Reprise on Just War and the American Revolution

I received quite a post-bag on this one.

Let me look at some of the questions raised.

Pedes Christi wrote:

”My question is, can such a government be considered legitimate? And if not, what is one justified in doing about it? I am not suggesting violent revolution (given your just war theory above), but how does one otherwise deal with such tyranny? I pray for the conversion of my country, but what else? With this I wrestle”.

I think you are right to wrestle with this issue. See what you think of my comments below.

Mark asks:

”Surely St. Thomas would not say that a private citizen should bear ‘any’ level of injustice imposed upon him, correct? To use an example from modernity, would a private citizen in say, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba or North Korea be justified in rebelling against the dictatorship?”.

He later asks:

”1. What relevance is it to the question of Just War when the subject is a private (Catholic) citizen rebelling against a non-Catholic government? Does it matter what form the government is (monarchy, democracy, communist, tyrant), or whether it is oppressive towards Catholicism, or Christianity in general? At what point does a secular government, tyrant or otherwise, become so oppressive to a Catholic society as to merit rebellion? I have in mind your response on 10 June at 14:51 and your comment s regarding the alleged Freemasonic affiliations of the European Prime Ministers.

2. In your reply to Ollie you offered that his view was that of a ‘tiny minority’; I wonder what relevance does this have? Did you mean that in terms of having any bearing on a contemporary public that it is not relevant because it is impractical, or because it was not widely held at the time, or only that it is so obscure as to be discarded for purposes of discussion?

3. As you have explained your understanding of the application of Just War principles to this particular conflict, I wonder whether you believe the Crusades to have been just? What about the First War of Independence by the Scots?

4. In your reply to Dion, you asked a (rhetorical?) question as to how he would conclude as to the guilt of a Mohammedan claiming justice as the motivation for a act which resulted in the death of innocents; I wonder if by this you mean to imply that combatants whose actions result in the death of other combatants in wars which you believe to have been unjust are guilty of murder? Or does the responsibility for the justice of the war rest solely on the civil authorities to whom God has granted this responsibility? Is his culpability greater because the innocents were his targets, as opposed to a combatant who knows there will be innocent lives loss by his actions but which are otherwise unintended?

5. I am curious if you know of any declarations since 1789 by Roman Pontiffs declaring a major conflict to have been unjust.”

Was the German invasion of Poland just? Pomerania and Silesia were both originally German and had been seized after World War I. But the German government had pledged not to invade and, moreover, its ideology was then Nazi, a grossly heretical creed.

Let me essay an answer to these.

1. The principles of a just war are matters of Natural Law and, as such, apply to all men, not just Catholics. A private citizen, Catholic or otherwise, may not, according to those principles, rebel against properly constituted authority. It matters not what form the government takes, although it may be relevant that the government is oppressing Christianity, which is a true religion, rather than a false religion. However, that does not confer upon the private citizen the right to revolt against properly constituted government. Thus, at no point does a secular government, tyrant or otherwise, become so oppressive to a Catholic society as to merit rebellion, if it is a properly constituted government. Private citizens did not have the right to rebel against the Freemasonic European Prime Ministers, for instance, if they were properly constituted. There may be some residual or other powers of the Pope, however, to depose Catholic sovereigns but it would first have to be convincingly demonstrated that they derived their authority from the Pope. In general, according to Dante and St Thomas, Catholic monarchs derived their authority direct from God and not the Pope, although that varies. For instance, the Pope had the right to refuse to accept the Prince-electors nominee for Roman Emperor.

2. In my reply to Ollie I meant that his view is so obscure as to be discarded for purposes of discussion.

3. Not all of the Crusades were unjust – although they were not always justly conducted – because the Holy Land belonged to Christendom and the Eastern Empire in particular and it was a war of restoration and defence, expressly sanctioned by the Church as restorative and defensive against the ever-encroaching advance of Islam. I am not sure about the First War of Independence by the Scots. I would need to study the causes in more detail. Does anyone else have a view on it?

4. In my reply to Dion, I did not mean that combatants whose actions result in the death of other combatants in wars which are unjust are necessarily guilty of murder, although their leaders might be depending upon the usual criteria of intentionality. It is a standard application of the principle of “double effect” that a combatant who knows there will be innocent lives loss by his actions but which are otherwise unintended Is not guilty of moral crime. The culpability of the terrorist who deliberately targets the innocent is plainly evident. None of this was my primary point which was that no man can plead his disagreement with the Natural Law as an excuse for his crimes because every man has the Natural Law “written in his heart” and so cannot claim ignorance of it or exemption from it. If he could then Al Capone could say that he was innocent of murder because he did not believe that killing those who got in his way was murder.

5. There have been plenty of papal condemnations of conflicts as unjust since 1789. Pope Pius VI and Pius VII both declared the French Revolutionary wars unjust as well as the Bonapartist wars. Leo XII also did so and Gregory XVI declared the Italian revolutions unjust as did Bl Pius IX. He also condemned the Irish rebellions and excommunicated the Fenians on 12 January 1870. Of course, he also did the same to the Italian rebels. The Polish rebels were also – very significantly since they were rebelling against an heretic Tsar – condemned. The First World War was variously condemned and so were the Fascist and Nazi wars. The Spanish rebels were condemned (as were some actions by the Nationalists), Paul VI condemned the anti-terrorist war against ETA and John Paul II condemned the British invasion of the Falkland Islands, albeit not formally (and, in my view, on questionable grounds) as well as the Iraq war.

St Thomas Aquinas, leading theologian of just war principles

St. Thomas would not say that a private citizen should bear ‘any’ level of injustice imposed upon him, however bad, because he expressly allows the principle of self-defence. One may defend oneself, one’s family and others, together with property. If this requires what may become a war against the government then that is justified on the principle of “double effect” provided that there is no intention to overthrow the government or to prosecute a war against it.

If, however, the government was never a legitimate one then a war might be prosecuted against it (subject to all the usual just war criteria) in order to restore the legitimate government.

This was the purpose behind the Jacobite and Carlist wars and – arguably – the US War between the States. The South were seeking to restore the original Constitution as against the effectively new and unauthorised Constitution imposed by Lincoln and the Northern Yankees.

The governments of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and North Korea were all illegitimate governments imposed by revolution and force of arms against legitimate governments. So long as they continued to be illegitimate in that sense it would be open to anyone (subject to all the other just war criteria) to rise up against them to restore the true and legitimate government (if there was one).

"Manifest Destiny" was just a re-run of the old Puritan and Cromwellian cry that the Protestant white man was pre-destined by an apparently arbitrary God to rule over all other men as a "chosen people" of Biblical stature who would be enriched in a new republic designed chiefly for their benefit. It is, of course, unbiblical nonsense.

I agree that “Manifest Destiny” is really an outgrowth of the theology of certain Protestant groups (often Calvinists) who beleive in the “God is on our (America's) side” school of thinking and I agree that this theology – like that of the Cromwellian Puritans and the Afrikaner Boer Vortrekker people – tends to give the impression of a status of “chosen people” based upon the nation of Israel as a chosen people.

That is one of the reasons why I am opposed to such Americanist Yankee nonsense. It does no good to America nor to the rest of the world.

But you cannot persuade Americanists of this view. They simply stick their fingers in their ears and shout pro-Americanist slogans.

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Dios, Fueros, Patria y Rey! The Spanish Carlists and Christ the King

Carlism began as a dynastic struggle for the Spanish throne which emerged within the Bourbon dynasty when King Ferdinand VII on 29 March 1830, dissolved the Salic Law, permitting his only child to become Queen Isabel II, rather than the monarchy pass only through the male line to his brother Don Carlos Maria Isidro (pictured), Infante of Spain.

This change of law was not only to cast away the traditional dynastic law of the Spanish Royal house but, more importantly, was to give a chance to Spanish anti-clericals, inspired by the French Revolution, to adopt the cause of Queen Isabel as a means of gaining power and so over-throwing both Church and Monarchy and so bring in a secular state in imitation of the French revolutionaries.

The Spanish traditional Catholics flocked to the standard of Don Carlos and so the Carlist Party was born to fight against the secularisers and anti-clericals. They were determined to protect and defend the traditions of Catholic Spain and its regions from Galicia to Valencia, from Granada to Aragon.

The anti-clerical "liberals" were equally determined to fight against the Catholic traditions of Spain although they were careful to couch their language in terms of liberty and supposed pragmatism. In reality they intended to bring in a bourgeois monarchy, such as was to obtain in France, so that they, the anti-clerical bourgeois revolutionaries, could then assume key positions in the state and so enrich themselves fabulously at the expense of the ordinary people.

The people had remained staunchly Catholic and so, where they had not been suborned by the lies of the revolutionaries, they followed the Church and Don Carlos. The divisions between conservative Catholics and liberal revolutionaries led to a series of wars throughout the 19th century which weakened Spain, already economically weak from the loss of her Empire during the Napoleonic occupation. Bonaparte's occupation of Spain allowed the anti-clerical, Freemasonic revolutionaries in Latin America to seize power and break the power of the Church and Monarchy, re-introducing slavery and enriching the revolutionary leaders at the expense of the poor.

Throughout three Carlist Wars (the last in 1893), numerous coup plots, and wedding schemes - almost all of which took on international political overtones - the Carlists made some headway but were headed off by an international revolutionary alliance supporting the Isabellinist "liberals".

The fourth Carlist War was called off in 1936, when, faced with a much greater threat from Communism and the corruptly elected "Popular Front" government, the Carlist pretender, Alfonso Carlos I, decided he had to back General Francisco Franco, the leader of the Nationalist revolt.

The Carlists had an uneasy relationship with Franco who attempted to force them into a merger with the much more Right Wing Falange (literally "Phalanx"), founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, so as to present a united front against the revolutionary "Popular Front" government who had set about murdering clergy and religious.

The motto of Carlism was "Dios, Patria, Fueros, Rey" ("God, Country, our ancient customs, and our King").

Carlists preserved the Catholic ideals of the Spanish Empire, fighting both by military and political means to restore Catholic rule to Spain as it had existed for centuries. "Throne and Altar" was their guide just as it was for Catholic legitimists all over Europe.

With this vision came all the principles and liberties associated with Catholic Social teaching including a respect for local autonomy and subsidiarity, the principle of de-centralising power save where it was otherwise necessary to do otherwise.

This was what sometimes set them at odds with the Falangists and with Franco, both of whom saw a need for one, united Spain to fight the evil of Communism. This the Carlist leaders agreed with up to a point but they wanted the old local autonomies - and their fueros or local customary rights - restored as soon as possible.

The Carlist concept of fueros attracted many U.S. conservatives, who realised it was akin to the concept of "states' rights" which the US Constitution was supposed to preserve (but failed to do during and after the American civil war).

Under this system, when Carlists ruled certain regions of Spain during one of their wars, they gave maximum "community control" to ethnic provinces.

The flag of the Carlists was that of the Spanish Empire, itself brought to Spain from Burgundy by the Spanish Habsburgs. It is the red serrated saltire cross of Burgundy.

After the Spanish civil war was over, the Carlists were somewhat sidelined by Franco but still maintained a presence in the Spanish Cortes or Parliament. Moreover, there were splits in the movement when the heir-presumptive, Don Carlos VIII Hugo ( Don Carlos Hugo de Borbón-Parma y Borbón-Busset, the Duke of Madrid), became a Socialist which was alien to the Carlist tradition.

The traditional Carlists formed the COMUNIÓN TRADICIONALISTA CARLISTA which looks to his brother, Don Sixto Enrique (Don Sixto Enrique de Borbón-Parma y Borbón-Busset, Duke of Aranjuez) as putative Regent during the time that Don Carlos Hugo remains a Socialist, hoping for better from his sons.

In the meantime, General Franco decided to recognise Don Juan Carlos (Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón Dos Sicilias, Count of Barcelona) who fused both the Isabellinist line, the Alphonist line and the Carlist line of Borbon y Austria which arose at the death of King Alfonso Carlos I in 1936. Many Carlists had refused to recognise this line because its head, King Alfonso XII did not share the full Carlist ideals, especially of local regional autonomy, however it was arguably the direct male line of Don Carlos.

Thus King Juan Carlos I represents the fusion of the Legitimist and the Isabellinist lines which made a lot of sense in terms of stability.

However, traditional Carlists still recognise Don Sixto Enrique because he supports the traditionalist Catholic and regionalist principles of Carlism.

Carlists fought with the nationalists in the Civil war because the common enemy were the Communists, Socialists and Anarchists who were brutally murdering bishops, priests and religious and raping and murdering nuns and Catholic men, women and children.

On Sunday 28 October 2007, the Feast of Christ the King, Pope Benedict XVI beatified no less than 498 Spanish martyrs, brutally killed by the crazed and bloodthirsty Assault Guards, secret police (the dreaded SIM) and thugs of the revolutionary republicans.

This raised howls of protest from the modern secularists who could not stomach the idea that the Church dared to show any kind of support for those who were the victims of Communist and Anarchist brutality. These people are very happy when the Church beatifies the victims of Nazism and Right Wing regimes but the minute the Church shews balance and also beatifies the victims of the equally brutal Communist regimes, they howl. That this view is wholly unbalanced needs hardly to be stated - but nevertheless large sections of the media still vilify the Church for being so even-handed.

Apparently this kind of religious vilification is deemed acceptable by their editors and programme-makers. More balanced readers and viewers are able to judge more fairly and can see that it is no better than any other kind of religious vilification and, indeed, all the more odious for being practised by hypocrites who claim to object to such religious vilification.

The Carlist anthem is the hymn El Oriamendi.

It can be heard here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDikhUw8P9s

sung for the Regiment of Requetes of our Lady of Montserrat, and here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzrKhRX0CP4

The words are:

Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharon nuestros padres.
Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharemos nosotros también.

Lucharemos todos juntos,
todos juntos en unión,
defendiendo la bandera
de la santa tradición.

Lucharemos todos juntos,
todos juntos en unión,
defendiendo la bandera
de la santa tradición.

Cueste lo que cueste
se ha de conseguir
que venga el rey de España
a la Corte de Madrid.

Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharon nuestros padres.
Por Dios, por la Patria y el Rey
lucharemos nosotros también.

+++++++++++++++++++

For God, for our country and king,
Our fathers fought without shirking
For God, for our country and king,
We shall do the very same thing!

Together we'll fight all as one
Together in unison,
Defending the standard as one
Of our holy tradition.

Whate'er the expense may be
To be counted at the end
The king of Spain shall enter
The court of Madrid at the end.

For God, for our country and king,
Our fathers fought without shirking
For God, for our country and king,
We shall do the very same thing!


Viva Cristo Rey!
Long live Christ the King!


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