The leader of all Catholic chaplains in the United States’ armed forces has questioned how righteous the US military’s campaign in Iran is, saying that “under the just war theory – it is not”.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, told CBS News in an interview set for broadcast Sunday that while Iran “was a threat with nuclear arms”, waging war on the theocratic state constituted “compensating for a threat before the threat is actually realized”.
The just war theory is a philosophical and legal framework, rooted in the theologies of Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, that is designed to help determine when starting war is morally justifiable – or jus ad bellum – and how it should be conducted, or jus in bello.
It directs that war is a last resort, undertaken only to correct serious wrong, and it requires legitimate authority, right intent, and proportionality in order to obtain peace.