Experts share thoughts on the threat posed by ISIS, and what we need to do.Tonight, President Obama is expected to go before the American public to lay out his strategy to combat the growing threat known as ISIS.
For months, Christian leaders in the Middle East have been begging the world for help to fight that threat, which for them is all to real. They and other religious minorities have been on the run from the Islamist organization, also known as the Islamic State. Little by little, the world has woken up to the reality too, especially as the group very publicly decapitated two American journalists.
And now, there are fears that this terrorist organization—which has developed so much that it is almost a state itself—is threatening Western countries in their own homelands.
Western powers have begun to respond militarily. Pope Francis has said the aggressor in Iraq must be stopped, though he added, "I do not say ‘bomb,’ I do not say ‘make war.’" Some Christians compare the current situation to the rise of the Nazis and their threat to religious minorities. Have we not learned from the disaster that befell the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, they say. Others take a more pacifistic approach.
As we approach the 13th anniversary of al Qaida’s attack on America, we ask Catholic commentators to share their ideas on how Christians should respond. Here are some of the responses.
Russell Shaw, Catholic author and commentator
Clearly, military action is now necessary to stop these fanatics. The entire region, and the West as well, will be imperiled if they aren’t. It appears that President Obama is trying to create a coalition to take action, and that is highly desirable. The United States is hardly the only country with a stake in this, and if they have any sense of their own self-interest, many Arab countries should join the effort. But whether it’s a big coalition or a small one, the U.S. will have to take the lead. I trust that the President’s well-known diffidence won’t hamper that.
I have no idea what Pope Francis meant in ruling out both bombing and making war, while at the same time giving his blessing to stopping the aggressor. It’s axiomatic that in order to achieve an end you have to take the means. Perhaps this was just his way of saying, ‘Use no more violence than you must, and try hard to avoid killing non-combatants.’ If so, I fully agree.
Beyond the immediate crisis, the U.S. and its partners need to take a serious look at the underlying causes that give rise to groups like ISIS and start taking long-range steps to correct them. Failing that, we face the grim prospect of having situations like this repeat themselves over and over again.
Anne Hendershott, director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. She is the co-author with Christopher White of "Renewal: How a New Generation of Priests and Bishops are Revitalizing the Church."
As one who just published a book lauding the courage of what we call a "new generation" of priests and bishops who are revitalizing the Church, I have been disappointed that so many of them have been silent on the threat posed by the barbarians of the Islamic State. Perhaps they are fearful that they will be viewed as criticizing Islam. But, the Most Rev. Amel Shimoun Nona, the exiled Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul of Mosul has warned us that if we do not understand the threat that Islam presents to us, "you too [in the West] will become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed into your home." We need to move beyond our fears of what others will think of us, and condemn the barbarism of radical Islam, and the threat posed by those who desire to do us harm.
Jude Huntz, director of the Office of Peace and Justice in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
A danger in publishing a summary of faith is that the summary itself becomes the substitute for the faith. Summaries are intended to be outlines on basic ideas; they are not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of every topic in the tradition. Within the Catholic tradition this problem exists in the areas of Catholic social doctrine where the issues are complex and the teaching on these topics is enormous. Let us look at one example to prove the point: the just war theory, where the Catechism states:
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy.
Leaving aside the language that highlights the reluctance of going to war, the passage is preceded by a number of paragraphs obliging all Catholics to peacemaking and the path of non-violence. Recourse to war is an exception to the rule of non-violence, not the rule itself. The Church in no place commands her children to acts of physical violence against another person. A more thorough presentation of the topic is found in The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which prefaces the just war theory with numerous papal teachings on peace, including this paragraph:
496. Violence is never a proper response…. the Church proclaims “that violence is evil, that violence is unacceptable as a solution to problems, that violence is unworthy of man. Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings.”
The contemporary world too needs the witness of unarmed prophets, who are often the objects of ridicule. “Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity… They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risk of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death.”
The recourse to violence is further cautioned by recognizing the horrors of modern warfare. Additionally, both texts repeat the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that it is entirely just and proper to allow the right of citizens for conscientious objection to war and allowing for other forms of community service (cf. Gaudium et Spes #79). This recognition further highlights the fact that resorting to the violence of war is not a moral obligation, but an exception to the moral obligation to work for peace and to employ non-violent means.
The doctrine of the Second Vatican Council radically changed the Church’s posture on the position of warfare. As Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) noted:
The Council moved away from the static morality of the just war toward a dynamic morality of emergency… Therefore, the attempt must be made to approach as closely as possible what is morally desirable. Thus we can at least assert moral demands, even though we cannot achieve our ultimate moral objectives. (Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, p. 241)
How are we to achieve the ultimate moral objective? Certainly a great effort must be made in the area of international diplomacy as an immediate response to present dangers. Education in non-violence and conflict resolution are also essential in order for violence to be averted. The future holy father noticed another pedagogical approach at work in the magisterium of the Church:
The Council does not presume to set timeless norms for questions so complex in their technological, political, and historical ramifications. Rather, it stirs up a feeling of inadequacy about the merely licit. It sees the licit as no more than a very temporary concession in a history that finds man still in progress and still very far from doing what he ought to do, very far from doing what is genuinely right….The whole of human action is shown to be abysmally deficient when we begin to confess our moral attitude in this matter, and actually in all other matters as well, is far from what it should be. We recognize that the small righteousness we manage to build up in ourselves is nothing but an emergency morality in the midst of our radical unrighteousness. (ibid., p. 243)
The recourse to violence, then, is not the norm of human action, but a great deficiency in what is actually expected of humankind, i.e. the path of nonviolence. However, many Christian moralists spend a great deal of time justifying the use of violence and very little time upholding the principle of non-violence to which we are called.
Granted, there is a concession made to the idea of a just war, but the criteria for such is quite rigorous, and yet it seems that every war manages to meet the criteria of just war according to many Christian moralists. As Erasmus noted centuries ago:
Some princes deceive themselves as follows: ‘Some wars are entirely just, and I have just cause for starting one.’ First, I will suspend judgment on whether any war is entirely just; but who is there who does not think his cause just? Amid so many shifts and changes in human affairs, amid the making and breaking of so many agreements and treaties, how could anyone not find a pretext, if any sort of pretext is enough to start a war? (Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, p. 104)
We see the pretext for war repeatedly, and how quickly we follow the drumbeats of war, forgetting our obligation to work for peace at all costs. Erasmus noted the horrors and abominations of war in the 16th century. How greater the evils modern warfare brings that could be added to this description:
For it has never proved possible to terminate a single war. One war is linked to another, and drags along with it an interminable and inextricable chain of ills. These ills are so many that their number can barely be comprehended, they are so atrocious that even an utterly wicked man cannot make right of them. Yet these are the natural consequences of any war, however just. Furthermore, the grounds for starting a war are sometimes false, not infrequently contrived, and for the most part doubtful. Then the outcome of any battle is always uncertain, and finally, no victory is bloodless, and the fighting is always at the expense of the man who had least to gain by winning. So that I am led to declare boldly that the god-fearing prince will be far more astute to maintain peace, however, unfair, than to embark on even the most advantageous war; for such a war will be preceded, accompanied, and followed by such an ocean of ills, so vast a swamp of wickedness, and so black a plague of immorality. (ibid., p. 139)
In light of our theology, our task is not to prescribe particular solutions but to offer the opportunity for reflection and discernment at a deeper level. Our task as people of faith is to ask questions that prompt deep moral reflection on the part of world leaders, questions that lead us more to the ideal than to the exception that is merely morally licit. Given the failures of previous military interventions in the region, what is the proper response that provides a lasting peace and secure future for the people of the region? How can we protect innocent lives without creating a wider humanitarian crisis in the region? What resources are available to us and to the region that might provide security and stability without further violence?
Let us heed the call of the beatitude to be peacemakers so that one day we might be called children of God.
Sir Mario J. Paredes, K.G.C.H.S., presidential liaison, Roman Catholic Ministries, American Bible Society
The rise of brutality and persecution has no place in our society. We must deplore and use all means at our disposal to reject and denounce this sickening extremist, fanatical ideology. It is our moral duty to condemn these atrocities against the Christian minorities and we should be ready to do the same against any minority. Humanity calls us to exercise reason not brutality. Let us intensify our campaign to denounce the absurdity of this new trend.
Father C. John McCloskey, Church Historian and Research Fellow of the Faith and Reason
Institute in Washington DC
All nations that belong to NATO should study immediately a rescue plan to offer humanitarian asylum to an Christians who are willing to accept it. All European countries of Christian origins should join a coalition of armed forces to attack and destroy completely the forces of the Islamic State by any means short of the use of atomic bombs.
If they are jihadists, we should be crusaders with a blessing from Pope Francis with plenary indulgence. Once defeated, all their weapons should be confiscated and destroyed. All Christian churches in the region should be rebuilt.
At the same time, all Muslims should be allowed to worship as before, but the mosques should be open for all to see and hear the preaching, to prevent any messages urging violence against Christians.
