What Popes, Saints, Doctors and Theologians Think Regarding the Lawfulness of War (contd.)
The Protection of the Faith Is Sufficient Cause for the Lawfulness of War
St. Bonaventure is visited by St. Thomas Aquinas. Painting by Francisco de Zurbarán
From the Seraphic Doctor, Saint Bonaventure, we present the following judgment on the subject:
For the lawfulness [of war] it is required…that the person who declares war be invested with authority, that the one who wages war be a layman,…that the one against whom war is waged be so insolent that he must be repelled by war. A sufficient cause is the protection of the homeland, or of peace, or of the Faith. (Saint Bonaventure, Opera Omnia [Paris: Vives, 1867], Vol 10, p. 291.)
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Documents XI, p. 515.
