In scrapping the Vatican's 'just war' theory, Pope Leo could change history
theglobeandmail.com
A 1,000-year-old Church doctrine says some wars are morally permissible — Pope Leo may be about to erase it, and that rewrites the ethics of violence itself.
Just War TheoryMoral AbsolutismNatural Law TheoryInstitutional Path Dependence
Theory Briefing
- Just War theory, over 1,000 years old, has long given the Catholic Church a framework to deem some military violence morally legitimate.
- Pope Leo scrapping the doctrine would mark one of the most significant reversals in Church moral teaching in modern history.
- The move forces a question philosophy has never fully settled: can violence ever be truly justified, or is that always a rationalization?
- Removing the Church's moral cover for war could shift how billions of Catholics — and the institutions they influence — think about armed conflict.