“Never Again War”

This essay addresses the complexities of the R oman C atholic position on war by evaluating recent documentary evidence, attending to the contemporary challenges of terrorism and humanitarian interventions. It presents two arguments. First, attending to traditional C atholic resources for assessing war, papal criticism of recent military action, and debates about a recent shift in C atholic just war logic, this essay argues that C atholic teaching on war has undergone a repositioning in a pacifist direction. Second, it contends that recent critiques of this shift in position by scholars such as G eorge W eigel and J ames T urner J ohnson, however, are wrong to categorize this a “functional pacifism.” Though a development from within just war theory and pacifist reasoning, the Church's new stance does not operate as a type of pacifism, allowing too many possibilities for justified armed conflict to be labeled as “functional” pacifism. The essay concludes by examining the traditional C atholic theological commitments that place limits on any movement toward pacifism, precluding even a functionally pacifist position.