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The Sanction of War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2024

Ambrose Farrell O.P.
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There can be no lasting peace in international affairs until the nations of the world learn to worship God. Worship is the chief act of religion, which is not confined to church or reserved for certain occasions, but is a life-long task and a whole-time endeavour characterized by swift readiness to obey. The universe cannot escape from the laws which hold it fast to God’s throne. Governments cannot hope for order and peace unless they follow nature’s rules. For obedience to law is the pledge of justice, the foundation of peace. There is no medium between law as a dictate of reason and lawlessness with violence for its sanction. When violence is the rule in national life anarchy is its fruit, and when this is carried beyond the borders of the nation the world is plunged in war. Man was not made for servitude, since he is freeborn, and when his freedom is placed in jeopardy by the lawless domination of force, the primary law of his nature urges him to fight for his existence as a free man. As it is with men and families, so it is with nations. The law of men and of states, unless it is to be a pure tyranny, is one of liberty making for full co-operation and a protection against the bondage of servitude. The dignity of human destiny requires the liberty to serve in obedience to authority under the reign of law. The law of nature is by origin divine, since God is the author of nature.

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 21 , Issue 238 , January 1940 , pp. 3 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © 1940 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 In this paper we use the terms ‘state’ and ‘nation’ to describe those bodies politic which have attained to a degree of self-sufficiency so as to warrant the enjoyment by them of full sovereignty). Nationality in the strict sense is commonly a chief factor in the formation of a state, though this is not always so.

2 Summi Pontificatus, Oct. 20, 1939.

3 Summi Pontificatus.

4 Summi Pontificatus.

5 Cf. The Science of Ethics. By the Rev. Michael Canon Cronin, Vol. II, p. 636.

6 Summi Pontificatus.

7 Summa, IIaIIae, 58, V.

8 Summa, IIaIIae, 61, II.

9 Maine, Ancient Law, ch. 111, pp. 52, 53.

10 History of English Law. By W. S. Holdsworth. Vol. V, pp. 50, 51.

11 De Indis, 111, 1. The definition of Gaius is ‘Quod vero naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes pereque custoditur vocaturque jus gentium’ (D.Lib. I. tit. I, ix). Vitoria substitutes gentes in the sense of nations for homines. Cf. Vitoria and the Conquest, by Honorio Muñoz, O.P., pp. 133, 134; La Justice, by M.-S. Gillet, O,P., p, 221,

12 In the words of Dr. Micklem, ‘According to the National Socialist conception the “honour” of Germany would appear to be more particularly expressed in the refusal to brook any limitation upon national destiny as Germans read their destiny’ (National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church, p. 62).

13 Ibid., p.61.

14 Summi Pontificatus.