Catholic professor says Pope Leo XIV’s teaching on just war ‘lacks any consistency’

(LifeSiteNews) — German Catholic professor and social scientist Manfred Spieker has criticized Pope Leo XIV’s statements on just war as lacking “consistency.”

Spieker wrote a review of Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, about Artificial Intelligence (AI), in which the Pontiff also commented on Catholic just war theory.

In his text for the German magazine Communio, Spieker argued that what Leo’s encyclical says about just war “lacks any consistency and gives rise to several objections.”

Leo wrote that the doctrine of just war must be “overcome” today “more than ever.”

“In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this doctrine – developed by Augustine in the 5th century – is described with sufficient clarity in paragraph 2309, and its validity is emphasized,” Spieker wrote.

READ: Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas: a blueprint for the destruction of the Catholic Church

Citing the Catechism on just war, he stated: “A people is permitted to defend itself militarily in self-defense if the harm caused by an aggressor is certain, grave, and enduring; if all other means of ending the war have proved ineffective; if there is a serious prospect of success; and if the harm caused by the military defense is not worse than the evil to be eliminated.”

“All these conditions must be met simultaneously, and the judgment as to whether they are met rests with the responsible governments,” he added.

“To justify the call to ‘overcome’ the doctrine of just war, Magnifica Humanitas draws on paragraph 258 of Pope Francis’s encyclical Fratelli Tutti (2020), which cites two reasons against the doctrine of just war: First, it is claimed that all wars in recent decades have been justified; and second, the development of modern weapons no longer allows war to be considered a solution,” Spieker continued.

“Neither the first nor the second reason constitutes an argument against the doctrine of just war,” the emeritus professor said.

“If all those waging war invoke this doctrine, it remains to be examined who is justified in doing so and who is not. Those who wrongly invoke this doctrine will face criticism or rejection. But that does not render the doctrine of just war obsolete. And if a particular weapon or its use cannot be justified, then its use must be rejected. However, this does not prove the doctrine of just war to be invalid; on the contrary, it confirms it.”

“The doctrine of just war is to be ‘overcome,’ according to Magnifica Humanitas, ‘without prejudice to the right to legitimate defense, which is to be understood in the strictest sense,’” he continued. “The encyclical refrains from further consideration of what is meant by ‘legitimate defense in the strictest sense.’”

“Had it addressed the question of what constitutes ‘legitimate defense in the strictest sense,’ it would likely have returned to the doctrine of just war, the very purpose of which is to strictly limit the right to use military means for defense,” Spieker stated.

“It would not have been able to avoid the contradiction between upholding the right to defense and the demand to overcome the doctrine of just war,” he concluded.

Spieker is an emeritus professor who studied political science, philosophy, and history and held the chair of Christian Social Sciences at the Institute for Catholic Theology at the University of Osnabrück from 1983 until 2008.