By Randall Smith and Luis E. Lugo

The next synod might or might not deal with the Church's "just war" doctrine. So, let me go on record as saying: I don't like war. It doesn't represent a great "profile in courage" to say that. I mean, who loves war? I suppose some tyrants do. But that poses a problem. If tyrants pursue wars in order to secure their positions of power, what are others who hate war to do?

The Church has long defended the legitimacy of wars of self-defense. But recent proclamations from certain sectors of the Church seem to verge on pacifism, the view that all war is wrong. Perhaps this simply means all aggressive wars by tyrants are wrong. That would not be a new or especially troubling teaching. It would be a welcome change if we could get tyrants to abide by the principle.

But I am still wondering about other possible causes of war.

So, for example, the United States went to war against England in 1812 for a number of reasons, but chiefly because the British Navy would stop U.S. ships at sea, search their crews, and "press" into service on British ships anyone who couldn't prove U.S. citizenship. Attempts to escape would be punished by severe whipping or even hanging. To state the matter overly simply: the U.S. government demanded that this kidnapping of American sailors stop. The British refused. War ensued. Was going to war to stop British enslavement of American sailors immoral? War is bad, but so was essentially kidnapping American sailors and forcing them to serve on British ships.

Here's another conundrum. Let's say that Adolph Hitler had not attacked Poland or France. But now let's say it became known that the Nazis were exterminating millions of Jews. Would that justify an offensive attack on Germany to stop the killing? Or would any offensive declaration of war that was not in response to an attack on one's own country be "immoral"? Now again, I don't like war, but I also want to be aware of what those who lost people in the Holocaust would likely (and legitimately) say if we insisted that, "No, going to war to save millions of Jews from extermination would not be justified." Really? Hitler marches his armies into Poland, and the world goes to war. But if he was just killing Jews, no?

Reasoning of this sort seems to have prevented "civilized" countries, like the U.S., from "intervening" when Hutus in Rwanda were slaughtering millions of Tutsis. They haven't attacked us, and we don't like war, so, although we don't like it, there's really nothing we can do.

Maybe that's true. But I would at least want a serious discussion of the pros and cons.

Here's another quandary. Let's say Hitler had not attacked any countries in Europe (yet), but he was threatening, and it became known that he was developing an atomic bomb. Would the European powers have been justified in attacking him to stop that development? Should attacking Nazi Germany to forestall Hitler getting an atomic weapon be rejected a priori based on the notion that all offensive wars are per se immoral? Maybe. But I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make those decisions (which admittedly is a pretty cheap cop-out).

As a general rule, I admire pacifists, especially when they're like Desmond Doss, the combat medic who refused to carry a weapon but became the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor after single-handedly saving the lives of 75 to 100 wounded soldiers under heavy fire during the Battle of Okinawa. Or when they're like the townspeople of Le Chambon in France who conspired together during the Second World War to hide and save thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing from the Holocaust. They too risked everything.

What is harder to admire are the pacifists whom author Philip Hallie criticizes in an essay on Le Chambon — those who "keep their hands clean" but let the powerful tyrannize the less powerful. "Too often I had found nonviolent people to be too patient," writes Hallie, "patient with the murder of others. They...