First Part: Just War Theory

I believe fully in the Catholic and Christian faith given to the world by Christ and his Apostles and passed down through sacred tradition and sacred scripture (sacra doctrina) and as protected by the Magisterium of his one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, headed by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome.

As such, I believe that it is the moral duty of all Catholics to try and understand their faith and heritage of Christianity, especially in the saints and theologians of years past. To uncover the lives of the saints is discover the gospel writ large in the world with flesh and blood. Their witness transforms the possibilities of this world. Heroic virtue, miraculous self-donation, humility, repentance- all of it mixes and mingles with the reality of the fallen human nature that has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

Christian morality has always interested me and as such it has caused me to radically alter my political views from time to time. As a conservative Catholic, I had to come to terms with the Church's teaching on the death penalty as expressed through Pope John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae. As the years have unrolled, I fear I have entered into my most distressing portion of my Catholic evolution. I have become a libertarian.

I became a libertarian (or maybe we can stretch the term 'Old Right' or paleo-conservative) because of my views on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To be more accurate, I became more convinced that Christ wanted peace and not war, that war was a grave undertaking that is wholly defensive, and that American foreign policy had rejected the basic tenants of the Just War doctrine of the Church's patrimony. This rejection of Just War Theory was made known to me not by Catholic theologians- they seemed all too silent, or all too leftist- but by an honest politician, Ron Paul, Republican Representative for the state of Texas and former Republican primary presidential nominee.

I previously thought peace among the nations was a naive ideal, until I read the rigorous and principled thought of libertarians and paleoconservatives (true conservatives, if you ask me) on wars of aggression and I saw how much they lined up with Augustine and Aquinas on the just war doctrine. I discovered that many of the Founding Fathers had a strong non-interventionist view of foreign relations, which consisted in mainly encouraging free trade among the nations. Let the nations engage in their own self-determination.

Then I compared that with our current government interventions and saw war increase abroad and freedom curtailed at home. Many crafters of our Constitution believed that treaties and alliances would entangle the young nation in European problems, so they cautioned against all treaties or alliances. These alliances were rejected because of their ability to drag us into wars and bloodshed that in no way concern the United States.

Furthermore, the Framers of the Constitution broke apart the War Powers, giving the power to declare war and fund it wholly to the Congress, while allowing the executive branch to run the war once engaged. This was a solution that would hold true as long as the legislative branch was not in league with the executive. However, today's party politics seems to override the separation of powers. As James Madison observed:

In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man; not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy.

War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

Another classic James Madison quote on war furthers my hatred of it:

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could reserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

The reason why I said this is the most distressing part for my ongoing conversion is because it is very alienating, especially from my friends who are conservatives on the neoconservative side. It pains me to talk about this, but if I didn't, I would be a liar, inauthentic.

So, here it all goes, my opus to defend my Catholic convictions that led me to my libertarian political views in order to reshape American politics back to pro-life, pro-peace and non-interventionist principles...

gomer

AMDG