The Moral and Legal of War and Peace - Essay Example

War and Peace This essay on war and peace explores the moral and legal of when and how to achieve the political objective. The paper analyses the ethics of war and peace on its legal and moral perspective with respect to the religious teaching. It surveys the historical development of the war of reasoning and its incorporation in the international religious concern. The conflicting moral and legal obligations of the state in the peacekeeping and peacemaking have found concern in the religious rhyme. This paper studies the official catholic teachings on peace and war in the broader perspective of the globalised world. It gives special attention to the prevailing societal set up and emerging trends in the governments. The paper reviews the present teaching of the Roman Catholic Church then follows statements of the church bishop, Pope John Paul II. The Australian Catholic Church social justice council has two documents (already in the market) that outline the statements of the pope John Paul II that contains the teachings of catechism of the Catholic Church on the issue of war and peace. He published these documentaries when the Republic of Iraq was facing the threat of military intervention by a contingent of allied forces. This was because Iraq had failed to meet the inspection resolutions of the UN concerning weapons production and mass destruction of persons through wars (Marc, 2002:46-49). The document by the pope provides a basic source for the local communities on the justice groups and individuals seeking information on the stand of the church towards war and peace. It reviews the teachings of the church on the issue of war and peace as contained in the catechism with excerpts from the Holy Father and church leaders from across the world. The responses of the Catholic Church in regard to use of force are in two strands that answers the issues of pacifist and just war. Basing on the gospel values and the experience of the national and global violence, pacifism regards war as being unthinkable and unjustified. The just war tradition opposes the use of force in the engagements of war. The moral conditions resort to protect the innocent and restore justice (Shannon and Thomas, 2003:245-269). The teachings of the church on war and peace have changed over time and continue to do so in response to the emerging trends across the globe. For example the just war theory has formalized by the St Augustine continues to evolve considering the moral framework of the changing nature and circumstances of war as a form of response to aggression. In the current society, terrorist acts of terror are common as the immediate mode of conflict resolution. In spite of these, the strict church moral requirements demand that war should be the resort and that peaceful diplomatic means should are necessary to curb the issue of war. The Catholic Church has called for peaceful resolutions of differences in order to prevent wars and not constitute the legitimate use of force (Rock, 2011:189-191). The Christian views in the issue of war and peace have diverged widely in the recent past due to the current world events. In the modern society, people hold many different opinions due to the crisis surrounding countries like Iraq. However, the roman church calls for the convergence of the Christian views on the judgments of the secular events formed in the teachings of the church leaders. The catechism has teachings of the Catholic Church on the avoidance of the war. The teachings offer total respect to the human life as God given and thus subject to total respect by all humans. This clearly reflects in the commandments documented in the catechism, which calls that You Shall Not Kill (n 2302). The respect for human life paves the need for peace and it only comes in the absence of war. Peace is a tranquility of order, which comes from the respect to human dignity and the respect for the individuals and the entire community (Marc, 2002:77-79). Peace comes out of Justice and love. The Catholic Church continues to teach that the main source of peace is Jesus as His love makes us have peace. They believe that by the death and resurrection of Jesus reconciliation with God came automatically thus we are free from within thus we must express the same phenotypic. The church calls for unity among the believers as exhibited in the sacrament, which is a symbol of unity for the Christian family. The church teaches on the beatitudes that proclaim the importance of peacekeeping, to quote “Blessed are the peacemakers” (n 2305) The Roman Catholic Church teaches on violence rejection because it renounces the physical risk to an individual or the society. Respect for human life is the key pillar to peace as it alienates the violent means that are available for the weak in the society. The church teaches that war comes out of evil and injustice. Therefore, everyone should pray and act according to the scriptures in order to free from the bondage of war. Every society member has a role to play in the process of avoiding war (Shannon and Thomas, 2003:269-278). The process of eliminating war will be due to the combined efforts of all the individuals not government alone as perceived by many. However, incase the peaceful pursuit methods fail the government has the mandate to enact rights for lawful self-defense mechanisms. This applies as long as the danger for war persists and no international authority is available to challenge the effect of the police actions. The Catholic Church authoritatively teaches on the just defense of a nation against any national aggressor. The church has evolved to adopt the modern warfare and therefore its teachings have basis on the prevailing security welfare. The catechism of the Roman Catholic addresses the anger in the desire to revenge. Anger is an emotion that can drive an individual to seek vindication of his or her rights through all possible means. St Thomas Aquinas church notes that, a vice, whether defective or excess should not provoke righteous anger absent in the sinful insensibility. Anger is the main source of war. According to the Catholic Church, the anger of the Christ in the church made Him cause war over the moneychangers in the Temple but his anger intended correction of a vice (Rock, 2011:194-197). Therefore, his, is a righteous anger. Unjust anger seeks to do evil for other for owns sake and aims at harming the body of an individual participant. The church teaches that the desire to cause an injury is an evil motive and a venially sinful action. The Christian lineup expects that Christians will never fall in the damnation evil doing and will maintain respect for the human life. The catechism of the Roman church has repeatedly opposed the entertainment media as it increasingly promotes the image of anger and vengeance hence loss of justice and peace. The Catholic Church teaches that peace is a fruit or benefit in other words of justice in the society. It is sometimes right for the government to use force over the subject and even the Catholic Church recognizes this although it should be the last resort. However, the church advocates that the governments and the citizens of the respective countries should work in the avoidance of war. Individuals and governments should renounce all violent acts that deter preservation of justice. The church teaching on war and peace establishes presumptions that bind all the persons as effective players in the maintenance of peace. The church terms war as the most barbarous and the least effective way of solving any conflict. The church teaches against use of violence especially among the force arms (Marc, 2002:149-154). It insists that violence is uncontrollable especially if let loose and may claim deaths in the path of liberation and irresistibly engender new forms of oppression and enslavement. The church also has strong moral reservations towards the accumulation of weapons as a method of deterrence as this is not an assured way of maintaining peace. It goes ahead to make a conclusion that accumulation of war arms increases conflict and danger escalation and diverts the resources of a country that could have otherwise been used to eliminate poverty. The Pope John Paul II gave a speech regarding the First Gulf War where he urged for non-violent problem resolution methods. He constantly called for dialogue, negotiation, and respect for the human rights as a mean of establishing and maintaining peace in any country. The Catholic Church emphasizes on the role of the international law in the establishment of peace and justice in the society. War is unworthy for the humanity as it stakes for further hatred and injustice (Shannon and Thomas, 2003:312-319). The church explores the risk of escalation and the unpredictable magnitude of consequences due to the discriminatory of certain human rights. The church emphasizes on the importance of having faith in God as the major source of peace. They advocate for each individual to turn face towards for the eternal peace. Bibliography Marc, G. (2002) Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press. Michaels, W. (2002) No Greater Threat: America After September 11 and the Rise of a National Security State. New York: Algora Publishing. Rock, S. (2011) Faith and Foreign Policy: The Views and Influence Of U.S. Christians and Christian Organizations. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Shannon, T., Thomas, M. (2003) Catholic Perspectives on Peace and War. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Read More