A Catholic can no more morally participate in this U.S-Israel war on Iran than a Catholic can participate in the work of an abortion clinic. Isn’t that correct Bishop.N…? By the traditional moral standards of the Catholic Church, participation in the work of an abortion clinic is participation in the unjustified destruction of innocent human life or lives, and is therefore murder, an intrinsically evil act that always and everywhere is absolutely forbidden under all circumstances. Likewise, by the traditional moral standards of the Catholic Church, participation in an unjust war is participation in the unjustified destruction of innocent human life or lives, and is therefore murder, an intrinsically evil act that is always and everywhere forbidden under all circumstances.. For a war and its killing of human beings not to be unjust and therefore not to be murder in Catholic moral theology it must strictly (Catholic Catechism # 2309) meet and adhere to all the standards of the Catholic Just War Theory, in bello, ad bellam. Two of these strictly binding standards are that the war cannot be a pre-emptive war and it cannot target civilians. Both of these moral norms are being patently violated in this U.S.-Israel War on Iran This means by any sane and rational application of the Catholic Just War Theory that the war against Iran is in Catholic morality murder, indeed mass murder, as is the daily killing a human being or human beings in the womb in an abortion clinic murder, indeed, mass murder.
My concern for the Church is this. The American Catholic Hierarchy has never had any problem telling the U.S. Government abortion is murder, the unjust destruction of human life. It also has never had any problem simultaneously telling the individual Catholic that abortion is the unjust destruction of human life, ,i.e., murder, and therefore Catholics cannot participate in it or in the work of an abortion clinic. So why the silence, the calculated reticence in saying in hierarchical unison to the U.S. government and the Catholic Community of the U.S., “This war on Iran is an unjust war, therefore no individual Catholic can participate in it because it is the gravely intrinsic evil of mass murder that is daily taking place?”
Is an innocent human being’s life in the womb in the U.S. more precious in the eyes of God and in the hearts of those who love him or her, than the life of an innocent Iranian child, woman or man murder by a U.S. missile in their home or in their school?
So, Bishops, what is the difference between a Catholic being in the U.S. Military in this war on Iran and doing the bidding of the politicians and military officers who are executing a blatantly unjust war, a mass murder operation by Catholic moral standards, and a Catholic working a 40 hour week at an abortion mill?
Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
