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Bishop Strickland On Israel And Just War Doctrine

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In the YouTube embedded above, Bp Joseph Strickland uses just war doctrine, as partly outlined in CCC 2309, to, question the moralty of Israel's attacks on Iran. He cites it at 2:10: "The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration." That's from the Catechsm of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2309. But then he departs from the Catechism and never quite comes back to it: A preemptive war, a war launched not in defense but in anticipation, is not a just war. As Pope St John Paul II said before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity," from his address to the dioplomatic corps, January 13, 2003. And Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, with clarity warned that the concept of a preemptive war does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. . . . A nation does not have the moral right to wage war simply because it suspercts it might be at...