Vatican City, February 27, 2003 — In the midst of the fiery debate over war with Iraq, the rhetoric in the past few weeks has shifted from the pragmatic goal of taking Saddam’s weapons away, to an ethical “high ground,” whether the West has a moral obligation to rid the Middle East and the world of this evil tyrant. It’s a debate on which the Roman Catholic Church has been unyielding, saying that the U.S. arguments for regime change are unacceptable.

The Debate over whether this war is right or wrong has put the spotlight on the Catholic doctrine known as “Just War,” especially with the recent procession of leaders on both sides of the issue to the Vatican in search of the pope’s counsel and influence.

Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the secretary of state for relations with states — the Vatican’s equivalent of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell — has said a unilateral attack on Iraq by the United States and its allies would be “a crime against peace.”

On Thursday, he reinforced the point by officially briefing all the ambassadors to the Vatican on the Holy See’s position.

JUST OR NOT?

So what exactly is “Just War,” and why does Pope John Paul say this war with Iraq is not “just” and needs to be stopped at all costs?

The Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine explains how St. Augustine — one of the greatest minds in the history of Christianity — introduced the theory of “Just War” 1,500 years ago when barbarians were invading the Roman Empire.

The Emperor Constantine had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire more than a century before.

Now St. Augustine was providing Christians with the moral justification to kill to defend themselves from being slaughtered. He did so with five criteria still used today by the Catholic Church:

* Just cause: Protection of the innocent from unjust aggression.

* Common good authority: The use of force must be ordered by a competent and lawful authority with responsibility for the common good.

* Last resort: All peaceful means to resolve the conflict must be exhausted first.

* “Just” motivation: The intent of the war must be to restore order and justice — not to satisfy hatred and vengeance.

* Proportional benefits and probable success: The expected benefits have to be proportional to human lives lost and damage caused to achieve it, and there has to be a good chance of winning.

BUSH’S ACTIONS

To the pope, the Bush administration’s rationale for this war — “preventive use of force before Saddam Hussein commits an act of aggression against innocent Americans” — flies in the face of the very first principle on this list.

In this moral doctrine there is no such thing as a “war of prevention.” The use of force can only be used legitimately in self-defense by the those who are suffering aggression.

The Vatican’s views, usually expressed by Tauran, can be easily matched to the five principles:

* There’s been no aggression by Iraq.

* Only the U.N. Security Council can order force.

* All peaceful means have not been exhausted.

* Removing a dictator is not in itself a just cause when the country is a sovereign state and a member of the international community, the United Nations.

* The harm done by an attack would be disproportionate to the “order and justice the attack could restore.”

THEOLOGICAL BATTLE

The pope has not let Saddam off the hook. He made that clear in his own words, both to Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz in a private audience at the Vatican earlier this month, and to Saddam himself in a letter hand-delivered by Cardinal Etchegaray, his personal envoy to Baghdad.

Despite the pope’s conviction that this war is wrong and can still be avoided, it’s proponents continue to woo his approval and failing that, his understanding.

The U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Jim Nicholson, went so far as to bring a well-known American theologian, Michael Novak, to Rome to sway church, but to no avail.

On Thursday, Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, another staunch supporter of war, paid a visit.

In an interview published in the Turin-based La Stampa newspaper, Aznar said he held the Pope in high esteem “and I will listen to him with great attention, as always”.

But he added, “John Paul II knows very well that nothing can be constructed without effort, and that peace doesn’t simply come, and doesn’t fall from the sky.”

BLAIR REBUFFED

Anzar followed British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has taken the lead asserting a moral case for toppling Saddam.

But his argument hasn’t sold very well with a skeptical British public. On Wednesday, 122 members of his own Labor party signaled their opposition by voting in favor of a motion that the government hasn’t made the case for military action.

It came days after a visit to Rome for a private meeting and attended the pope’s private daily Mass. The prime minister is not Catholic, but his wife, Cherie, is, and she asked the pope for the privilege.

But Blair’s visit paid little dividends.

Only a few hours after the private morning Mass in the papal apartments, the pope appeared at the window of his study as he does every Sunday at noon.

He called on Catholics around the world to fast and pray for peace on Ash Wednesday, which heralds the start of the church’s 40-day period of Lent.

And with great emotion, re-emphasizing the word “never,” the pope declared it was the duty of all believers, of every religion, “to proclaim that we can never be happy when one goes against the other.”

The future of humanity “will never be assured by terrorism and the logic of war,” he said.