Nonviolence - A Brief History: The Warsaw Lectures

10 Varieties of Catholic Peace Theology II: Professors and Pastors

121 Chapter 10 Varieties of Catholic Peace Theology II Professors and Pastors Thus far we have been observing developments in the unofficial Roman Catholic peace thought. Now we move to a more official level. The “professors” mentioned in our title are described by that term not so much because of formal employment in academic institutions, but rather because of the educative impact of their expository role. John Courtney Murray did serve as an instructor in theology in Jesuit theological faculties, yet the publications and research with which we are concerned was not a part of his primary academic responsibility.1 Far beyond his teaching of Jesuit seminarians in the period between the world wars, he became the most authorized interpreter of Catholic social thought, especially when speaking with Protestants, especially in the realms of democracy and religious liberty. John A. Ryan, while often occupied as a university teacher, was best known because of his continuing function in church agency administration. He was an advisor for matters of social concern to the National Catholic Welfare Conference and was responsible in that connection for bridging the distance between episcopal theology and lay Catholic social leadership.2 Ryan is to 1 John Courtney Murray (1904–1967), a Jesuit, was ordained in 1933, received a doctorate in sacred theology in 1937, and was the editor of Theological Studies from 1941 until his death. 2 John A. Ryan (1868–1945) attended and eventually taught at The Catholic University of America. 122 Nonviolence be credited more than any other person for the fact that, by 1940, everyone understood that there was such a thing as a specific body of thought called “Catholic social teachings” that could be applied in a systematic way across the agenda of contemporary concerns. He was best known for, and perhaps most original in, his interpretation of the “living wage,” which took direction from Rerum Novarum and which clashed with dominant American “market” doctrine, with liberal socialism, and in some ways with trade unionism. Had he been in Europe, he would have been chaplain to a Catholic student or labor movement or to a Christian democratic party. In this role, Ryan drafted popular educational documents, like his social catechism, and textbooks, like Catholic Principles of Politics.3 He was the founding and leading figure in the Catholic Association for International Peace, a volunteer educational agency active in both Great Britain and North America between the wars. The substance of Ryan’s teaching about the morality of war was intentionally not original. What was original was the fact that he made an accessible and applicable set of guidelines for real political responsibility out of a vague and neglected tradition. Ryan interlocked bold legal customs, more-recent legal conventions , and ancient moral principles in a compendium that was intended to be practically usable. As such, he could not avoid raising the possibility of an obligation on the part of Christians in political-military responsibility to accept national sacrifices rather than to prosecute war unjustly. Yet that eventuality did not need to be looked at very seriously. John Courtney Murray, S.J., was best known for his advocacy of religious liberty and a democratic, pluralistic vision of society. Frowned upon in previous decades, this position came into its own in Vatican II. However, Murray spoke with the same authority , though less frequently, on the issue of war. He insisted, as others did not, that to accept honestly the just war tradition means a readiness to accept defeat rather than prosecute a war unjustly. 3 See John A. Ryan and Francis J. Boland, C.S.C., Catholic Principles of Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1940). 10 — Varieties of Catholic Peace Theology II: Professors and Pastors 123 Murray was no defeatist. He did not believe that that tragic alternative would be unavoidable usually or always, but he insisted that the possibility needed to be reaffirmed if moral reasoning about war was to be responsible. In 1959 Murray wrote, in the pamphlet Morality and Modern War, that both the stated goal of “unconditional surrender” and the resort to massive obliteration bombing of cities in the Second World War had been immoral.4 Murray had begun that argument with an important reminder. Although the just war tradition has been “on the books” as the official doctrine of the churches, this does not mean that it had been effectively held to and applied. Whereas outside critics, whether pacifistic or...