The leader of all Catholic chaplains in the United States’ armed forces has questioned how righteous the US military’s campaign in Iran is, saying that “under the just war theory – it is not”.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, told CBS News in an interview set for broadcast Sunday that while Iran “was a threat with nuclear arms”, waging war on the theocratic state constituted “compensating for a threat before the threat is actually realized”.
The just war theory is a philosophical and legal framework, rooted in the theologies of Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, that is designed to help determine when starting war is morally justifiable – or jus ad bellum – and how it should be conducted, or jus in bello.
It directs that war is a last resort, undertaken only to correct serious wrong, and it requires legitimate authority, right intent, and proportionality in order to obtain peace.
Amid ongoing disruptions to maritime shipping in the Middle East due to the closure of the...
