I begin with what I should have included in the first post: “In this task of teaching peace, there is a particularly urgent need to lead individuals and peoples to respect the international order and to respect the commitments assumed by the Authorities which legitimately represent them. Peace and international law are closely linked to each another: law favours peace.” Message of His Holiness Pope John Paul II for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace, 1 January 2004 (italics in original). It is probably sufficient, for purposes of making the point about the Church’s embrace of international law for the sake of peace, to simply refer everyone to this Message by Saint John Paul II. It is worth reading in full.
Nonetheless, I will take this opportunity to add a little bit of commentary from a couple of authors along with excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and social encyclicals that illustrate the hope and confidence that Catholic Moral Teaching (CMT) places in international institutions, including international law. Here is an important theological point: “Within the tradition [CMT on war] one finds the conviction that war is not inevitable or a necessity of the human condition.” (Kenneth R. Himes, O.F.M., “War,” The New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought, ed. Judith A. Dwyer, Liturgical Press 1994). Catholics are not allowed to abandon peace-building efforts on grounds that human beings as a species, or peoples from certain regions of the world, are destined to resort to war. Such a belief is bad Catholic theology – human nature is not depraved, and God’s redemptive activity has not stalled out.
It is against this theological backdrop, that the following statement from the Catechism is offered: “However, ‘as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.’” (CCC 2308 (quoting Gaudium et spes 79 §5)). The reference to an “international authority with the necessary competence and power” to avert the danger of war is sincere. The Church really does want us to work on building something approaching an international authority with the necessary competence and power to avert war, with due regard for state sovereignty.
With that, just a few more quotes from the last two predecessors of John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI, in one of his messages in celebration of the World Day of Peace, wrote: “It bears repeating: power must always be disciplined by law, and this applies also to relations between sovereign States….Do juridic norms exist for relationships between the nations which make up the human family? And if they exist, are they operative? The answer is: yes[.]” (Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace, 1 January 2008).
In his encyclical Caritas in veritate (2009), Pope Benedict XVI elaborated on the need for international governance in several domains, including war:
To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums[.]
(Para. 67).
In Fratelli tutti (2022), Pope Francis echoes Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI on the legitimacy of international governing institutions and insists that they not be delegitimized:
At the same time, “the work of the United Nations, according to the principles set forth in the Preamble and the first Articles of its founding Charter, can be seen as the development and promotion of the rule of law, based on the realization that justice is an essential condition for achieving the ideal of universal fraternity… There is a need to ensure the uncontested rule of law and tireless recourse to negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as proposed by the Charter of the United Nations, which constitutes truly a fundamental juridical norm”. There is need to prevent this Organization from being delegitimized, since its problems and shortcomings are capable of being jointly addressed and resolved.
(Para. 173).
I will close out this post with the following from a recent book on CMT and war, in which the author identifies “preventing war through greater global governance” as one of the pillars of CMT and war: “From charters such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to institutions such as the International Court of Justice, Catholic teaching consistently emphasizes the link between international law and efforts on behalf of a more humane and less violent world.” (David Carroll Cochran, The Catholic Case Against War: A Brief Guide, University of Notre Dame Press 2024, at 55).
In the next post, I want to examine anti-Catholic efforts at delegitimizing international law, beginning with the sanctions imposed by the United States on the ICC in response to the exercise of its authority with respect to Palestine.