By Joseph R. Wood.

But first a note from Brad Miner: Friends: I've had a long and (some would say) distinguished career as an editor and writer, and had the privilege of working with some remarkable people (William F. Buckley, Jr. was one of those). Yet I consider my time at The Catholic Thing as the peak of my professional life. Not the earnings peak, of course, but there you are. I'm very proud of the men and women who contribute to this site and impressed too by the range of their talents and achievements - by our diversity, as people and as writers. Some may imagine we're all cut from the same cloth. We aren't. But we all come together, each in his own way, to praise our Lord.

We do that whether writing about the sacraments or history; if we are being upbeat or 'judgmental.' And, believe me, we do it all for you. You may not know it, but your comments matter very much to us, although sometimes more than other times. So, please, let's keep this conversation going. To quote His Excellency Charles J. Chaput, former Archbishop of Philadelphia: "For the past . . . years, against the odds, The Catholic Thing has offered day after day of consistently invaluable Catholic commentary on the world around us and the issues we face as believers. . . . The Catholic Thing is the kind of little miracle that ripples out to touch lives in powerful ways."

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Now for today's column...

As an intellectual pharisee, I acknowledge that I'm smarter than everyone else (after all, I'm a philosopher!). Like Aristotle's unchanging, eternal Prime Mover, the only suitable activity for me is contemplating my own excellence in my intellect.

But the world needs to hear my self-expressed opinions, so I sometimes step down from the heights to correct the errors of others (i.e., opinions different from my own). When the priests are wearing purple as they are now, I often repent that the world doesn't receive the gift of my instruction more often (not for nothing did one of my Air Force Academy professors, decades ago, nickname me "Arrogance").

With TCT's strict word limit (which should apply to others, not me), I'll only attempt to address two problems I came across this week.

On December 3, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, shepherd of the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, issued a "Statement on Caribbean Interceptions." The statement responded both to the broad Trump Administration policy of using the military to interdict drug smuggling outside our territory and to the specific act of Secretary of Defense (nay, War) Hegseth or his commanders when they ordered an attack on a presumed drug boat, followed by a second attack that killed survivors of the first attack.

Both the policy and the act raise difficult moral questions. In recent decades, the United States has faced serious threats from "non-state actors" such as terrorist organizations. Such organizations operate with no regard for international or domestic law. As such, they present tough challenges to nations that seek to codify the reason of natural law into international agreements and domestic laws that govern how we conduct warfare.

In past cases such as the brutal American counter-insurgency campaign in the Philippines, counter-insurgency against the Viet Cong, or detention of terrorists outside the United States at Guantanamo Bay, America has struggled to abide by moral principles while doing what was deemed necessary to protect Americans and allies.

Even the question of which organizations should be designated "terrorist" (subject to American economic and military action) is fraught. Should drug lords be considered terrorists like those who struck on 9/11?

Archbishop Broglio's statement mentions neither Christ nor Scripture nor Catholic sources. He seems to apply secular standards to a secular problem, though the secular standards he discusses - just war "theory" and due process - find their foundations in Western Catholic thinking.

Just war principles origi...