Is there something of the "cafeteria Catholic" in Catholic conservatives who support the Iraq war? There is an irony here if there is an affirmative answer to that question. Many of the Catholic hawks who dismiss the Church's counsel on Iraq sternly lecture Catholics who divert from the Church on matters from preistly celibacy to liberation theology. They are, in the view of many conservative Catholics, cafeteria Catholics who put on their trays Catholic theology that flatters their views and leave on the shelves Catholic theology that doesn't.

Dan McCarthy explores the disconnect between the Church's negative assessment of the Iraq war and the American Catholic Right's support for it in "Life Beyond the Party." The piece, as all good articles do, provokes a few thoughts.

"The Catholic Church, one of the strongest and most outspoken pro-life institutions worldwide, has been forthright in condemning the Iraq adventure," McCarthy notes on TakiMag.com. "Yet pro-life Catholic conservatives would hardly know that from reading Catholic-inflected conservative magazines like First Things or National Review. From those sources, they will only hear the likes of George Weigel and Michael Novak complaining about Vatican bureaucrats who just don't have the moral clarity to support the invasion and occupation of the Middle East. The pope himself has signaled his thought on the matter clearly enough, but Catholic hawks refuse to relay that signal to their readers--let alone show how it relates to the Church's teaching on other life matters, such as abortion."

McCarthy finds the killing in places such as Iraq as something even more extreme than garden-variety abortion. "Indeed, the proper comparison for an unjust war is not to legalized abortion, which is bad enough, but to forced abortion, since the state not only countenances illicit killing but carries out the act." Comparisons aside, what would make a conservative fervantly pro-life and in favor of an unprovoked preemptive war? In simplistic terms, an aversion to all things sexual and an affinity for all things martial pollutes the genetic make-up of too many conservatives. The argument that the war is a life-saving measure, particularly in view of the even bloodier carnage that may take place should U.S. forces leave, is another possible contributing explanation (and one sans the arm-chair psychoanalysis).

McCarthy highlights the hypocrisy of Republican conservatives taking anti-war Catholic conservatives to task for supporting pro-abortion but anti-war James Webb in his Virginia Senate run and opposing pro-life but pro-war George W. Bush, as the Republican conservatives propel the political careers of such rabidly pro-abortion candidates as Joe Lieberman and Rudolph Giuliani. The war, it seems, trumps abortion as a salient issue for many Catholics both for and against it.

McCarthy cites several articles by conservative Catholic hawks, mainly James Hitchcock's "Abortion and the 'Catholic Right'" from the Human Life Review and Joseph Bottum's "The New Fusionism" from First Things, that contend that support for an aggressive foreign policy and opposition to abortion have fused together. The authors wonder: What Catholic conservative would endanger the pro-life cause by attacking the war that the politicians opposing abortion endorse? But the question is more easily reversed: Why don't pro-life hawks give up the war since its unpopularity risks harming the pro-life cause? In any case, this fusionism, which does seem to have taken hold, is not only artificial but antipodal. A coalition between those who want to take lives on the battlefield and save them in the abortuary? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, particularly when the battlefield deaths aren't on an actual battlefield but in an environment habitated by people who did nothing to launch the war.

When the pope condemns the Iraq war, he does not, of course, speak for God. Good Catholics can and do disagree on the war (just as good conservatives and good Americans can and do). The pope is relying on Church teaching, from the Ten Commandments to just-war theory. But opposition to the Iraq war isn't Church teaching. Such a condemnation does not carry the weight of, say, the Church's acceptance of the Nicene Creed. But it should give Catholic hawks pause in their zeal for a nation-building occupation that resulted from a preemptive war that preempted nothing. That it hasn't affected much deep thought is what makes McCarthy's article so interesting.

McCarthy finds the killing in places such as Iraq as something even more extreme than garden-variety abortion. "Indeed, the proper comparison for an unjust war is not to legalized abortion, which is bad enough, but to forced abortion, since the state not only countenances illicit killing but carries out the act."

This is idiotic, both ethically and from the standpoint of Catholic teaching.

Regardless of whether the U.S. presence in Iraq is just, the people that U.S. soldiers are ordered to kill are, with respect to innocence, not on a par (to put it mildly!) with unborn children. The "garden-variety abortion" (a monstrous phrase) is an act of much greater evil than the killing of an Iraqi who is actively attempting to kill U.S. soldiers.

As you point out at the bottom of the post, a "good Catholic" can disagree with Church leaders concerning the Iraq war (your previous statements about diverting from "the Church" notwithstanding). This is not the case with abortion. That abortion is wrong is an ex Cathedra teaching. You cannot be a pro-abortion Catholic.

Ralph...
re your statement, "the people that U.S. soldiers are ordered to kill..." Does this in fact describe all the people who have indeed been killed? In other words, has every dead Iraqi been "actively attempting to kill U.S. soldiers"?

And anyway, would they be attempting to kill U.S. soliders if we were not there to begin with?

I think we should remember that all abortion is forced, from the pov of the baby.

Anyhow, are all the people who have died in Iraq innocent victims of a massive US mistake, comparable to murder victims? Or perhaps are all the people opposing our invasion and occupation ipso facto worthy of death?

I think we should avoid simple answers to either of these questions, and thus avoid shrillness as much as possible regarding Iraq. Why? It was certainly an unjust war, mostly because it lacked a _direct_ just cause and because we couldn't have rationally expected to improve the situation there. But its injustice is mitigated by several key factors. First, there is the neverendingness of the Gulf War, such that under international law we had a legalistic "right" to take military action against them. Second, Saddam sucked for the people there: he really was a tyrant who had in the past performed serious outrages against his people. Reisisting his overthrow by a benevolent (even if misguided) foreign power motivated also by its own security does not seem required by patriotism. The bottom line is that the people there who resisted the invasion may have had some legitimate feelings of patriotism, but those who are now undermining the new Iraqi government are not definately not acting justly. Their deaths are not comparable to aborted children. Nevertheless, we must conclude that the good acheived or to be hoped for in this tragic adventure is dwarfed by the bad caused -- and because we should have seen this ahead of time, we have a certain serious culpability for it.

Veronica,

It does not describe all the people who have been killed. Some have been killed unintentionally (so-called "collateral damage"), and some have been killed intentionally by soldiers acting outside the chain of command.

Of the second, one could say that the soldiers are ethically comparable to a mother and a doctor who conspire to murder an unborn child. But the two are not comparable when considering the role of the government. U.S. (military) law condemns the former. U.S. law protects the latter.

Would they be attempting to kill U.S. soldiers if we were not there to begin with?

The vast majority surely would not. Does the fact that U.S. soldiers are in Iraq, justify the killing of U.S. soldiers by Iraqis?

My general complaint is this: In their zeal to oppose a war that they (perhaps rightly) believe is unjust, some exaggerate the injustice of the war. Suddenly, the invasion of Iraq is the greatest evil ever committed by the United States. This is absurd. Under the protection of U.S. law, tens of millions of unborn children have been murdered in the last thirty years. Even if every U.S. action committed in Iraq is evil (a very implausible view), it pales in comparison to the state sanctioned evil of abortion.

I guess the war is a much bigger issue these days, but we could substitute "capital punishment" for the war and read much the same (not entirely the same) sort of story here.

Many innocents have been killed in Iraq who were not attempting to kill US soldiers. But certainly far fewer than have been killed by abortion, so the latter is a greater evil.

"The vast majority surely would not. Does the fact that U.S. soldiers are in Iraq, justify the killing of U.S. soldiers by Iraqis?" - Ralph

Well yes, it certainly does. If the Iraqis were only concerned with attacking US military targets, we might consider them our enemies, but we would not consider them to be breaking the laws of war in any way. Of course, this does not characterize them. They are terrorists who kill innocents without regard, and so they are war criminals

Buzz, I know you are supersmart, but that is a big time blank out. In order to make that statement, which seems more designed to score political points than to express a serious moral judgment, one must overlook all kinds of differences: levels of teaching, matters of prudence vs. principle, innocence vs. extreme guilt, attacking the common good of the community vs. being attacked by one's mother, not to mention the sheer NUMBER of lives involved. When Leftist Catholics equate capital punishment with the Iraq War, let alone with abortion, they show two things (1) a lack of a sense of proper proportions, and (2) that one's ethics is more informed by one's political faction than one's religion.

As a Catholic reader of First Things and National Review, I must point out that there is no hypocrisy in the Catholic hawks' view that one can, consistent with Church teachings, support the war, but that one cannot, consistent with Church teachings, support abortion rights as they are articulated by the Supreme Court.

The difference is that there are practical and empirical issues which conceivably could alter an informed moral judgment of the rightness of the war where there are no such issues involved in forcing an unlimited abortion license on jurisdictions that oppose it.

In this, the ana-logy between the war and capital punishment is quite precise. If the Church indicated that capital punishment were an intrinsic evil, Justice Scalia (in the pages of First Things) has said he would have to resign from the Court, since he could not do perform his duty of affirming Constitutional penalties. Likewise, if the Church said the Iraq War were an intrinsic evil, I would have to abstain from voting since I couldn't use my best judgment about national security.

First Things published many discussions of just war theory in the months leading up to the war and in subsequent years. Many different opinions were presented. I believe a fair reader of those pieces should conclude that the issue of whether this war is just does turn on practical and empirical considerations. I found Weigel's piece's on these issues in First Things very "deep," and thoughtful. I ended up differing with those who disagreed with him in those pages, but I must admit they were thoughtful as well.

Catholic hawks were "given pause" by the Church's position. But when they then concluded on practical and empirical grounds that they should support the war, they did not become hypocrites for continuing to deplore abortion.

Ben.

"Of course, this does not characterize them. They are terrorists who kill innocents without regard, and so they are war criminals."

You lost me here. Who is "they?"

The Church condemns the war in Iraq because it is an unjust and what's the difference between an unjust war and mass murder? While abortion may arguably be a greater wrong, that doesn't change the fact that the war in Iraq is still a great wrong, and all people of conscience should try to bring it to an end as quickly as possible.

Besides, let's be realistic here: I'm not Catholic, but I doubt most Catholics, even those who profess to be pious, really care what the Pope or Church has to say on any issue -- unless it already validates their beliefs.

"You lost me here. Who is "they?" - Eric Wilds

"They" would characterize the vast majority of Iraqi insurgents, it seems. I specifically am referring to those insurgents who target innocents as well as military targets. In the case of those who only target the US military (I am unsure if any such combatants exist), then they of course would not fall under my characterization.

"The Church condemns the war in Iraq because it is an unjust and what's the difference between an unjust war and mass murder? While abortion may arguably be a greater wrong, that doesn't change the fact that the war in Iraq is still a great wrong, and all people of conscience should try to bring it to an end as quickly as possible." - Eric Wilds

Of course.

"Besides, let's be realistic here: I'm not Catholic, but I doubt most Catholics, even those who profess to be pious, really care what the Pope or Church has to say on any issue -- unless it already validates their beliefs." - Eric Wilds

Sweeping and totally unsupported assertion.

Ben,

Thanks to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and our support of a Shiite backed government, we not only provoked an insurgency against our occupation, but a sectarian conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites. When a Sunni kills a Shiite -- or vice versa -- it's not really part of the "insurgency," but part of Iraq's "civil war," and in this type of war, I suppose, "innocents" are a legitimate target.

In the so-called "good war", WWII, we deemed innocent Japanese and Germans as legitimate targets, so the worse that can be said about these "insurgents" is that they are following the same code of conduct that we did in our "good war."

"Sweeping and totally unsupported assertion."

Can you cite a single Catholic who went on the record in supporting the Iraqi war, but then came out against the war once he learned of the Vatican's position?

xantippe,

Much of what you write is the reason why I included the qualifier "not entirely the same" in parens. I don't mean to 'equate' capital punishment with either the war or abortion. All I meant to note was another common case of "in favor of x (out of line with the Church) yet opposed to y (in line with the Church)." The level of teaching is on a par for capital punishment and the war, and good Catholics can disagree on either--unlike the case of abortion. But still, the pope and bishops have clearly taken a position, and this has to bear on the consciences of pro-war and pro-c.p. folks alike.

Doc: Though it is not allowed for a Catholic to approve morally of abortion, it is consistent with the ex cathedra Church teaching to be, e.g., an anarchist, and thus to think that no human laws are just, thus that antiabortion laws are unjust. More realistically, it is open to a Catholic to believe that given some cultural/political situation, outlawing all abortion may be imprudent, even if ideal. Needless to say that I am not one of those Catholics. My point is that prudence dictates all of politics. We must remember that the Church has no charism for politics. They do have authotity over morals, and politics and morals are related, but not all that straightforwardly.

The problem with the Catholic who thinks that outlawing all abortion is imprudent here and now is the same as the one who thought/thinks this war was/is a good and just act: they are wrong, but not necessarily about any doctrine. Their practical judgment is inadequate. They are not properly weighing costs and benefits. That's all.

There is a really significant distinction between war and abortion, but let's not demote the war to the level of capital punishment. War in general is much much much more destructive than capital punishment, with a much more tenuous connection to the common good. Moreover, this war was particularly stupid, and thus particularly tragic.

"Thanks to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and our support of a Shiite backed government, we not only provoked an insurgency against our occupation, but a sectarian conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites. When a Sunni kills a Shiite -- or vice versa -- it's not really part of the "insurgency," but part of Iraq's "civil war," and in this type of war, I suppose, "innocents" are a legitimate target." - Eric Wilds

non-combatants are a legitimate target in a civil war? Love to see your justification for that one. I oppose the war, but are you are willing to accept any evil whatsoever as long as it allows you to stand in opposition to the US.

"In the so-called "good war", WWII, we deemed innocent Japanese and Germans as legitimate targets, so the worse that can be said about these "insurgents" is that they are following the same code of conduct that we did in our "good war."" - Eric Wilds

Do you believe Japanese and German civilians were legitimate targets? I don't. The fact that you put "good war" in quotes suggests that you don't either. So why are you defending them?

"Can you cite a single Catholic who went on the record in supporting the Iraqi war, but then came out against the war once he learned of the Vatican's position?" - Eric Wilds

Not off the top of my head. But that wouldn't prove your assertion that the reason they didn't change their minds is because they are totally unconcerned with what the Church thinks.

Ben,

"non-combatants are a legitimate target in a civil war? Love to see your justification for that one. I oppose the war, but are you are willing to accept any evil whatsoever as long as it allows you to stand in opposition to the US."

I think you're really misreading me. My point is that most people have a one dimensional view of Iraq -- we are fighting an "enemy" -- when, in fact, Iraq is more of a three dimensional conflict -- Sunnis and Shiites fighting, the U.S. military fighting Sunnis and (sometimes) Shiites, Kurds and Turks fighting etc. These conflicts are independent of one another. The sectarian conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis, if we had to classify it, is best understood as "tribal warfare," where there isn't necessarily a distinction between "combatant," and "civilian."

If you cannot cite a single Catholic who first supported the war in Iraq and then immediately changed position after learning of the Vatican's position, then I don't think my comment is an unsupported assertion. It's accurate.

"I think you're really misreading me. My point is that most people have a one dimensional view of Iraq -- we are fighting an "enemy" -- when, in fact, Iraq is more of a three dimensional conflict -- Sunnis and Shiites fighting, the U.S. military fighting Sunnis and (sometimes) Shiites, Kurds and Turks fighting etc. These conflicts are independent of one another. The sectarian conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis, if we had to classify it, is best understood as "tribal warfare," where there isn't necessarily a distinction between "combatant," and "civilian."" - Eric Wilds

Why would the conflict being interdimensional mean that there is not a distinction between combatant and non-combatant? Blowing up a car in a crowded city square is an act intended to kill civilians, whether the conflict is interdimensional or not.

Pro-war Catholics (and Christians of other denominations) need to re-read St. Thomas Aquinas and more importantly, the 10 Commandments (specifically the line that says "Thou Shalt Not Kill.") Would Jesus support the Iraq War?