The National Catholic Reporter recently alerted us to the convening of a Vatican-sponsored conference on just war. The article noted it was the “first-ever conference to reevaluate just war theory,” suggesting that the Catholic Church has not rethought its centuries-old response to state-sponsored violence. I think most folks understand the general notion of just war, that it proscribes principles for getting into, fighting, and getting out of war. I don’t want to wade through hundreds of years of debates within the Catholic Church about how this doctrine has been applied. However, I do want to add a couple of points Read more