Is MODERN WAR UNJUST?

From Dr. L. L. McReavy
Professor of Moral and Canon Law (Ushaw) SIR,-In your editorial of last week, you formulated three propositions in regard to any future major war and invited me to say whether I "believed" them, My answer must be that I do not believe any of them. in the sense of accepting them as certain to be verified. I can only accept them as probablities. and with reservations.
(I) I agree that it is highly probable "that in any future major war nuclear weapons will sooner or later come to be used", though I still cherish the hope that the nations will ban the beastly things.
(2) I do not agree "that such nuclear weapons cannot discriminate "between innocent people and combatants, because I accept the assurance of experts that tactical nuclear weapons capable of discriminate use have been devised; but I concede it as probable that they will not in fact be used with the discrimination required by the moral law, and I regard it as morally certain that if megaton weapons are used at all, even as a Iasi resort and in self-defence. they will be used immorally. I would stress, however, that failure to observe the moral limits of legitimate self-defence does not necessarily deprive a just belligerent of its right to pursue a defensive war and thereby make the war itself unjustifiable.
(3) I accept the scientific finding that the use of nuclear weapons will have deleterious genetic effects. but, until there is agreement on the gravity of these effects. I cannot logically assume that they must neeessarily outweigh any possible good to be achieved by a war of self defence and, therefore. make any such war henceforth unjustifiable on the principle of double effect.
Moreover, even if the scientists were agreed in principle. they could offer no reliable estimate of the extent of the genetic effect without knowing in advance the extent to which nuclear weapons will be used.
Since. therefore, none of these three propositions is certain. and only one of them would, if verified, necessarily make even a defensive war sinful as such. they cannot objectively warrant the conclusion that it will certainly be sinful for any conscientious person to take a combatant part in any future major war.
The most one can logically conclude is that, in view of the vastly increased evil potentialities of nuclear war. a State or group of States is much less likely to be morally justified in resisting an aggression with nuclear weapons, and the individual citizen is much more likely to be morally justified in refusing to bear arms in defence of his country.
This more cautious conclusion would seem to express the mind of the Church, as revealed in the authoritative pronouncements of Pope Pius XII, and. if it does, it is the only moral position which can rightly be called "Catholic". The late Pope took full account of the above three considerations, but he never drew from them the conclusion that a nuclear war is intrinsically unjustifiable even when undertaken in legitimate self-defence, or that conscientious objection is henceforth a moral duty for every honest citizen.
On the contrary, in his Christmas broadcast of 1956, he declared that a nation faced with a nuclear threat "can find itself in the situation in which. every effort to avert war having proved vain. is war to defend itself against unjust attacks cannot he considered illicit", and that, in such circumstances, "a Catholic citieen cannot invoke his own conscience in order to refuse to serve and fulfil those duties which the law Imposes".
Everyone is. of course, free to form his own judgment as to whether the conditions of a just war are ever again likely to be fulfilled in a major clash of the nations; my own opinion is that the chances are dim. And if the dreaded event should ever come to pass. everyone will be morally bound to follow his own certain conscience, formed in the light of the Church's moral teaching and his own prudent estimate of the factual situation. What 1 criticised in the article to which you, Sir, have taken exception, is the growing tendency to jump the gun, to take up a definite moral position in advance of the uncertain future facts which should determine it, to label it "Catholic" and suggest that it is a matter of present moral obligation for all who are guided by conscience.
L. L. McReavy Professed of Moral and Canon Law
Ushaw College, Durham.
We think that Dr. McReavy's statement is an important one which we hope will be filed by all seriously interested in site grave problems involved. But it appears to by-pass the point specifically made in the leading article which put the hypothetical question: If a Catholic believes that the overwhelming probability is that the next major war WU/ in colVC "Unjust" methods of warfare. is he or ms he not entitled personally to condemn such a war and refuse to participate in it? Furthermore is he entitled as a Catholic to make known his views and campaign against nuclear warfare on the grounds of what he believes to be its intrinsic injustice? This was the position of some of the contributors to "Morals and Missiles".EDITOR. "C.H."