What Popes, Saints, Doctors and Theologians Think Regarding the Lawfulness of War (contd.)
Sacred Scripture Praises Wars Against the Enemies of the Faith
Francisco Suárez, S.J., a theologian of renowned authority in traditional Catholic thought, writes in De Bello, his famous compendium of the Church’s doctrine on war:
The Death of Agag, by Gustave Doré. God had commanded Samuel to “completely destroy” the Amalekites.
War, in itself, is not intrinsically evil, nor is it forbidden for Christians. This is a truth of Faith contained expressly in Sacred Scripture, for in the Old Testament the wars waged by very holy, virile men are praised: “Blessed be Abraham by the most high God, who created heaven and earth. And blessed be the most high God, by whose protection the enemies are in thy hands” (Gen. 14:19-20). One reads similar passages about Moses, Josue, Samson, Gedeon, David, the Machabees, and others, whom time and again God ordered to make ware against the enemies of the Hebrews; and Saint Paul says that the saints conquered empires by Faith. The same thing is confirmed by the witness of the Church Fathers cited by Gratian; and also Saint Ambrose in several chapters of his book on duties. (Francisco Suárez, S.J., De Bello, I, 2, in Luciano Pereña Vicente, Teoria de la Guerra en Francisco Suárez [Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1954), Vol. 2, pp. 71, 74.)
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, pp. 515-516.
