By Jerry Filteau Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Vatican's "strictly conditioned" acceptance of U.S. nuclear deterrence policy since the 1980s appears to be over, a Vatican adviser said Nov. 11.

Former Canadian Sen. Douglas Roche, special adviser to the Holy See's Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations, made that observation at an international gathering of American war and peace thinkers in Washington sponsored by three U.S. Catholic organizations.

Roche said he believes the Vatican now rejects nuclear deterrence completely in light of decisions by the U.S. and other nuclear powers to make nuclear deterrence -- and possible war use of such weapons -- a permanent part of their defense policies.

He said this is in direct violation of the strict condition posed by the Vatican 23 years ago when it accepted deterrence only as a temporary step on the road to nuclear disarmament.

Roche was one of 19 speakers at an unusual Catholic colloquium at Georgetown University on just war in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Other speakers debated whether the U.S. attack on Iraq was justified, the moral dilemmas of the war that followed, and what that war and the globalization of terrorism bode for the future of ethical judgments about what kinds of war are just or unjust.

They also discussed at length questions of "jus post bellum" -- justice in the wake of war, the responsibilities of the United States and its allies in restoring peace and justice in Iraq where major civil upheavals following the U.S. intervention have generated new problems.

The conference was co-sponsored by the Committee on International Policy of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, a major training ground for U.S. diplomats.

Held at Georgetown, the colloquium featured academic leaders in war and peace studies, policy analysts, representatives of the U.S. Department of State and U.S. military academies, several U.S. Catholic bishops, representatives of nongovernmental organizations and a variety of other nationally noted thinkers on issues of ethics and public policy.

A Catholic News Service reporter was allowed to sit in on the daylong colloquium on condition that only the presentations, apart from one by a State Department representative, were on the record. All discussions after the presentations were off the record to assure open dialogue.

In an opening talk Bishop John H. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., outgoing chairman of the bishops' international policy committee, said the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent U.S. war in Iraq "challenge us to examine new questions" about classic just-war theory and the morality of responses to national security threats.

In outlining the state of the question, Bishop Ricard posed more than two dozen questions -- among them: "In today's world, what constitutes last resort? What are the alternatives to the use of force? ... Do contemporary interpretations of the just-war tradition adequately address the emergence of global terrorist networks? Is 'war' an appropriate paradigm for addressing terrorism? ... Is preventive war consistent with the just-war tradition? Is there an important distinction between preventive and pre-emptive war?"

Participants largely agreed on the legitimacy of the U.S. response in Afghanistan, launching military force to unseat the ruling Taliban that was a major supporter of al-Qaida terrorist attacks against the United States and other countries. But they were divided in their view of the U.S. military attack on Iraq to unseat Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whose al-Qaida links and alleged possession of supposed weapons of mass destruction have proved largely unverified.

Maryann Cusimano Love, a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America and author of several books on just-war issues, said the U.S. war on terrorism is not an "utterly transformed" war that has changed the rules of warfare, as claimed by some administration officials.

"Every age argues the latest technology and the latest war revolutionize conflict and make all that came before obsolete," she said. She said what is new in the current U.S. conflict with terrorism is "the U.S. sense of vulnerability" to threats from abroad.

The use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons is not new, she said. She cited the genocidal U.S. distribution of smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans as one example among many in which nations have instituted morally abhorrent chemical or biological instruments of warfare upon civilian populations.

What emerged from presentations by Bishop Ricard, Cusimano Love, Roche and others was a need to create new paradigms of dialogue among leading actors in movements to transform conflict situations into constructive avenues of peace.

In the off-the-record conversations at the colloquium, the difficulties on the road to such a path were plainly marked, but some convergence among participants was evident.

John Carr, secretary for social development and world peace for the U.S. bishops, described the conference as "unprecedented." It was the first time many of the participants in the discussion about war, peace and the U.S. responsibility for the future in the Middle East had shared their views in a common forum.

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Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

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