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The Gulf War and the Just‐War Theory: View from the Vatican
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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The Vatican’s case against military intervention by the US-led ‘coalition’ in the Persian Gulf was forcefully argued on the following grounds: 1) the destruction likely to be caused in the war would be entirely disproportionate to the not insignificant evil caused by Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, 2) there was every likelihood that noncombatant death and injury would be enormous, 3) there was from the start every likelihood that Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait could be secured through diplomatic activity and negotiations without resort to the application of military force. The ‘just war’ case for the Gulf War was therefore not met, as far as the Vatican was concerned, because the case for the war failed to meet the criteria of proportionate response, discrimination, and last resort. It is true that, in framing his own objections to the war, Pope John Paul II was chary of referring directly to the so-called ‘just-war theory’. But Peter Hebblethwaite’s comment that ‘John Paul is not much interested in the pros and cons of just-war theology’ fails to account for the extent to which the Pope’s arguments against the war fell within the traditional criteria.
From the outset, the Vatican’s position was shaped by a few principles which, though broadly stated, remained constants in its attitude during the Gulf Crisis. A statement appearing in the Vatican’s official daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano (9 August) along with the first papal statement on the crisis (26 August) contained the seeds of Vatican policy as it developed over the following months.
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- Copyright © 1992 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Hebblethwaite, Peter, ‘God's proxy is a peace voter,’ The Guardian, 4 February 1991, p. 33.Google Scholar
2 These three points represent a synthesis of two statements: “Per un'etica internazionale,”L'Osservatore Romano, 9 August 1991, p. 1; and the Pope's Angelus Domini discourse of 26 August: L'Osservatore Romano 27/28 August 1990, p.1.
3 Editorial, Financial Times, 13 August 1990, cited by Chomsky, Noam, Deterring Democracy (London: Verso, 1991). p. 190Google Scholar.
4 Chomsky, Deterring 192, citing hut Royce, Newsday, 29 August 1990.
5 L'Osservotore Romano, 14/15 January 1991, p. 1. The Vatican did not, however, endorse any particular proposal for such a conference. Thus, Archbishop Jean‐Louis Tauran, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, in an official communiqué issued 5 March 1991: La Repubblica, 6 March 1991. p. 6: ‘The Holy See does not intend to comment on the international conference proposed by the PLO and Saddam Hussein. But it regards it as important that one or more negotiating initiatives in this regard be taken up’.
6 Letter of Pope John Paul II to Jacques Poos, President of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Community and Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, 4 January 1991: L'Osservatore Romano, 6 January 1991, p. 1. (Translation mine).
7 L'Osservutore Romano, 4 October 1990. See The Tablet, 13 October 1990, p. 1317. For objections to the Vatican position see “The Perils of Linkage,”The Tablet, 20 October 1990. p. 1327. The term ‘aggression’ was first applied to the Iraqi invasion by the Vatican in L'Osservatore Romano, 8 August 1990, p. 1. See also the Address of Pope John Paul II to Diplomats Accredited to the Holy See, 12 January 1991: L'Osservutore Romano, 13 January 1991: “It is fortunate indeed that the United Nations Organisation has been the international instance which quickly took over the management of this grave crisis. Nor should this be surprising, if we recall that the Preamble and the first article of the Chanter of San Francisco assigns as a priority the will ‘to preserve future generations from the scourge of war’ and to ‘check every act of aggression’.”
8 Letter of Pope John Paul II to Saddam Hussein, 15 January 1991: L'Osservatore Romano, 17 January 1991, p. 1.
9 L'Osservatore Romano, 10 November 1990, p. 1.
10 L'Osservatore Romano. 19/20 November 1990, p. 1.
11 L'Osservatore Romano, 27/28 December 1990, p. 1.
12 “Acta Diuma,”L'Osservatore Romano, 30 December 1990, p. 1.
13 Domenico del Rio, “‘Un mediatore tra Iraq e Usa’. Proposta di Casaroli per evitare la guerra.”La Repubblica, 30/31 December 1990, p. 3. See The Tablet, 5 January 1991, p. 22.
14 Address of Pope John Paul II to the Diplomats Accredited to the Holy See, 12 January 1991: L'Osservatore Romano, 13 January 1991.
15 Peter Hebblethwaite. “God's proxy is a peace voter,”The Guardian, 4 February 1991, p. 33.
16 Domenico del Rio, “Libero papa in libero Stato.”La Repubblica 27/28 January 1991, p. 10.
17 Clifford Longley, “In praise of America,”The Tablet, 30 March/6 April 1991, p. 392: ‘They even include the Pope, it seems’.
18 Clifford Longley, “An elite with no answer,”The Times, 15 December 1990, p. 12. Longley accused the signatories of the statement ‘Just War in the Gulf?’ (26 November 1990) of ‘a religious‐moral snobbery towards anything in uniform, anything military’. He went on, 'in other words, no project involving both the CIA and Mrs Thatcher could possibly be honourable or noble … This is a classic trahison des clercs'.
19 Discourse of Pope John Paul II to Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops, 4 March 1991: L'Osservatore Romano, 6 March 1991. (Translation mine).
20 There are a number of sources for this judgement. See the interview conducted with former Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Agostino Casaroli: La Repubblica, 30/31 December 1990, p. 3: ‘Once war has broken out, the parties involved will be automatically impelled to multiply their deterrent forces, and even to unleash destructive weaponry, overriding the limits of morality and humanity which must be respected even where a right to war exists’. An abridgement of this interview was reported in The Tablet, 5 January 1991, p. 22, from which this translation of the Cardinal's remarks is taken. See also the Letter of Pope John Paul II to President Bush, 15 January 1991: L'Osservatore Romano, 17 January 1991, p. I: ‘I wish now to restate my firm belief that war is not likely to bring an adequate solution to international problems and that, even though an unjust situation might be momentarily met, the consequences that would possibly derive from the use of arms, and especially of today's highly sophisticated weaponry, would not give rise, in addition to suffering and destruction, to new and perhaps worse injustices’. Peter Hebblethwaite, “How to read the Pope,”The Tablet, 23 February 1991. p. 226. argued that by the use of the word possibly the Pope's letter allows an ‘escape hatch’ from his judgement. But Bryan Hehir, “Pope's Perspective.” p. 726. retorts: 'not likely could also be highlighted'. See. also Pope John Paul II to the Clergy of the Diocese of Rome, 14 February 1991: L'Osservatore Romano, 16 February 1991. p. 1: ‘It is an even greater worry of ours for the future that as a consequence of this war, people will become yet more polarized, more hostile towards each other, rather than journeying towards understanding and solidarity‐even universal. It is possible that people are already now becoming more divided, more opposed and antagonistic with respect to each other. All of the Church's interventions as well as my own particular ministry in this matter, proceed from this principal concern’. Translation mine. The Vatican did not alter its negative views after the war. See the communiqué issued 5 March 1991 by Archbishop Jean‐Louis Tauran, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, La Repubblica, 6 March 1991. p. 6: ‘The weapons of destruction employed during more than a month of bombardment and a week of the land campaign cannot but have produced new injustices. This is what the Pope had already written to President Bush. And we do not yet know exactly the full extent of the consequences of this war in human lives and destruction’.
21 Clifford Longley, “An anguished Catholic treads a careful line.”The Times, 21 February 1991, p. 14: “On Sunday 117 February] the Pope had complained at the abuse of his previous remarks on the war, and declared: ‘We are not pacifists. We do not want peace at any price, but peace with justice, which takes into account the rights of all the peoples concerned’. His spokesman [sic] said that in those rights the Pope meant the rights of sovereign Kuwait as well as of Iraqis, Palestinians and ‘all the people of the Middle East’. Cardinal Hume said that in view of this he felt there was no longer a gap between himself and the Pope…”.
22 See Noam Chomsky, “A stand on low moral ground,”The Guardian, 10 January 1991, p. 21; and idem, Deterring, p. 179–214: Chapter 6: ‘Nefarious Aggression’.
23 Bryan Hehir, “The Gulf War in retrospect: The Pope's Perspective,”The Tablet, 22 June 1991, p. 762.
24 Pope John Paul II to the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, 1 March 1991: L'Osservatore Romano, 2 March 1991, p. 4.
25 A strident criticism of the rôle of the media during the war was offered by Sergio Trasaui, “Un documento disatteso?”L'Osservatore Romano, 24 February 1991, “Domenica,” p. 5. For a detailed account of media censorship and propaganda in relation to the war, see the special issue of Index of Censorship, 204–5 (April/May 1991), devoted to ‘Warspeak: the Gulf and the News Media’. In addition see.: Robert Fisk, “The Marketting of Armageddon,”The Independent on Sunday Magazine, 9 December 1990, p. 12; John Pilger, “Myth‐makers of the Gulf war,”The Guardian, 7 January 1991, p. 23; Phillip Knightley, “Lies, damned lies and military briefings,”New Statesman and Society, 8 February 1991. p. 26–7; Peter Lennon, “Relative values in a time of war,”The Guardian, 21 February 1991, Alexander Cockbum, “The TV war,”New Statesman and Society, 8 March 1991, p. 14–5.
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