[Pope Leo declares just war ‘now outdated,’ apologizes for legitimization of slavery by the Holy See, and calls treatment of migrants a ‘litmus test’ for social justice]
As I mentioned on Twitter, it's really a contemporary Pope, quoting Gandalf against black-pilling and doing the 6-7 at any opportune occasion.
I find the beef with "social justice" funny. The Church herself invented that term!
Ok the link about the rejection of "the doctrine of discovery", it's stated: «the contents of these documents were manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts». It then laments the inaction of the Church to fight those manipulations. That's very good and very fair! But I really dislike how Pope Leo XIV framed the question, and I've already commented with you on Facebook that there must be a distinction between chattel slavery (always condemned, sometimes not forcefully enough) and slavery as a system of organizing labor (accepted by the Apostles). I could say more, but those were supposed to be quick comments.
The slavery that the apostles “accepted,” i.e., slavery of pre-Constantinian Roman law, was, in fact, chattel slavery, Luis! And while the slavery officially approved by the medieval Church was not chattel slavery, it is not true that the Church “always” condemned chattel slavery either. For example, chattel slavery existed in the 18th century, but the Church did not condemn it. The Church didn’t approve it either, but official condemnation of Africanized, racialized, hereditary chattel slavery came only in the 19th century.
1, on vocabulary: "For some conservative Catholics who bracket the entire papacy of Francis as an aberration ..." There is nothing 'conservative' about the notion that a Catholic may ignore an entire papacy simply because they don't like the Pope in question. Actual conservatives blasted it as "cafeteria-style" when progressive Catholics simply disagreed with particular policies of, say, JP2 or B16 -- nobody on either side would have proposed the ludicrous notion that an entire papacy could be "bracketed." It's not "conservative" (and therefore anyone who holds to it isn't really), it's radical, extreme, quasi-heretical.
2, I'm vexed, terribly vexed, that you haven't weighed in on the *extremely* important issue of why the Latin text is not posted on the Vatican website. ;-)
One principle that was made clear, including by Cardinal Ratzinger, at the time of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1993, was that no teaching included in the Catechism gained any more doctrinal authority than it had before being included in it. It carried with it only the authority it already had. With that in mind, ask yourself: in what church document, over two millennia of church history, was the just war doctrine ever taught with any significant authority?
That's not true. The strong censure of Leo XIII was preceded by several condemnations. Sublimis Deus against the enslavement of Native Americans, for one.
But also in the 18th Century, Pope Benedict XIV wrote Immensa Pastorum Principis (couldn't find a translation, will try one myself) to the bishops of my own country, sadly the last Western nation to abolish slavery:
«Infidelibus omni meliori modo praestandum esse, non injurias, non flagella, non vincula, non servitatem, non necem inferendam esse, sub gravissimis poenis et Ecclesiasticis censuris, praescribentes».
"We prescribe that toward unbelievers one must conduct oneself in every better way, that injuries, scourgings, chains, servitude, and slaughter must not be inflicted upon them, under the gravest penalties and ecclesiastical censures".
That letter quotes earlier Commissum Nobis (17th century), which excommunicated slave traders. All those are official condemnations.
I repeat: official condemnation of Africanized, racialized, hereditary chattel slavery came only in the 19th century.
Sublimis Deus, Immensa Pastorum Principis, and Commissum Nobis did not condemn Africanized, racialized, hereditary chattel slavery. These documents were addressed to enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the New World. They did not address the situation in Africa.
I haven't read the document yet, but after quickly scrolling through it, I think it's interesting that such a large portion is devoted to a historical overview of Catholic social teaching. Social encyclicals often do that, but not usually at such length. Presumably Leo was well aware that an encyclical on AI would attract attention outside of the usual audience for papal documents, and felt that some extra context would be needed.
The rest of this comment is a tangent from section 1 of the post, and I feel obligated to make clear that it's meant to be part of a conversation that will keep until a convenient time. SDG should NOT consider it a matter of pastoral urgency to write a lengthy response.
The broad teachings against war and the death penalty, especially the latter since it's more definite at this point, seem to me to confirm what I concluded long ago: the line between development of doctrine, reversal of previous doctrine, and entirely new doctrine is rather thin and arbitrary. This is a case where every source on Catholic moral theology prior to the "development" would unanimously *contradict* the new teaching (not simply be less specific or note that Rome had not fully decided the matter, which might be the case for other moral issues like, say, the implantation of embryos left over from IVF attempts).
A *universal* prohibition on the death penalty is also dubious on the merits.
In concrete political terms, I don't disagree at all. I would eagerly vote to abolish the death penalty. A few years ago, when I served on a jury for a second-degree murder trial, I considered whether I could have done a first-degree murder trial where the death penalty was on the table, and concluded that the answer was no: I could not, under any circumstances that would come up in a modern American context, vote for someone to be executed.
Francis's teaching, however, seems to lean toward a view of the death penalty as intrinsically evil, even if those words arent used, which means it's evil at all times, in all societies, in all circumstances—whether a modern state, a pre-modern farming community, or a nomadic pastoral tribe that doesn't even have prisons. That's harder to swallow.
I may have a better sense of it once I've made my way through the encyclical myself (I'm nowhere near Chapter 5 yet)...but the most urgent question I'm left from these quick observations is this:
What would the Holy Father have the Ukrainians do? Give up? Do they have to accept the theft of their country, their culture, and their very children to be Christian?
Surely there's more--much more--to the consistent message of all the pontiffs of my lifetime than an airy pacifism possessed of an angelism that has little to offer against those injustices that can't be negotiated or morally exhorted away. (I mean, a man like John Paul II especially wouldn't be caught too far down such roads surely...he had *seen* things.) But exactly what that much more might be escapes my comprehension somehow.
I wouldn't read "just war theory is outdated" as the statement, "no nation can defend itself." He says self defense is a legitimate use of force. He also has several paragraphs devoted to how nations should and should not use AI in warfare. For example, he insists that the decision to use lethal force must remain in the hands of humans, not algorithms. Obviously, if he thought no nation should ever use force to defend itself, he wouldn't spend time explaining things like that. "Outdated" seems to mean something more like how traffic laws became outdated once we switched from horses to automobiles. Then he lays out some principles for how we should update them.
re: "For Catholics who wish to cling to older Catholic teaching affirming the death penalty and allowing a broader scope of war, dismissing recent papal teaching as aberrant seems to me increasingly difficult."
While absolutely agreeing that "dismissing recent papal teaching as aberrant" is... I don't know what else to call it: "simply unsustainable"... it does seem to me (and it has seemed so since Fratelli Tutti) that nowhere enough traditionally-minded people have attempted to hammer out what seems like the most obvious solution here. Someday I will need to try expanding this properly with citations and arguments, but I would be curious if you have any thoughts on this, while the topic is trending again:
When the Church previously affirmed the death penalty, it was speaking most properly on the dimension of *justice*. When the Church today opposes the death penalty, it is speaking most properly on the dimension of *mercy* or *charity*. Reconciling these two things is entirely possible, because there is no true contradiction between the two lenses: one COULD do something in strict justice ("an eye for an eye") yet still fail to act with mercy or charity. But Christians are *called* to exercise mercy and charity – there is a real *moral obligation* here, even if it is not an obligation under the lens of strict justice – therefore: we could simultaneously say "imposing the death penalty would not be a violation of justice" AND "imposing the death penalty would be a violation of our Christian obligation to give more than strict justice requires". The move to collapse the use of capital punishment to the defense of innocent life, and then to renounce the option altogether, is (or so it seems to me) precisely to say that Christians have a grave obligation in charity to *let go* of this thing, *even if they could* coherently claim as a matter of strict worldly justice. It's not a shift from claiming "X is just" to "X is unjust", but transcending the "X is just" claim entirely by saying "we have true and higher obligation to turn the other cheek, to set aside X even if when could be justly claimed".
If anything like that is coherent, as I think likely, then... it's not hard to transpose a version of that same logic onto the just war analysis. When the Church previously affirmed the possibility of just war, it was speaking most properly on the dimension of *justice*. When the Church today opposes the the possibility of just war, it is similarly (despite what the name suggests) speaking more properly on the dimension of *mercy* or *charity*, in light of our obligation to turn the other cheek and renounce violence ("put away your sword") whenever it is reasonably possible to do so, and modern means increasingly guarantee that possibility, etc. Even if we COULD still affirm that retributive violence is strictly speaking "just", we are now in the habit of effectively circumventing (without denying!) that dimension of the question: because as Christians, strict justice is simply NOT the low bar that we are called to hit. To focus narrowly on justice is to miss the larger picture of how we are called to act. And yes, with modern weapons there are dozen reasons to worry about the coherent application of the traditional criteria for a truly *just* war, that's also true. But the real doctrinal move here, it seems to me, consistently in all cases, is a move to *ignore* (not deny, but set aside) the question of justice, in order to focus our attention properly upon a higher virtue.
And IMHO, if I'm deluding myself, this resolves any contradiction. Consequently, Catholics who wish to cling to older teaching (affirming the justice of the death penalty or allowing a broader scope of just war) are rapidly becoming the worst sort of "technically correct on the narrow dimension of justice, but stubbornly failing to harmonize that narrow dimension of the picture with the bigger picture of what our Christian faith nevertheless obliges us to prefer". If that makes any sense. (Again, maybe someday I'll get around to saying this more coherently, sorry this is sort of a very sloppy rough draft.)
Quick comments:
As I mentioned on Twitter, it's really a contemporary Pope, quoting Gandalf against black-pilling and doing the 6-7 at any opportune occasion.
I find the beef with "social justice" funny. The Church herself invented that term!
Ok the link about the rejection of "the doctrine of discovery", it's stated: «the contents of these documents were manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts». It then laments the inaction of the Church to fight those manipulations. That's very good and very fair! But I really dislike how Pope Leo XIV framed the question, and I've already commented with you on Facebook that there must be a distinction between chattel slavery (always condemned, sometimes not forcefully enough) and slavery as a system of organizing labor (accepted by the Apostles). I could say more, but those were supposed to be quick comments.
The slavery that the apostles “accepted,” i.e., slavery of pre-Constantinian Roman law, was, in fact, chattel slavery, Luis! And while the slavery officially approved by the medieval Church was not chattel slavery, it is not true that the Church “always” condemned chattel slavery either. For example, chattel slavery existed in the 18th century, but the Church did not condemn it. The Church didn’t approve it either, but official condemnation of Africanized, racialized, hereditary chattel slavery came only in the 19th century.
A great start! Two small points:
1, on vocabulary: "For some conservative Catholics who bracket the entire papacy of Francis as an aberration ..." There is nothing 'conservative' about the notion that a Catholic may ignore an entire papacy simply because they don't like the Pope in question. Actual conservatives blasted it as "cafeteria-style" when progressive Catholics simply disagreed with particular policies of, say, JP2 or B16 -- nobody on either side would have proposed the ludicrous notion that an entire papacy could be "bracketed." It's not "conservative" (and therefore anyone who holds to it isn't really), it's radical, extreme, quasi-heretical.
2, I'm vexed, terribly vexed, that you haven't weighed in on the *extremely* important issue of why the Latin text is not posted on the Vatican website. ;-)
One principle that was made clear, including by Cardinal Ratzinger, at the time of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1993, was that no teaching included in the Catechism gained any more doctrinal authority than it had before being included in it. It carried with it only the authority it already had. With that in mind, ask yourself: in what church document, over two millennia of church history, was the just war doctrine ever taught with any significant authority?
That's not true. The strong censure of Leo XIII was preceded by several condemnations. Sublimis Deus against the enslavement of Native Americans, for one.
But also in the 18th Century, Pope Benedict XIV wrote Immensa Pastorum Principis (couldn't find a translation, will try one myself) to the bishops of my own country, sadly the last Western nation to abolish slavery:
«Infidelibus omni meliori modo praestandum esse, non injurias, non flagella, non vincula, non servitatem, non necem inferendam esse, sub gravissimis poenis et Ecclesiasticis censuris, praescribentes».
"We prescribe that toward unbelievers one must conduct oneself in every better way, that injuries, scourgings, chains, servitude, and slaughter must not be inflicted upon them, under the gravest penalties and ecclesiastical censures".
That letter quotes earlier Commissum Nobis (17th century), which excommunicated slave traders. All those are official condemnations.
I repeat: official condemnation of Africanized, racialized, hereditary chattel slavery came only in the 19th century.
Sublimis Deus, Immensa Pastorum Principis, and Commissum Nobis did not condemn Africanized, racialized, hereditary chattel slavery. These documents were addressed to enslavement of the indigenous peoples of the New World. They did not address the situation in Africa.
I haven't read the document yet, but after quickly scrolling through it, I think it's interesting that such a large portion is devoted to a historical overview of Catholic social teaching. Social encyclicals often do that, but not usually at such length. Presumably Leo was well aware that an encyclical on AI would attract attention outside of the usual audience for papal documents, and felt that some extra context would be needed.
The rest of this comment is a tangent from section 1 of the post, and I feel obligated to make clear that it's meant to be part of a conversation that will keep until a convenient time. SDG should NOT consider it a matter of pastoral urgency to write a lengthy response.
The broad teachings against war and the death penalty, especially the latter since it's more definite at this point, seem to me to confirm what I concluded long ago: the line between development of doctrine, reversal of previous doctrine, and entirely new doctrine is rather thin and arbitrary. This is a case where every source on Catholic moral theology prior to the "development" would unanimously *contradict* the new teaching (not simply be less specific or note that Rome had not fully decided the matter, which might be the case for other moral issues like, say, the implantation of embryos left over from IVF attempts).
A *universal* prohibition on the death penalty is also dubious on the merits.
In concrete political terms, I don't disagree at all. I would eagerly vote to abolish the death penalty. A few years ago, when I served on a jury for a second-degree murder trial, I considered whether I could have done a first-degree murder trial where the death penalty was on the table, and concluded that the answer was no: I could not, under any circumstances that would come up in a modern American context, vote for someone to be executed.
Francis's teaching, however, seems to lean toward a view of the death penalty as intrinsically evil, even if those words arent used, which means it's evil at all times, in all societies, in all circumstances—whether a modern state, a pre-modern farming community, or a nomadic pastoral tribe that doesn't even have prisons. That's harder to swallow.
I may have a better sense of it once I've made my way through the encyclical myself (I'm nowhere near Chapter 5 yet)...but the most urgent question I'm left from these quick observations is this:
What would the Holy Father have the Ukrainians do? Give up? Do they have to accept the theft of their country, their culture, and their very children to be Christian?
Surely there's more--much more--to the consistent message of all the pontiffs of my lifetime than an airy pacifism possessed of an angelism that has little to offer against those injustices that can't be negotiated or morally exhorted away. (I mean, a man like John Paul II especially wouldn't be caught too far down such roads surely...he had *seen* things.) But exactly what that much more might be escapes my comprehension somehow.
I wouldn't read "just war theory is outdated" as the statement, "no nation can defend itself." He says self defense is a legitimate use of force. He also has several paragraphs devoted to how nations should and should not use AI in warfare. For example, he insists that the decision to use lethal force must remain in the hands of humans, not algorithms. Obviously, if he thought no nation should ever use force to defend itself, he wouldn't spend time explaining things like that. "Outdated" seems to mean something more like how traffic laws became outdated once we switched from horses to automobiles. Then he lays out some principles for how we should update them.
https://substack.com/@goodv/note/c-265396595?r=1nm0v2&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
re: "For Catholics who wish to cling to older Catholic teaching affirming the death penalty and allowing a broader scope of war, dismissing recent papal teaching as aberrant seems to me increasingly difficult."
While absolutely agreeing that "dismissing recent papal teaching as aberrant" is... I don't know what else to call it: "simply unsustainable"... it does seem to me (and it has seemed so since Fratelli Tutti) that nowhere enough traditionally-minded people have attempted to hammer out what seems like the most obvious solution here. Someday I will need to try expanding this properly with citations and arguments, but I would be curious if you have any thoughts on this, while the topic is trending again:
When the Church previously affirmed the death penalty, it was speaking most properly on the dimension of *justice*. When the Church today opposes the death penalty, it is speaking most properly on the dimension of *mercy* or *charity*. Reconciling these two things is entirely possible, because there is no true contradiction between the two lenses: one COULD do something in strict justice ("an eye for an eye") yet still fail to act with mercy or charity. But Christians are *called* to exercise mercy and charity – there is a real *moral obligation* here, even if it is not an obligation under the lens of strict justice – therefore: we could simultaneously say "imposing the death penalty would not be a violation of justice" AND "imposing the death penalty would be a violation of our Christian obligation to give more than strict justice requires". The move to collapse the use of capital punishment to the defense of innocent life, and then to renounce the option altogether, is (or so it seems to me) precisely to say that Christians have a grave obligation in charity to *let go* of this thing, *even if they could* coherently claim as a matter of strict worldly justice. It's not a shift from claiming "X is just" to "X is unjust", but transcending the "X is just" claim entirely by saying "we have true and higher obligation to turn the other cheek, to set aside X even if when could be justly claimed".
If anything like that is coherent, as I think likely, then... it's not hard to transpose a version of that same logic onto the just war analysis. When the Church previously affirmed the possibility of just war, it was speaking most properly on the dimension of *justice*. When the Church today opposes the the possibility of just war, it is similarly (despite what the name suggests) speaking more properly on the dimension of *mercy* or *charity*, in light of our obligation to turn the other cheek and renounce violence ("put away your sword") whenever it is reasonably possible to do so, and modern means increasingly guarantee that possibility, etc. Even if we COULD still affirm that retributive violence is strictly speaking "just", we are now in the habit of effectively circumventing (without denying!) that dimension of the question: because as Christians, strict justice is simply NOT the low bar that we are called to hit. To focus narrowly on justice is to miss the larger picture of how we are called to act. And yes, with modern weapons there are dozen reasons to worry about the coherent application of the traditional criteria for a truly *just* war, that's also true. But the real doctrinal move here, it seems to me, consistently in all cases, is a move to *ignore* (not deny, but set aside) the question of justice, in order to focus our attention properly upon a higher virtue.
And IMHO, if I'm deluding myself, this resolves any contradiction. Consequently, Catholics who wish to cling to older teaching (affirming the justice of the death penalty or allowing a broader scope of just war) are rapidly becoming the worst sort of "technically correct on the narrow dimension of justice, but stubbornly failing to harmonize that narrow dimension of the picture with the bigger picture of what our Christian faith nevertheless obliges us to prefer". If that makes any sense. (Again, maybe someday I'll get around to saying this more coherently, sorry this is sort of a very sloppy rough draft.)
CONSCIOUS TIME-BINDING DISPATCH | May 25, 2026
Magnifica Humanitas, Milton Dawes, and the Reconstitution of Moral Architecture
https://pc93.substack.com/p/conscious-time-binding-dispatch-may-e57?r=55nkvn