CAN THE WAR BE JUST?

… or the fact that what is unthinkable in the Church can be legitimate and justified worldwide – even for a Christian! GOD’S WORD: (1 MAK 3, 18-24) Reading from the First Book of Maccabees: Judas replied: “Even a few can easily besiege many, for the God of heaven makes no difference whether he delivers by many or only by a few.
19 Victory in battle does not depend on the number of troops because power comes from heaven. 20 They come against us full of headiness and pride, destroying our wives and children and robbing us.
21 But we are fighting for our own lives and laws. 22 He will crush them before our eyes. So don’t be afraid of them!” 23 Just what he finished suddenly struck at them, and Sermon was destroyed with his army. 24 They persecuted him from the Bathroom pass to the plain. And eight hundred men fell from them. The others fled to Philistine territory. We have heard God’s word. There are two realities: the Kingdom of Heaven and this world. The Church corresponds to the first, and the state is responsible for the second. Therefore, in Western Christendom, there is a clear dividing line between the state and the Church. They can work together and overlap to a greater or lesser extent, but they will never merge. The Church must never become the State, and the State can never become the Church—and if it tries, it will only become a secular tyranny, promoting a secular ideology, as we see with current left-liberalism on the one hand, or former German or current Russian Nazism on the other the second. Both must remain separate – the Church from the temptation to become an earthly kingdom and the state from the temptation to become a church. And that’s why there are two meters, two standards, for the state and the Church.
Perhaps nowhere else can this be seen better than in the case of war. Waging war within the Church is unimaginable – as is the idea of ​​the Church as waging war against anyone else in the world for religious reasons. On the other hand, in the world and at the state level, there is a reason for war to wage war when it is just, and not to wage war at all would be a reprehensible evil. When, but what is it, and what conditions must be met for it to be a just war? “War of aggression is intrinsically immoral. In a tragic case, when it breaks loose, the responsible representatives of the invaded state have the right and duty to organize the defense even with the use of weapons” (Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church – KSNC 500); the Church explains and continues on the same point Compendium: “For the use of force to be permissible, it must meet certain strict conditions”:
1) “- so that the damage caused by the aggressor to the nation or community of nations is permanent, severe and certain” – so I cannot attack simply because I am afraid of something, nor because of a cause which in itself it does not cause either severe or permanent damage to the nation and the state. A pretext staged by Germany for the beginning of II. of the World War – the alleged attack by the Poles on the radio transmitter in Gliwice – such a reason for war, moreover an aggressive one, was not, even if this incident took place and was caused by the Polish side. On the contrary, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is this reason in full: it causes and threatens to cause severe, permanent, and not only inevitable but also actual damage to Ukraine.
2) “- so that all other means to put an end to it prove useless or ineffective” – ​​in the case of Russia’s current aggression against Ukraine, we see that neither the UN position nor the regulation International Court of Justice in The Hague, neither sanctions nor diplomacy has stopped this aggression in any way. In this case, armed resistance is the only option.
3) “- so that serious conditions for success occur together” – there is hope that armed resistance will produce fruitful results. Defense of Berlin at the end of II. world war, for example, this one did not give hope. On the other hand, the seemingly hopeless defense of a besieged city (for example, these days, Mariupol in Ukraine) can be justified because it binds the aggressor’s forces and causes losses to him and thereby weakens his ability to attack the rest of the country.
4) “- so that the use of weapons does not result in greater evils and disorders than the evil to be eliminated. In evaluating this condition, the power of modern means of destruction will weigh heavily.” For example, at the end of II. world war, the surrender of Japan certainly brought less damage to Japan. At the same time, it opened the door to subsequent growth and prosperity than if Japan had continued the war on its territory and involved in extreme resistance against all the inhabitants of the Empire, even if “only armed with pointed bamboo poles,” as the Japanese militarists declared. In other words, surrendering Japan to the Allies was a much better choice than continuing the war (which was not so fair, but we present it as an illustration of this comparison). If the country’s defense before the aggressor led to more significant damage than capitulation, it is not for the continuation of the war.