Dr Loupis: JD Vance «объясняет» Папе Льву XIV католическое богословие — разбор доктрины Just War

JD Vance, Trump’s Dish Rag, humiliates himself again explaining Catholic theology to the Pope. And what is ‘Just War’ theology?

Источник: https://drlou.substack.com/p/jd-vance-trumps-dish-rag-humiliates

Public Notice The regime's attacks on Pope Leo backfire spectacularly

Read more a day ago · 509 likes · 29 comments · Lisa Needham

The regime’s attacks on Pope Leo backfire spectacularly

The Just War doctrine was originated by Augustine in the 4th century CE who lived in what is now modern day Algeria. ‘Just War’ was subsequently a primary belief structure invoked during the Reagan years by Catholic priests who helped and supported citizen resistance to murderous American-backed governments in Central America, especially through the 1980s. But for Trump’s twin dish rags, JD Vance and ‘holy’ Mike Johnson (who’s also not Catholic) to invoke it with regards to Iran would be laughable if not so deadly and absurdly incorrect.

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What did Augustine, himself, say about Just War?

Augustine had argued that a just war was the business of the state. It could be justified if it was fought with the “right intention” and in pursuit of restoring peace.

The leader who waged war should be like a Christian judge; the innocent should be protected; actions motivated by revenge, wrath or greed invalidated any claim to justice. The tests set by Augustine and the thinkers that followed remain the guiding principles of conflict law.

In Central America at the time, Catholic clergy helped defend and support citizens who were being attacked by their own governments and murdered by American supported Death Squads. The clergy were also targeted, brutalized and murdered by American/Reagan sponsored governments with El Salvador high on that list. Most notably, this included Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador who was murdered while saying mass. Those who fought back so bravely did so framed by an honest Just War theology as originally articulated by Augustine about a millennia ago.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/romero-assassinated/

In February of 1980, Romero wrote a letter to President Carter asking him to halt U.S military assistance to the Salvadoran government. On March 24, 1980, an assassin shot and killed Archbishop Romero while he was giving mass in small hospital church. Over 250,000 people attended his funeral, which became a protest against the government. He became an icon to El Salvador’s revolution.

Just a few months later, In December 1980, three nuns and a lay worker were brutalized, raped and murdered also in El Salvador by the American backed Salvadoran National Guard.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/nuns-and-lay-worker-killed-in-el-salvador/

President Ronald Reagan’s administration blamed the nuns for their own murder. Foreign-policy advisor Jeane Kirkpatrick told a reporter, “The nuns were not just nuns. The nuns were also political activists” and Secretary of State Alexander Haig said, “perhaps they ran a roadblock.”

The four women were raped and murdered because maybe they ‘ran a roadblock.’

The Reagan administration dared blame the nuns for their own brutalization and death by claiming they were ‘political activists’ which was invoked as if it were a death sentence. Perhaps that aligns with Trump, Vance and Hegseth’s current war crimes in the Caribbean as they murder men in boats calling them ‘alleged’ or ‘suspected’ drug runners but never provide any evidence to that end. While some may be moving drugs, others killed have been innocent fishers.

But neither the American Constitution nor international law allows for the extrajudicial murders of ‘alleged’ or ‘suspected’ criminals. But then an amoral JD Vance who constantly demonstrates the same remarkable lack of self awareness as does his Dear Leader, presumes to lecture Pope Leo XIV on Catholic theology and Just War theology. Vance, Trump and Hegseth never stood a chance

Despite my not being Catholic, or Christian for that matter, I’m reasonably well informed of Just War doctrine. And having my undergraduate degree from Loyola University in Maryland, I learned some Catholic theology whether I wanted to or not due to required course expectations! Unlike Vance, however, I don’t presume to be anywhere remotely close to Pope Leo. But it seems altogether possible I may be better informed in this regard than JD.

I’d recommend Vance read a bit more before flapping his lips next time. A war of Epstein choice based on brazen lies and revisionism which has already killed thousands of innocents to include destroying civilian infrastructure then threatening genocide when Trump realized he lost, doesn’t come close to qualifying – or even meeting fringe criteria – of Just War theology. Vance may need to consider some refresher course work

To be specific, Catholic theology identifies that:

All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, “as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.”

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

– the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

– all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

– there must be serious prospects of success;

– the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

As noted above, the theology of Just War was first articulated by Augustine in the 4th century. Pope Leo XIV is, in fact, is the first Pope to come from the Augustinian Order and visited Algeria just over the past week. Leo also wrote his doctoral thesis based on the ideas of Augustine. Then there’s JD Vance who seems to barely remember the courses he took while he was in law school.

Trump’s war of Epstein choice doesn’t resemble any of this at all. It is also worth taking note that there is nothing in the above identified theology directly about belief. The most basic premise is that war is inherently bad and, while it should be avoided, Just War can only be undertaken when very specific conditions occur.

It would do our current tyrannical, Christian Supremacist and amoral Trump administration well to read a little more and understand Pope Leo’s background. He has also long been a close ally of and supporter in Africa to include those most impoverished and in warzones.

The Trump regime, led by the dimwitted Fox News pretty boy, Pete Hegseth (who’ll likely be gone before too very long), has desperately tried to imbue their illegal Iran war with their own version of ‘Just War’ Christian militancy to include End Times mythology.

But to quote Augustine one more time: “the innocent should be protected; actions motivated by revenge, wrath or greed invalidated any claim to justice.” To say the Trump regime has failed to meet any of these most basic elements of Just War theology would be an understatement.

In fact, members of the US military have complained, to include writing the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, about specific commanders who have pushed Iran as a ‘holy war’ aligned with post millennial apocalyptic language. This includes the belief that the so called Second Coming of Christ must be physically facilitated by human believers which includes the imposition of and conversion of everyone to their form of Christianity. It means dominating the Muslim world

For those not familiar with the MRFF, please check out the below link and consider supporting their work to include donations.

https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/

https://news.cornell.edu/media-relations/tip-sheets/end-times-rhetoric-us-military-didnt-infiltrate-was-invited

Leo, who’s from Chicago, also spent 20 years in Peru with those most impoverished during a time of extreme violence. He supported both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Leo has firsthand knowledge of extreme Injustice, economic inequity and power imbalances. The then Father Robert Prevost was elevated to Bishop while in Peru. The recent Catholic convert, Vance, should know more about his Pope, who leads a billion plus Catholics around the world, before making a damn fool of himself

But the ignorance and self-indulgence of Vance and Trump is absolutely staggering. The deeply ignorant, dementia addled medically and mentally deteriorating Trump also doesn’t seem to understand with whom he’s messing. He thinks he’s in another pissing match for personal power with a single individual, and an American at that, too.

But Leo is the supposed ‘vicar of Christ’ and leader of global Catholicism. That the Pope grew up in Chicago also means he doesn’t intimidate easily and won’t take Trump’s petty bullying and nonsense. Trump lost this battle before it even started. Now, even traditionally conservative American Catholic Bishops and Cardinals who might otherwise disagree with Leo on certain points of theology, have absolutely rallied to his side.

If Vance knew his Catholic theology, he’d be well aware that while Leo is certainly not backing down, he is not a ‘radical leftist’ or ‘soft on crime.’ Instead the Pope is clearly reasserting long established Catholic dogma and theology, even if the Church has not always been true to that reality itself, ranging from indigenous genocide in the early 16 and 17 century Americas, creating horrific boarding schools in which native children from both the US and Canada were forcibly taken to its modern epidemic of extreme pedophelia.

I, for one, would very much like to see Pope Leo XIV speak and respond to these atrocities perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church in the name of ‘god.’ For now, I’m ok with his strong stance targeting the Trump Regime’s violent, illegal wars both internationally as well as on the undocumented and citizens in America.

The usually ultra conservative US Conference of Catholic Bishops, many of whom originally supported Trump’s run for the White House despite Trump’s uniquely unchristian like history, has now come out strongly in support of the Pope.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/17/pope-jd-vance-row-iran-just-war

‘Popesplaining’ Vance out of depth in argument over whether Iran is a just war

on Wednesday, Bishop James Massa, the chair of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on doctrine, intervened on behalf of the Catholic bishops in the US to make clear that Leo’s comments were not a question of the pope’s “opinion” but Catholic teaching contained in the catechism, the collected doctrine of the church.

“For over 1,000 years, the Catholic church has taught just-war theory, and it is that long tradition the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war,” Massa said.

“A constant tenet of that 1,000-year tradition is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword ‘in self-defence, once all peace efforts have failed’. That is, to be a just war it must be a defence against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: ‘He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.’”

At the same time, if Vance were so interested in pushing what could be and would be something much closer to a Just War, he could focus on convincing the malignant, mentally ill, sexually adjudicated criminal felon and pedophile, Trump, to immediately return full support to Ukraine and deny any support for Putin. But that both Trump and Vance are strong Putin allies, now complicit in Putin’s war crimes, I don’t expect that anytime soon.

Vance’s faux faith is just as grotesquely dishonest and cowardly as his politics. With no character, no practicing morality, and in his role as Trump’s court jester and dish rag, I’m not clear how he sees this behavior to be any advantage to the political future he fantasizes and covets…but will never attain. In fact, once Trump departs whether from medical need or term limits, Vance may find that he’ll have trouble finding work as a lawyer. Perhaps Fox News or Newsmax would be willing to contract with him to yell into their cameras…

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