![](\"https:\/\/www.sojo.net\/magazine\/archives\/soj0301\/images\/030157.jpg\")
History does not tend to be kind to Christian theologians who demand war.<\/p>\nHistory does not tend to be kind to Christian theologians who demand war.<\/p>\n
Peter Steinfels recently called attention to a contemporary history lesson drawn in an ongoing debate between Catholic neo-cons who have supported the Iraq war and the popes and bishops who have not (\u201cA Catholic Debate Mounts on the Meaning of \u2018Just War,\u2019\u201d<\/a> The<\/em> New York Times<\/em>, April 14). In the April issue of First Things<\/em><\/a>, George Weigel revisits his arguments for the justice and necessity of the Iraq war and refuses to admit regret. Weigel instead casts blame for the failures in Iraq in two directions: the U.S. foreign policy community who failed adequately to plan for the war\u2019s aftermath, and the Arab Islamic political culture whose \u201cirresponsibility, authoritarian brutality, rage and self-delusion\u201d has caused them to refuse \u201cthe foreigner\u2019s gift\u201d of political freedom that we have brought them. (I\u2019m not making that up.)<\/p>\n The history lesson is delivered in a commentary by the editors in Commonweal<\/em> (\u201cBishops and Their Critics,\u201d<\/a> April 20), who remind their readers of Weigel\u2019s original well-publicized arguments in favor of the invasion back in 2003. They focus on one key point: In the face of vociferous objections to the impending war by the pope and the U.S. bishops, Weigel argued that Catholics should defer to the president\u2019s judgment on whether or not this war, or any war, met the just war criteria.<\/p>\n Weigel\u2019s argument on this point was two-fold: 1) the president has access to privileged information, and 2) the president, by virtue of his office, exercises a \u201ccharism of political discernment\u201d not shared by leaders of the church. The Commonweal <\/em>editorial wonders whether all the mistakes that Weigel points to in his recent article undermine his claim of the special charism enjoyed by the president. Commonweal<\/em> remarks that, in retrospect, the Catholic bishops\u2019 charism in matters of war and peace looks pretty darn good compared to that of the president.<\/p>\n Weigel\u2019s argument here is self-defeating. In the case of the Iraq war, the more he insists on point number one, then the more point two is proven false. If the president did indeed have access to privileged information, then he either misinterpreted that information or deliberately lied about it to make a case for the war. This conclusion seems inescapable, given what we now know about how pre-war intelligence was handled.<\/p>\n Regardless of the facts of this particular case, moral judgments about war, like all moral judgments, are not primarily a matter of good information. Good information is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for sound moral judgments. Sound moral judgments depend on being formed in certain virtues. Why a Christian should assume that the president of a secular nation-state would be so formed \u2013 much less enjoy a certain \u201ccharism\u201d of moral judgment \u2013 is a mystery to me. \u201cCharism<\/a>\u201d is a theological term denoting a gift of the Holy Spirit. To apply such a term to whomever the electoral process of a secular nation-state happens to cough up does not strike me as theologically sound or practically wise.<\/p>\n The fundamental issue here is of much greater importance than arguments about the justice (or lack thereof) of this particular war. Weigel would have the church effectively abdicate its moral judgment in matters of war to the leaders of the nation-state. It is hard to imagine what could do greater damage to both church and nation. If the church does not have an independent process of discernment to bring the gospel to bear on matters of war and peace, then any hope that the Prince of Peace will be heard over the din of self-interest and fear will be lost. History is already littered with the wreckage caused by Christian capitulation to reasons of state.<\/p>\n William Cavanaugh<\/strong> is associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and author of Theopolitical Imagination<\/em><\/a> and Torture and Eucharist<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" History does not tend to be kind to Christian theologians who demand war. Peter Steinfels recently called attention to a contemporary history lesson drawn in an ongoing debate between Catholic neo-cons who have supported the Iraq war and the popes and bishops who have not (\u201cA Catholic Debate Mounts on the Meaning of \u2018Just War,\u2019\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholics","category-war"],"yoast_head":"\n