Back when bishops talked about warfare
I was reading an article on military affairs that appeared in 1984 in the International Journal of Applied Philosophy and was struck by a reference to the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter on nuclear warfare that was issued by American Catholic leaders a year earlier. It made me think-back then, the bishops were all over the issue ...
I was reading an article on military affairs that appeared in 1984 in the International Journal of Applied Philosophy and was struck by a reference to the Bishops' Pastoral Letter on nuclear warfare that was issued by American Catholic leaders a year earlier.
I was reading an article on military affairs that appeared in 1984 in the International Journal of Applied Philosophy and was struck by a reference to the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter on nuclear warfare that was issued by American Catholic leaders a year earlier.
It made me think-back then, the bishops were all over the issue of warfare. They condemned offensive war. (Point 1.A.3: "Offensive war of any kind is not morally justifiable.") Yet for the last 10 years, we have been at war, and I can’t remember the bishops weighing in particularly, not even when the world’s most powerful country launched a preemptive war on false premises. What up with that? Did they just get bored? Was it just a passing phase?
Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1
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