think that if he can arrange a meeting and debate with this one he’ll die too?
If he wants to meet with his maker, I’m sure there’s a whole host of people more than happy to set that up.
I still don’t get why Pakistan/China/russia/India nearby are so chill with Iran having nukes if they really were going towards that…
they have them as well, so MAD, which is why Iran understandably wants them because Israel does. To me that’s not unreasonable. The solution there is for Israel to give them up.
Israel has said that Iran is ‘weeks’ away from nukes for like 40 years dude.
If they wanted bombs, they’d get them.
Sure, that is the easy answer and why nuclear powers in the region are fine with it. I was talking about how I don’t understand why murica+israel is dooming while those countries are so relaxed. I wasn’t dooming.
Because Israel hates Iran, because they finance people standing up to Israels genocide against it’s multiple neighbors.
That’s the only reason.
yep, it basically always circles back to land theft and zionist racism.
And the US likes boogieman racism, religion and money, so we ally with Israel.
Ironically the US government has always stated that Iran is a natural culturally similar partner to the US, if we could ever get over our existing bad relationship and the reach of religious extremists in Iran. If Iranian and American commoners all sat down together at a bbq, highly likely we see a lot of similarities and like each other. Pretty sad state of affairs.
Honest to god, I think that Israel has blackmail on a ton of fucking people in the US, and they are pushing their puppets and blackmailing other people.
Post 9-11 one of the first countries to help the US in searching for UBL was Iran. Then, months later Bush comes out with his axis of evil bullshit and put Iran on the list. Of course they promptly stopped helping the US after that
Yeah. Seems to me that the Epstein ring was a world changing operation for Israel. I’m sure they started a new one and didnt just give up the whole method. Theres almost certainly a new Israeli pedo extortion ring running somewhere right now.
Everybody’s got nukes these days, that isn’t really even the issue. The issue is the Conservative Propaganda Machine has convinced everybody that the very second that Iran has an operational nuclear weapon, they are going to launch a hundred of them and instantly destroy the entire world, and since they get high on their own supply, they’ve convinced themselves most of all.
In reality, Iran would do what everyone has done once they’ve gotten their hands on a Nuke - they use it to demonstrate that they deserve a seat at the big table, where they can influence international geopolitics.
For one, all these countries have their own nukes which cancels out their nukes. Ever heard of MAD?? Also, Russia is a close ally with Iran and that alone makes them very chill with each other.
I don’t see anyone in the EU cheering for polish/ukrainian nukes or the same for Japan/SKorea, etc. MAD is not obvious in a multipolar world and alliances can shift quickly. E.g. China does not trust theocrats.
If Ukraine had kept their nukes, the war would have never happened to begin with… When countries give up nukes or nuke programs, they get invaded. Simple as that.
It’s not that simple, but generally I agree that Ukraine needs nukes. But you can’t have every country and their grandma rushing to nukes simply to ensure their sovereignty. You need blocks and sharing umbrellas at best, otherwise there are too many points of failure in a network of deterrence that it is inevitable that one careless or mistaken shot triggers full armageddon in 30 minutes.
PS: I’d suggest one nuke permit per civ/continent/trade block eg USA+partners, EU++, russia+whatever, China+partners, India, Pakistan++, African Union, Latin America, Indonesia?, Iran++?, Arab Countries?, Australia…starting to get messy now… The only problem left to solve here is the borders of the blocks and how countries decide to move from one block to the other eg Ukraine, Brexit, Mexico, Egypt, Turkey, etc.
People nowadays really don’t read enough to understand the world
Just nowadays?
Tell us you don’t understand modern geopolitics without telling us you don’t understand modern geopolitics
Well, they did say they don’t get it.
