1. I did not say that the morality was contingent upon law... Reason requires that the legality and morality be considered separately.
Legality is indeed to be distinguished from morality. However, in context I was not talking about secular statute law. Let me clarify: by "crime," I was speaking of grave moral wrong.
2. My human reason tells me that Catholic teaching was much more reliable prior to VatII, WWII, the sixties, and the papacy of JPII. Earlier, pre-corruption teachings – and Holy Scripture – seem to support my contention that the destruction of whole cities *can*be* under some circumstances a justified act of war.
Do you really wish to take an explicitly anti-Magisterium position? If you wanted to make a case that the acts of an ecumenical council are null, you would have to extend your dissent back to quite a few pontiffs.
Consider the language with which the Council framed its verdict against target=city bombing:
With these truths in mind, this most Holy Synod makes its own the condemnations of total war already pronounced by recent popes, and issues the following declaration. Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.
This wording makes the judgment a formal and solemn condemnation (“makes its own the condemnation” “issues the following declaration”) and reinforces its legitimacy with reference to previous papal authority (“already pronounced by recent popes”). This section is footnoted in the document as follows:
2. Cf. Pius XII, Allocution of Sept. 30, 1954: AAS 46 (1954) p. 589; Radio message of Dec. 24, 1954: AAS 47 (1955), pp. 15 ff, John XXIII, encyclical letter Pacem in Terris: AAS 55 (1963), pp. 286-291; Paul VI, Allocution to the United Nations, Oct. 4, 1965.
1. Cf. John XXIII, encyclical letter Pacem in Terris, April 11, 1963: AAS 55 (1963), p. 291; "Therefore in this age of ours which prides itself on its atomic power, it is irrational to believe that war is still an apt means of vindicating violated rights."
This is solemn, and on the same footing as the declaration in the very same conciliar document which stated:
| “For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing ministry of safeguarding life in a manner which is worthy of man. Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.” |
Moreover, these two judgments are based on the same moral reasoning, namely, that the deliberate destruction of innocent human life is the crime of murder, and cannot be justified by any calculus of utility or benefit, however pressing.
Keep in mind, too, that those who pressed for the strongest condemnation of target=city bombing were the conservatives/traditionalists, e.g. Cardinal Ottaviani. He and his closest colleagues were considered the anti-novelty “regressives” at the Council, and it was they who wanted the Council to condemn, not just the use, but even the possession, of a strategic nuclear arsenal.
At the same time, those of a more liberal frame of mind, e.g. John Courtney Murray, were arguing for a policy of nuclear deterrence and even for the moral possibility of limited nuclear war. He was joined by the still more elastic "situational ethics" people who denied in principle the existence of "intrinsically evil" acts.
That pattern has held for subsequent decades: the hard-line conservatives ---Elizabeth Anscombe; Germain Grisez --- all of Grisez' pro-Humanae Vitae associates, there were/are a good number of them, John Ford, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, William May ---Brent Bozell the elder; Warren Carroll, historian and founder of Christendom College: all strong opponents of contraception, torture, sodomy, targeting of noncombatants, the intentional or objectively indiscriminate killing of the innocent whether by a bomb, abortion, or a baseball bat. What these people have in common: they admit the existence of exceptionless norms.
If I understand you correctly --- and please correct me if I'm wrong --- you have difficulties with this teaching. Difficulties are, well, difficult; and questions are legitimate. If I were in your position, I would think it more fitting to simply state “I have difficulties,” and “I have questions,” rather than to announce that I take umbrage at papal and conciliar teachings.
“However, in context I was not talking about secular statute law. Let me clarify: by “crime,” I was speaking of grave moral wrong.”
Okay, but the original article spoke of “war crimes,” which must be understood to mean crimes with reference to international law.
“Do you really wish to take an explicitly anti-Magisterium position?”
I don’t mean to imply anything about you personally, but we—you and I—have often seen that argument used by those who have infiltrated or taken over an organization and are trying to turn it upon itself. We Catholics are at liberty to question or even reject things that are not inerrant or infallible, especially where they contradict all that has gone before.
“If you wanted to make a case that the acts of an ecumenical council are null, you would have to extend your dissent back to quite a few pontiffs.”
I am not making a case that all acts of VatII are null. I do assert, along with many others, that abuses were perpetrated by theological leftists—those whom Pope Saint Pius X called “enemies of the church” in “Pascendi Dominici Gregis - On the Doctrine of the Modernists.”
“Consider the language with which the Council framed its verdict against target=city bombing:”
Consider the language Pius X used to describe such people in Pascendi Dominici Gregis:
“2. That We should act without delay in this matter is made imperative especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man.”
“this most Holy Synod makes its own the condemnations of total war”
There’s a problem with your argument. What is “total war?” Is it the bombing of a single city, or the laying waste of an entire country? Admiral Nimitz wanted to blockade the Japanese archipelago and starve every inhabitant. Would that have been “total war?”
The bombings of H and N were intended to shorten the war and save lives, and that’s just what they did. How can a measure that is more parsimonious of life than the alternatives be truthfully described as “total war?”
It cannot, and your argument fails on those grounds alone.
“already pronounced by recent popes”
They are indicted by their own words: “recent popes.” That is an admission that popes prior to those “recent popes” pronounced no such thing.
“Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.”
That is so clearly a slap in America’s face that it could have been issued by the Supreme Soviet. I assert that it is not a legitimate teaching of the Magisterium, but a misuse of the Church’s teaching authority by theological leftists for the purpose of advantaging the Soviet Union in Cold War I.
“1. Cf. John XXIII…2. Cf. Pius XII”
I anticipate that history will seat those two in the pantheon of the infamous.
“This is solemn”
What is the significance of that? Any lying scoundrel can be solemn.
“…and on the same footing as the declaration in the very same conciliar document which stated…abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.”
Woah, Nelly. A person would need a jet pack to take a leap of that magnitude. The fact that a document is right about one thing hardly shows that its every assertion is equally right.
“Moreover, these two judgments are based on the same moral reasoning, namely, that the deliberate destruction of innocent human life is the crime of murder, and cannot be justified by any calculus of utility or benefit, however pressing.”
The Holy Scriptures I quoted in my last note, and which YOU HAVE SEEN FIT TO IGNORE, indicate that this moral reasoning is faulty—according to God’s Word, at least.
“…that those who pressed for the strongest condemnation of target=city bombing were the conservatives/traditionalists, e.g. Cardinal Ottaviani.”
Not surprising, when one considers the times. They foresaw the use of nukes by evil empires.
“At the same time, those of a more liberal frame of mind, e.g. John Courtney Murray, were arguing for a policy of nuclear deterrence and even for the moral possibility of limited nuclear war. He was joined by the still more elastic “situational ethics” people who denied in principle the existence of “intrinsically evil” acts.”
Of course. All leftism, including theological leftism, is of and from Satan. It is only to be expected that they would want no interference with the use of nukes for evil.
“What these people have in common: they admit the existence of exceptionless norms.”
The Bible shows that the destruction of cities is *not* one of those exceptionless norms. Which, I think, is why you choose to ignore the scriptures I quoted in my last post. To confront them is to admit that your position is incorrect.
“If I understand you correctly -— and please correct me if I’m wrong -— you have difficulties with this teaching.”
No, I think that “this teaching” was introduced and advanced by malicious forces, and is contrary to authentic Catholic teachings.
“rather than to announce that I take umbrage at papal and conciliar teachings.”
I didn’t say that I take umbrage at papal and conciliar teachings. I took umbrage at *your* argument that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “intrinsically depraved.”
Unfortunately, a great deal of error introduced in the last hundred and fifty years or so is now accepted as authentic, even by those of good faith. These errors must be identified and ripped out, root and branch.