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PopeWatch: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Shawn Marshall
Shawn Marshall
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 5:15am

It is so easy for a simple person to live in a simple world. The real cause of war is Totalitarianism.

Don L
Don L
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 5:20am

An honest question? Is the pope now rejecting the very Catholic concept of a just war?

Phillip
Phillip
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 6:22am

“Pope Francis called for a global ban on nuclear weapons…”

Not sure how this jives with his support of the recent US agreement with Iran. Particularly since it will likely add one more nuclear state to the mix.

Don L
Don L
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 7:29am

I recall a scriptural passage where our Lord (bigger things were the priority) told Peter to “put” away his sword…not to “throw’ it away.

Thomas Collins
Thomas Collins
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 8:47am

Found this article on Catholic Answers:
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/dropping-the-atomic-bomb-was-wrong-period

The author quotes Pope Benedict, “[W]e must begin asking ourselves whether as things stand, with new weapons that cause destruction well beyond the groups involved in the fight, it is still licit to allow that a just war might exist.”

He also cites the just war doctrine of course, especially proportionality, “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.”
It strikes me first, that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki meets this test and, second that proportionality is really consequentialism in disguise.

Don L
Don L
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 8:54am

Of course, the inverse also needs to be considered–when with modern weaponry and delivery means is added to the reality of a fanatical religious nation that openly announces they intend to destroy us and are developing the means aggressively, does there not enter a different criterion of “just war”–one that Aquinas could never have conceived of?

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 9:37am

proportionality is really consequentialism in disguise
The difference lies in the desired outcome. If someone wishes to dismiss an argument, it’s “consequentialism”; if they like where the argument goes, it’s “proportionality.”
The idea of a proportionate response goes at least back to “eye for an eye.” (Which was a limit, not a required minimum.)
The original words have actual meanings, but that’s what it’s been reduced to in this conversation.

chris c.
chris c.
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 10:18am

I agree with efforts to ban nuclear weapons, but without the illusion of supposing it would usher in a new era of world peace. Two major world wars both of which killed tens of millions aside from those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki prove that war is lethal enough and brutal enough without nuclear weapons. The best course is to repent of sin and pray, as our Blessed Mother requested.

Jay Anderson
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 12:34pm

“PopeWatch assumes that the Pope will get around to condemning the atrocities committed by the Empire of Japan during World War II …”
***
I’m still waiting for him to get around to condemning the Supreme Court’s decision redefining marriage and the Planned Parenthood videos.
***
Alas, he’s apparently too busy stacking the deck at the Synod so that the Church can follow the Supreme Court’s lead in redefining marriage, including adding such luminaries to the Synod lineup as certain Archbishops who think we should be “no more outraged” at Planned Parenthood’s nefarious deeds than we are at the state executing convicted murderers.
***
But I’m SURE he’ll get around to it “soon, soon.”

Becky Chandler
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 3:01pm

The bombing of Hiroshima is not a close moral question – no matter how much Americans might, understandably, want it to be. http://bit.ly/1D7TKx5 The problem is consequentialism, which has become the most popular moral heresy in the postmodern world. Hiroshima has been condemned by every Pope since it happened because of consequentialism– and every Catholic theologian of importance, including Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who, along with many important and thoughful Catholics, believed/believe that it was more than just a military operation, but an event which profoundly changed the world –helping to usher in the moral chaos , from which arose the Sexual Revolution and Culture of Death. http://bit.ly/1gFpUpy

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 4:15pm

and every Catholic theologian of importance, including Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who, along with many important and thoughful Catholics,

That’s Bishop Sheen. Rochester is not and was not a metropolitan see. Also, his most scholarly training was in philosophy, not theology.

Jay Anderson
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 4:30pm

He was made titular archbishop (of Newport, Wales) upon his retirement. So, technically, it is appropriate to refer to him as Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 11:39pm

I’d very much have to see the quotes involved- in context– before I’d believe anyone citied as having condemned the bombings as immoral.
The Venerable Sheen, for example, did speak about the bombing a lot, and even got quoted more than a single line when I went looking. (Same sorts that quote the CCC and claim it applies when the whole POINT was to hurt them militarily, and we’d have been delighted to not kill a single civilian)
Problem being, in each case he talks about how it’s our REACTION to the bomb that’s an issue.
Here’s a long one that doesn’t mention it as an aside, unlike the more popularly quoted one from a talk about sexual morality:
http://catholictradition.org/Mary/mary-atom.htm

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, August 10, AD 2015 11:46pm

I fear a large part of the problem is going to be layers of interpretation– today, we can get a citation, and go check it, rather than having to trust the source to be objective and to be saying what we think we’re hearing– even when the CCC tells you exactly the source for the claimed condemnation of the bombing of Japan, why pull the book out and go look when you “know” what it’s going to say already?
Especially if it supports what you’re just sure is true over all?
It doesn’t take many fairly minor disagreements and less than impartial interpretations, or mild overstatements that fall well inside of rhetorical style, and you’ve got a conclusion wildly different from what the case is.

Tom D
Tom D
Tuesday, August 11, AD 2015 7:58am

“The only time a ban on nuclear weapons would work is if the earth were already completely filled with nations that would never use nuclear weapons under any circumstances, and there were additionally no terrorist groups that would use nuclear weapons. Needless to say such an earth doesn’t exist now, and I doubt it ever will.”

Exactly right. When I hear any Pope say “The world must eliminate nuclear weapons” I normally don’t hear a programmatic proposal, but rather “The world must become a place filled with nations that would never use nuclear weapons”. Indeed it must. Indeed it never will.
This is why I try to put prayer ahead of politics in my life.

D Black
D Black
Tuesday, August 11, AD 2015 10:26am

How many of these Americans would have lived out their lives, and been husbands, fathers, and grandfathers if the bomb had been dropped seven months earlier? God bless their memory for it will never die. To paraphrase Patton, “Do not mourn them dead, rather thank God that such men lied.”

http://www.aleteia.org/en/religion/article/video-rare-footage-of-a-catholic-mass-aboard-a-ship-on-its-way-to-iwo-jima-5300417638432768

Don L
Don L
Tuesday, August 11, AD 2015 11:16am

D Black:
I lost an uncle (I was named after) on Iwo Jima, so your question is very appropriate…the would be cousins I never got to know etc.

D Black
D Black
Tuesday, August 11, AD 2015 12:50pm

Don L:

Sorry for your loss. So many fine Americans have died in the nation’s wars. But your uncle is looking down on you. I question those that say the bomb should never been dropped. The Japanese fought like crazed mad men on every island in the Pacific. If we had not dropped the bomb and had invaded mainland Japan, there’s estimates that up to a million deaths on both sides would have resulted. Thank God Truman was a strong leader, made the decision, and never doubted himself, in-spite of the skeptics.

Don L
Don L
Tuesday, August 11, AD 2015 1:28pm

Of course the bigger question might be about how many lives (and souls) might be sacrificed to plain old fear once the Persian Empire gets the weapon they might very well use.
Funny that those who deplore its use might inadvertently be the very causal advocates of it’s much further destruction by their sentimental sense of security and peace–supporting Obama’s deal with the devil.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Tuesday, August 11, AD 2015 1:46pm

The difference lies in the desired outcome. If someone wishes to dismiss an argument, it’s “consequentialism”; if they like where the argument goes, it’s “proportionality.”

Yeah, I realized that when Shea once posted (approvingly) an article detailing Dr Who vs Star Trek. Even though Dr Who is probably THE most consequentialist character on TV while Star Trek and its Prime Directive (which the article and Shea both – rightly – lambasted) is THE most consistent non-consequentialist example on TV (as demonstrated QUITE often by SF Debris).

It was that moment I realized just how empty the morality of Shea and every other non-consequentialists was.

paul coffey
paul coffey
Tuesday, August 11, AD 2015 6:16pm

i wonder if the other white bishop has ever heard of Takashi Nagai?
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=9388

Tom
Tom
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 8:29am

Saint JPII called out consequentialism and its close cousin, proportionalism, in Veritatis Splendor. Virtually all of the justifications for the bombings are consequentialist in nature, simply asserting that the bombings were justified because they averted “x” unknowable number of Allied casualties. Or the Japanese had it coming to them because of their own government’s war crimes, or they had it coming to them because maybe they were going to get the bomb first, etc. etc. All of which are simply consequentialist arguments, which is fine if you’re a Modernist, but not so much if you’re an orthodox Christian:

. . . This teleologism, as a method for discovering the moral norm, can thus be called — according to terminology and approaches imported from different currents of thought — ‘consequentialism’ or ‘proportionalism’. The former claims to draw the criteria of the rightness of a given way of acting solely from a calculation of foreseeable consequences deriving from a given choice. The latter, by weighing the various values and goods being sought, focuses rather on the proportion acknowledged between the good and bad effects of that choice, with a view to the ‘greater good’ or ‘lesser evil’ actually possible in a particular situation. . . . Even when grave matter is concerned, these precepts should be considered as operative norms which are always relative and open to exceptions. (VS, 75)

. . . Such theories however are not faithful to the Church’s teaching, when they believe they can justify, as morally good, deliberate choices of kinds of behavior contrary to the commandments of the divine and natural law. These theories cannot claim to be grounded in the Catholic moral tradition.” (VS, 76)

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 8:33am

Virtually all of the justifications for the bombings are consequentialist in nature, simply asserting that the bombings were justified because they averted “x” unknowable number of Allied casualties. Or the Japanese had it coming to them because of their own government’s war crimes, or they had it coming to them because maybe they were going to get the bomb first, etc. etc.

What about the point repeatedly mentioned: the other options would have killed MORE Japanese? And this we know because they barely avoided being wiped out by famine WITH our help – a blockade would have been near genocide.

When your code says it’s more moral to let old ladies get hit by buses, then you’ve lost the right to declare who is or isn’t an orthodox Christian.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 9:04am

Tom,

Though you haven’t addressed the problem of the Japanese militarizing a large portion of their population. If 75% of their population was to be placed under arms, it can change the morality of the act and not be consequentialist nor proportionalist.

Tom
Tom
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 1:00pm

1) “militarization” of the population, which would never be absolute, would not justify killing innocent civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to terrorize (Eisenhower’s word) the Japanese govt into capitulating. Again, this is just consequentialism: “we avoid evil x by committing evil y.”
2) Yes, many would die no matter what. The point is, it’s immoral to target civilians directly, as was done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the hope that such destruction would compel surrender. An invasion, on the other hand, would involve *mostly* soldiers vs. soldiers, with civilians not being direct targets. It makes a moral difference. And of course, there is no moral certitude about how many casualties would actually result from an invasion, there are only educated guesses. But even if it’s an order of 10 soldiers dead in an invasion vs. 1 dead civilian in the deliberate targeting of H and N, such a “trade off” mentality is straight up consequentialism, doing an intrinsically evil act of murder to avoid a perceived or expected “greater evil” of military deaths.
3) Blockade or invasion were both viable options. In a blockade, any resulting deaths would not be attributable to the blockade, but to the continued immoral decision of the Japanese authorities to continue hostilities.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 1:11pm

3) Blockade or invasion were both viable options. In a blockade, any resulting deaths would not be attributable to the blockade, but to the continued immoral decision of the Japanese authorities to continue hostilities.

So like I said: a near genocide is ok as long as your hands aren’t dirty.

It’s one thing to martyr yourself for your principles: go for it, that’s all well and good. But it’s quite another to demand that others sacrifice and die for your own self-righteousness.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 1:26pm

“1) “militarization” of the population, which would never be absolute, would not justify killing innocent civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to terrorize (Eisenhower’s word) the Japanese govt into capitulating. ”

But the Church has allowed bombing of military targets even in cities where there were civilians and would knowingly result in civilian deaths. The Church has never stated that there can be no civilian casualties whatsoever if there was a proportionate reason to bomb a target. Thus, the militarization of the population may in fact change the moral calculus and thus not necessarily be consequentialism.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 2:33pm

Thus, the militarization of the population may in fact change the moral calculus and thus not necessarily be consequentialism.

The distinctions being drawn here would be quite Jesuitical and I have no clue why Miss Anscombe would expect working politicians to make those distinctions reliably bar that she had no sense of the process of how ordinary people or politicians make decisions. Her complaints about Truman were quite exhibitionistic and not limited to monographs or journal articles.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 2:59pm

“Blockade or invasion were both viable options. In a blockade, any resulting deaths would not be attributable to the blockade, but to the continued immoral decision of the Japanese authorities to continue hostilities.”

A blockade seems to be the only plausible certain alternative. But turning large swaths of Japan into Buchenwald strikes me as a doubtful moral “improvement.”

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 3:39pm

Now, why is it that death’s resulting from our blockade would be the fault of the immoral Japanese regime persisting in hostilities, yet deaths resulting from that same immoral Japanese regime’s refusal to accept the Potsdam Declaration are our fault?

paul coffey
paul coffey
Thursday, August 13, AD 2015 3:43pm

and the Soviets coming south thru Manchuria – and the POW’s in Jap hands?
how does the blockade deal with them ??

Invasion viable? to whom? to the american people who just lost 1 million of their finest youth from @Mo.1q4 44 to end of q1 45 on islands? [forgetting momentarily Anzio etc. ] the and are being told they need to plan for 3, perhaps 5 million more casualties beginning in Sept 45 – Kyushu has some 900k Jap soldiers on it not counting militia and hostile civilians.
Viable to whom?? at what cost??

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