In the Gospels, Jesus is
portrayed as an idealist, even other-worldly, from the standpoint of the political
domain. To be sure, he knows how to alienate the Temple hierarchy enough to be
put to death, but he stays clear of the Zealots in their militaristic rebelliousness
against the Roman occupation. Give what it Caesar’s unto Caesar. The just-war
theory developed by Augustine and Aquinas seeks to bring that gap—to make the
idealist of the Gospels more relevant practically to the politics of
international relations. To be sure, Jesus’s refusal to join the Zealots—symbolized
by Jesus including Romans among those whom he heals—could be used to argue convincingly
that attention to compassion for one’s enemy makes impossible even any just war.
Jesus is just as idealistic in the story of the rich man who will not give up
his wealth to follow Jesus—it is harder for a camel to get through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man (who will not give up his wealth to follow God) to
enter the Kingdom of God, whose very substance spiritually is epitomized by compassion
to one’s enemies, according to the American theologian, Samuel Hopkins. So,
Pope Leo was on solid ground in April, 2026 in the midst of the U.S.-Iran War when
he emphatically insisted that Jesus would oppose any war—not just any unjust
one—but where does that leave the Catholic Church’s just war theory as
promulgated by two theological giants, Augustine and Aquinas?
The full essay is at "Religion and Politics."
