Is This a JUST WAR? President Trump vs Pope Leo

Greetings. Welcome to the Holy War channel where we're going to discuss a very important topic today about just war, just war theory specifically. Am I on? I think so. Um, okay.

So, what we're going to do is, if you've been following the news, you may have seen that there has been a little kurfuffle between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo, the American Pope, in the context of the Iran War. There have been some uh back and forths. I think most of them actually are from Trump. Um, but we're going to look into that. They're arguing about the concept of uh war in Iran, and of course, he's the Catholic Pope, Leo. So his words have some authority certainly with Catholics around the world and he made very critical remarks about the war essentially, essentially calling it unjust and needing it to uh come to a halt. To which of course Donald Trump responded in typical Trump fashion, um, that the pope doesn't know what he's talking about. Um, I don't know if it was him or others said he needs to read the Bible and, um, uh, and that he should not meddle in foreign affairs, etc., etc.

All right, be that as it may, that's a great um segue for me to talk about a topic that I find very important in the context of what I have been working on and writing for actually a couple of decades, which is the history between jihad and crusade and how the crusade and basically uh Christian warfare was justified again in the context of Islam, which is the current one, the war in Iran, right? So, we're going to look at that basically, uh, what happened and what just war is really all about and then ultimately we're going to try to answer the question: Is the current war on Iran just or not?

Okay, but first a couple of observations and comments. First of all, um, I'm a little sick. I got sick about two days ago. I contracted something, something of a respiratory infection, congestion, um, you know, a little sweating here and there, sore throat. And the only reason I'm telling you all this is because I've noticed in previous comments during live streams that a fair bit of you seem to think that I'm dying or something and that I don't look very well. And so I figured if even if when I'm not sick, they're saying this, I better give you a warning because I am sick today a little bit because, uh, God knows what I'm going to look like or how my demeanor is going to present itself. So just a heads up, I'm not dying. Not that I know of. Um, and, um, but what you've been seeing, I don't know, actually, I think this camera, a lot of you think I'm losing weight. That's one of the prevalent comments that I've seen. I don't think I've lost weight actually. I think it's this camera and this angle because if you look at my other videos, um, from around now where I'm sitting in different, uh, situations being interviewed by someone, you'll see I don't, I don't get those comments about how I look ill, etc., etc. It's also very late here where I am. It's, um, about 10:20 p.m. So, the cares and wares of the day are weighing on me. So, that's another thing. In other words, I'm just tired. Um, and as far as the unkempt, haggard look and the hair, well, okay, that's on me, I guess. But we'll have to wait until I can find a proper barber because I am out of my element and I'm used to certain people and places to do things. So, we're going to have to wait on the hair thing. Okay, but anyway, that's just a heads up. Like I said, I am feeling under the weather right now. And, um, if people are thinking all these things when, when I'm not, uh, when I'm not sick, then I better, uh, clarify when I am feeling sick.

Um, wow, I just saw a, now I'm trying to, I'm trying to follow these. West of Eden. Wow, thank you very much for that large super chat. Appreciate it. Um, okay, so that was the first caveat. Just a heads up. Um, the second thing, and see, I'm already sweating. It's kind of like a fever thing. The second thing, of course, is, and a lot of people have been asking me to opine about this, and it's basically something that Tucker Carlson said. Well, Tucker Carlson says lots of things, but on April 14th, he wrote the following. So, let's just quickly address this, get it out of the way. He wrote, quote, "The people in charge don't want you to know this, but Muslims love Jesus. Islam reveres him as a major prophet and messenger of the Lord. Believes he performed miracles and states that he will return to earth to defeat the antichrist." Okay.

Now, I'm addressing this because, like I said, lots of you contacted me about it, and you contacted me about it because you know I've addressed this many times before. This is actually one of my pet peeves, as it were, this Abrahamic business and, um, trying to, uh, one moment here, trying to, uh, you see, all right, trying to conflate, uh, Islam with Christianity, for example, and saying they share commonality. So, let's address, um, what Mr. Carlson said. Um, yes, I would argue that Muslims love Jesus, but I'm going to clarify because it doesn't mean what you think it means. This toa keeps popping up, doesn't it? Anyway, so, uh, yes, according to Islamic teaching, um, Muslims believe, and in keeping with the Quran, that Jesus was born of a virgin and that, um, he was sinless. He was perfect, that he performed miracles, and that he's coming in the end times. So, yes, of course, that sounds very impressive if you're a Christian, to find another religion, which is often seen as a, a competitor, a hostile antagonist, or however you want to see it, whether you want to see it realistically or not. Um, and then you find that, wow, as a Christian, Christ is so central, and yet these people are actually believe he was born of a virgin, committed, performed miracles, was sinless, etc., etc. So that must not be so bad. Aha. But the problem is how these things are actually articulated and understood and also the omission, what's not said and what is rejected.

Okay. So, first of all, while they do accept, let's, what I would call the nativity story, right, the Christmas story, which is born of a virgin, sinless, etc., they don't believe actually the core doctrines of Christianity, the much more important and central doctrines of Christianity. Not only do they not believe them, they adamantly reject them. In fact, Muhammad was sent specifically to redress these claims about Jesus Christ that Christians hold to. Namely, that he was the son of God, that he was actually crucified and died, that he was buried, and that he was resurrected. Okay, that is, of course, as we recently saw the Easter message. That is the gospel, the good news. It's not so much that Jesus, that, you know, God was incarnate. That, of course, is a major part of it. And as we've seen, Muslims do accept that, but they reject the whole point of why he became incarnate. Okay? And, uh, again, to reiterate, they reject the central core teachings of Christianity vocally. The Quran says you are an infidel, a kafir, which is the worst category in Islam for a non-Muslim because it basically means your blood is free game, open game on your blood. It's, it's articulated like that in Arabic. And, um, so you're a kafir, you can be killed unless, of course, in the context of you're a person of the book, but you're still a kafir. You can pay tribute, jizya, live as a subjugated dhimmi according to Quran 9:29. But you are a kafir, an infidel. The Quran says infidels or kufur, kuffar plural, are they who say Jesus is the son of Allah, son of God. Okay? And it also condemns the concept of the Trinity. All right? So Islam is inherently against what Christians, such as Tucker Carlson, I assume, hold dearly to be true about Jesus.

And this leads to, um, the real, a bigger issue about this whole Abrahamism, as it's called. The idea that, um, Islam is actually a sister or brother religion to Christianity because it shares the same biblical figures going all the way back to Adam and Eve, right? Uh, so in the Quran, Islamic tradition, Adam and Eve, Moses, Noah, um, everyone you can think about all the way up until Jesus are mentioned, and they're all great prophets, of course, um, and they all have their great roles, but they are actually being appropriated by Muslims, beginning with Muhammad, in order to validate the message of Islam. Why? Because if you're a 7th century Arab in Arabia and the entire Middle East is overwhelmed with Christianity and everyone, including Jews, know who Moses and Adam and Eve and, and, uh, Noah are. Okay, everyone knows them. That is, those are the names associated with faith and religion and God. Okay, and you're the 7th century Arab. Well, you better align yourself with them and make them part of your tradition, not come and say, "Oh, they're all wrong and I'm right." But the trick is he appropriated their names, but then he changed who they were, what they represented, in a way to validate his new message of Islam.

And so, in the case of Jesus, not only was he not crucified, not killed, and therefore not resurrected, and therefore not the son of God, but he's actually very keen on, uh, fulfilling Muhammad's worldview and request. So Jesus, when he comes back in the Islamic tradition to earth, because he does, around judgment day, and in that context, he's an eschatological figure as well. When he comes back, he's going, the things that Jesus is going to be keen on doing is breaking all the crosses, all the crosses, killing all the pigs, and then abrogating jizya, as I alluded to. Jizya is in Quran 9:29. That's the central verse that calls for unrestricted warfare on the people of the book, which is Christians and Jews, until they either convert or they pay tribute, which is to say they pay jizya, as it's called, um, and live as second-class citizens, etc., or they fight to the death. So, in coming back in the final days and abrogating jizya, what Jesus is ultimately saying is, you now have to either convert to Islam or fight to the death. Okay. So, he's breaking the cross because he doesn't, because he's, he's outraged that Christians for a couple of millennia or whenever, how many years it will be when he comes back in the Islamic rendering, um, he's upset. So, he's breaking the cross as an indication that he was never crucified. You silly Christians. And he's going to kill all the pigs because, you know, Christians are eating pigs and it's not really, um, uh, Muslims don't. It's not very kosher in that sense. And he's finally going to abrogate jizya, which means now you either become Muslim or die. Well, you know what that's like actually? So, so the Jesus that the Muslims love, as Tucker Carlson said, and they do. He's really, well, first of all, he's not Jesus. His name is Isa. And what he is, is really a doppelganger. You know, he's the evil twin of the real Jesus. He's much more like an ISIS figure, isn't he? ISIS is very fond of quoting the phrase which traces back to early Islamic history, "break the cross." They, they say it all the time and they engage in it. Not just ISIS, radical Muslims, as it were. Um, they break the cross because it's so, um, provocative. It's anathema to Islam, the idea of the crucifix. There's a hadith where Muhammad supposedly, if he entered anywhere and even saw some makeshift symbol that looked like a cross, would just go crazy and break it. Hence why the phrase "break the cross," and that's why Muslims, including ISIS and others, do it. Okay.

Um, so, did I lose you? My screen went blank. Are you there? Someone say something in the chat, lest I speak to myself again. Froze. Yes. Am I still frozen? Okay. All right. So, so there it is about the Jesus and what Tucker Carlson said. All right. Yeah. Muslims love Isa, who's more of an ISIS figure, who's gonna come break all the crosses because Christianity is wrong, and he's going to make sure that Christians can no longer even pay to be, uh, second-class dhimmi. They have to either convert or die. All right. So, there's that. And, um, you know, before proceeding, because this is really an interesting topic, if you really want to understand the concept, and I've said this before, I've written a lot about this, this idea of, uh, appropriation and religions and, and so forth, being close to each other, sister religions. The irony is, when you find two religions that have some sort of commonality and ostensibly seem to be close, or in this case, use the same figures and the same names, the more prone they are actually to hate each other as opposed to building bridges and being friends. Now, why is that? Use your reason and think about it. If there are two religions that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, no historical intersection. Okay, let's say, I don't know, Hinduism and Christianity. Very different religions, obviously. One's polytheistic, one's monotheistic, despite what Muslims say. And, um, you know, historically, they don't intersect. I don't believe anything in Hindu scriptures or tradition even mentions or acknowledges or knows about Jesus. Um, and of course, in, in the Christian, uh, tradition, in the Bible, there's nothing really about Hindus. Okay. So, on the one hand, they have nothing to do with each other. Does that by nature mean now, you know, going back to the idea that they're going to be especially hostile? Well, I suppose every religion is fundamentally generically hostile to the other because each one is supposedly claiming a truth. And if you're going to claim a different truth, then yeah, there's obviously an obstacle, but it's very generic. And this would exist between every religion. So Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, all these religions would have the same idea, which is, um, essentially, we have a, we have a truth. You obviously don't accept it. You contradict it to one degree or the other, and therefore, we're not aligned. Okay, that I think is generic. But now, the idea is that if there is, for example, the Islam, the Islam case, you have a religion which, okay, obviously it rejects, uh, what I talked about about Christ and the central core teachings, um, but it accepts, uh, a lot of the other, uh, things. So therefore, they should be kind of close. No. Okay.

And I'm going to give you an analogy to understand what this, how this goes. I've given it before, which is basically, imagine you, you have a grandfather, and he's dead now, and you knew him, and you were very fond of him, and you know, you have great recollections of him spending time with him, you looked up to him, etc., etc. And then all of a sudden, some stranger you never met comes up to you and says, "Hey, that was my grandfather too." Okay. Now, right there, on the surface, that seems like a good thing. Wow, a new commonality is going to be built. Right? This person and and me, we have the same grandfather. We're going to sit around and, uh, you know, reminisce about how great he was. I'm going to learn from him different things. He's going to learn from me. But then this fellow tells you that everything you know about your grandfather is completely wrong. All the stuff you think he said and did. Not true. It's actually what I'm going to tell you. And then he starts to tell you things about your grandfather that you never expected, you never heard, you never associated with him. Disturbing things, even. All right. So, in the context of what we're talking about, Jesus. So, you, not at the sake of sounding sacrilegious or blasphemous, imagine Jesus is your grandfather, and you love him, okay? And you believe in, you believe he taught what he taught in the Christian teaching. And then this fellow comes and says, "Ah, he's my grandfather too, but he taught that he's going to break the cross, and he's going to kill the pigs, and he's going to, and he never, you know, he doesn't, he never told you that he was, or it was never said that he was crucified and resurrected." Now, how on earth is that going to build a bridge between you and this person? Think about it. Uh, so it's, so, so the whole point is the argument is very superficial. It just looks at the fact that, oh, we share the same names and the same people, and therefore, oh, we're natural allies. But the fact is, it's because you share the same names, but at the same time, you don't, you, you see these names and personages in a completely different way. They mean something different. Well, that actually is now an obstacle. That's not a, a cause of friendship. That's a greater obstacle than if it was the person who doesn't say, "I know your grandfather." Which is to say, than if it was a Hindu or a Buddhist, uh, or someone of another religion that doesn't have anything to do with Jesus in this case. Do you see what I'm saying?

So, the idea that we often hear that, oh, these are cousin religions and, oh, wow, we have a natural bridge to build, etc., etc. It's, it's the exact opposite. The closer religions are, the more prone they are to actually hate and war with each other. Look at Catholicism and Protestantism, which we're going to be talking about a little bit because we're going to get into just war theory. Um, to the outside world, they're both Christians. And by and large, they are both Christians, right? They both believe in the core tenets about Jesus Christ. They both agree that he was, you know, like Muslims, that he was born of a virgin, etc., etc., performed miracles, that he was the son of God, that he was crucified, that he was resurrected, and is coming to judge. Okay? And yet, so you would think, wow, Protestants and Catholics should be the absolute best of friends. Historically, well, they killed each other left and right. They weren't killing Hindus, all right? They were killing each other because, again, the closer you get, the more prone for violence and or actual hostility to exist between the two groups. All right.

So, I think that's a final important point to make before we proceed in regards to Mr. Carlson's claims about how, and here it is, let me read it again. So, the people in charge don't want you to know this, but Muslims love Jesus. Islam reveres him as a major prophet and messenger of the Lord. That's true. Believes he performed miracles. True. And states that he will return to earth to defeat the Antichrist. True. Okay. But as we just saw, the whole problem is that what Jesus is to Muslims is not what Christians say he is to Muslims. Am I freezing again? I just saw a note come up. I won't, I don't want to be talking, um, just to myself here, but let me see here. All right, you're on. You're fine. All right, thanks all. All right, I think I've spent enough time on that bit of business. All right, so yeah, you Muslims love Isa. They don't love Jesus. And Isa is, um, a counterfeit Jesus Christ who teaches the opposite things. That's the truth, Mr. Carlson.

Now then, let's get to the meaty stuff. Just war. So, as I indicated at the start, Pope, uh, Leo made some comments a few days ago about which essentially, uh, were very critical about the US war on Iran and basically, uh, indicated it was a horrible thing, there was an atrocity, and we must have peace ASAP. I think it was in the context of the ceasefire, and he was basically praying that the ceasefire continues, etc., etc. At which point Donald Trump took to, uh, Truth Social and, uh, made his opinions clear, which I already indicated about what he said, and he attacked the pope, etc., etc. So, to me, this is an ideal time to visit the topic of just war. What is a just war in, in, in the Christian tradition, of course, and as we're going to see, there's a lot of subjectivity. So, uh, in what follows, I'm going to talk about what is just war theory, and even there, I can't limit it. I can't even say this is the Christian teaching because even within Christianity, there's so many sects and factions, right? Um, and so what am I, so who's going to decide on this, and who's not going to decide? Um, so I, I took some notes here which I'm going to be sharing with you, but, um, and just to clarify, what follows is not my opinion of what Christian just war theory is. What follows is an objective, um, analysis of, uh, uh, just war theory as it was understood historically. So, we're going to look at it, what it is, how it manifested itself historically, and then finally try to answer the question, well, is the current war just or not? Is the Pope right, or is Trump right? Okay. And again, the answer I'm giving you, this isn't me. I'm not sitting here telling you, well, I, as a Christian, believe it's this, it's just or not just. I'm not doing that. I'm not interested in doing that. I don't think you should even be interested in what I think, to be honest with you. And I'm not interested in what other people think. I really want to ascertain what is the closest reading that we can get of how Christianity in general at large would answer this question. All right.

Now, as I mentioned, there's different factions and sects and, uh, of Christianity, but, uh, according to the general large ones, let's start with Orthodoxy, which is what I'm a member of. So, according to the Orthodox churches, the Eastern churches, war, there is no just war theory, actually, not a formalized, systematic one. There's, uh, and the general view is war is evil, and, um, but if you do go to war, it's because it's a necessary evil. Um, and you, it's just, you know, but it's again, it's not systematized. It's just, it's we follow the king, the leader, and if it's time to go to war, fine. But there's no deep rationale or logic really behind it. It's a bad thing. You know, according to some readings, even the soldiers have to repent after killing the enemy and so on and so forth. Okay? And it's never really even seen as truly just. All right? So, that, that's the general Orthodox rendering. And I recall, for example, in my readings and studies over the years, that, for example, Nikephoros, or Nicephorus Phocas, I, the great Eastern Roman Byzantine emperor who wreaked havoc amongst the Muslims, and he was way before the Crusades, I think in the, uh, 10th century or late 9th century, and he tried to sort of get Orthodoxy to get on board with a sort of just war theory or even, you know, even flirting with the concept of holy war. Uh, but the, the Orthodox would not budge. Okay. And it was just war is evil. Don't do it. And it's kind of like the last absolute resort if you have to do it. Okay. But there's no elaborate teaching for it. Okay.

Now, the Catholic, this is what we're going to have to look at because that's where you find an elaborate, systematic, uh, theology about just war. Highly developed over the course of, you know, a millennium. It's been honed and discussed. And we're going to get into all that. Um, and the long and short of it is, of course, that war can be justified. It can be morally justified. It is bad. It is evil. It's not something we should enter into lightly. Um, we, being Catholics in this case, but there are certain conditions in which case it's okay.

Now, the Protestants, as usual with Protestants, you can't, you can't say Protestants because there's so many different sects amongst the Protestants themselves. And so you have many, um, who actually did accept just war theory, and they more or less followed the Catholic teaching, which I'll be outlining, and sometimes they adapted it, changed it around, revised it, um, and in no special significant way. But then there were also Protestants who were extreme pacifists, you know, Anabaptists, Mennonites, the Amish, Quakers, and so forth. And apparently, these groups honestly believe that no violence can never ever ever be, uh, rationalized, justified, or accepted. All right? So, if, if some man's bursting into your house and killing your children and raping your wife, um, yeah, you just, uh, you need to take it because you're, you have to be a good Christian. Um, and if I'm misrepresenting them, someone tell me in, in the comments because I, I don't pretend to be some sort of expert about the pacifist Protestant groups that I just named, but that's based on my readings, what I've seen. Okay, so, uh, there it is, uh, about those guys.

Um, hey lies destroy lives. Thanks for that great super chat. And, uh, I'll take it now since it seems to be about what I was talking about. Um, Christians learn from their mistakes. Commonality is not a problem if both groups are guided by good principles such as do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox are not fighting against each other today. No, they're not. And, um, yeah, I'm, I'm not fully sure of what your point, but maybe I, I wasn't trying to say that they are fighting today, but, and you can get along. Oh, you're going back to what I was saying about, um, uh, you know, the closer you are, the more prone to be hostile. Well, yeah, that is true nonetheless. Doesn't mean you have to fight and kill each other, and you can be civil, as we've seen, and as you just said. Yeah, I agree with that. Um, but we, we'll get back to that.

Um, so, so those are the, the three general, uh, I talked about Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, and that's their takes. So, now, really, what's left to look at is the Catholic doctrine. Okay. And I've never really liked these words Catholic and Orthodox and Protestant because, because they seem to be anachronistic to me. What I mean by that is, uh, today, of course, if I say Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox, it's, it's good to say that, you have to say that to clarify what you're talking about. But when we talk about it historically, uh, I, I sometimes don't like to say, well, that's the Catholic teaching because, guess what? Historically, the Catholic teaching was simply the Christian teaching. Okay? For, uh, one and a half millennia, 1500 years. And by and large, it didn't diverge that much from the Orthodox teaching. If you know anything about the splits between Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, you know that the Catholic and the Orthodox, their splits are much more minimal. They're much more similar, uh, in their theology than the Protestants. That's a completely different major split. Okay. So, when you, before the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, you know, Catholic and Orthodox, that was just the Christian world, and it had a certain veneer in the East, which we now call Orthodox, and it had a certain veneer in the West, which we now call Catholic. Okay? And I just say this to you because, like I said, it's sort of anachronistic when someone just said, "Oh, well, that's the Catholic view in 1200." That was the only view. Okay? Uh, that's all there was. Okay? Even these words Catholic and Orthodox now, they're big C, B, big O, and, uh, that's to indicate it's because it has an identity marker. It wasn't originally. Catholic simply meant universal. Orthodox meant the straight way. And when you look at the creeds, they use both words oftentimes interchangeably. The Orthodox Church, which still holds, of course, the Nicene Creed, uses the word Catholic in the creed. It talks about one Catholic apostolic church because it's saying one universal church. So, again, there's something of a misnomer and an anachronism in my mind when we use these words to talk about history.

So, and all this is simply to, and again, remember I'm not Catholic. So, I'm not, uh, a lot of people think I'm trying to defend Catholicism. I don't have a, a dog in the fight, as it were. I'm looking at it as objectively as I can, looking at history, trying to learn, in this case, about just war. All right. So, in sum, the just war theory amongst the church, the historic Christian church in the West, aka the Catholic Church, it, it's not a blanket endorsement of war in any way, shape, or form, but it's a restrictive set of criteria which are rooted in scripture, natural law, and even the gospel's call to peace, including love your neighbor and the common good. In fact, love is, is going to be a major point as we're going to see, uh, in just war theory, right? Again, war is always seen as a tragic last resort. It's a consequence of sin, one way or the other. And, um, again, the church, the historic church's default stance is to urge its avoidance, Catholic and Orthodox.

Now, from a historic point of view, you have, there's always, if you do a cursory research or anything about, you know, cal, if you ask ChatGPT or any other AI, they're always going to give you the same sorts of things. They'll probably tell you that there's two people here, and it's St. Augustine and St. Aquinas, okay? That they're somehow the chief articulators. And this is largely true. I'm not arguing that. But as with all things, there's a lot more to it. It's not that simple. There are many other names and theologians and, uh, factors that arose throughout this, the years and the centuries, and I, maybe I'll, I'll mention a couple as we go along, but let's for now focus on the usual ones, okay, which is, and we'll start off with Augustine, who lived between 354 and 430 AD. All right. And, um, he's credited with being the first, uh, again, I would say first major Christian theologian. Who's to say there weren't others before him that maybe we've lost their writings and so forth. Um, all right. But he's seen as the ma, the first major Christian theologian to really start expressing, articulating, and justifying what came to be known as just war theory. Now, he never wrote a book called Just War Theory or an article or an essay or a tidy list saying, "This is what's needed." Rather, his thoughts were gleaned from his major works, um, throughout his works, especially, of course, The City of God, also, uh, Contra Manichaeism, polemic against the Manichaeism of the time, various letters and sermons. You can glean from them various excerpts that engage in the topic of just war, and he developed it. And the reason they came out is has to do with, you know, where, who he was in, in, in this time and place of history where he lived. He was living around the time of the fall of Rome, the barbarian invasions, and dealing with the concept of early Christian pacifism. All right. So, essentially, uh, Augustine was dealing with what Edward Gibbon later accused Christianity of being responsible for, namely the fall of the Roman Empire in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edward Gibbon, um, as we know, one of his chief comments and thesis is that the Roman Empire ultimately fell because it adapted or adopted Christian pacifism, which made it weak, and therefore it just crumbled eventually before the barbarian Germanic invasions. So, that was, uh, that, that's Edward Gibbon's argument, which comes out, you know, 12, 1300 years after Augustine, but it's clear that Augustine himself was thinking about these topics because, again, this is where these ideas of just war emanate and arise from him.

All right, so what are the core ideas that can, again, be extrapolated from the writings of St. Augustine in the aforementioned texts? Well, first of all, it's that war can be morally justified as opposed to strict pacifism. Quakerism, another, another, um, anachronism that I just introduced. So, he argued that Christians could serve as soldiers and that war is sometimes a tragic necessity to restrain evil. It's a lesser evil. All right? And I've spoken about this a lot of times, uh, you know, in his writings. He's the one that first pointed out, you may have heard me talk about this, but he's the one that first pointed out that a lot of the just war, what we call now just war theory, is implied in the New Testament. For example, the centurion who comes to Jesus, asks for a miracle to heal his, uh, ailing servant, and Jesus complies. And then Jesus doesn't do what he, he habitually does after he performs a miracle for someone. That is to say, call on that person to repent. All right? So, the natural thing after Jesus dealt with the centurion and obliging his desire and healing his servant would have been, "Now go and repent. Quit the Roman army. You have blood on your hands." That wasn't said. Instead, if anything, Jesus used him as a model of faith and saying, "I have found no man of greater, no one of such faith in all of Israel about this Roman pagan." Okay. So, Augustine mentions that and many other examples of, well, okay, well, if Jesus didn't call on him to, uh, quit the Roman army, then Jesus does not think fighting in war as part of a state is inherently evil. Okay. So, that's just one of the, the first points, um, which is that war can sometimes be justified on moral grounds, namely to, and that therefore soldiers and centurions can be in the army and they're not necessarily sinning in that sense.

The second idea that comes from, uh, Augustine, and remember, these, these are not a list. This is just what can be, um, sort of ascertained from a reading, a deep reading of Augustine's texts that I mentioned. The second and most probably important one that really comes out is just cause. And this is really going to dominate much of what we're going to talk about. Just cause. Do you have just cause to go to war with someone? So, what is just cause? Often? Well, primarily, it's seen as self-defense or defense of others, protecting the innocent, protecting the weak. Okay? Redressing wrongs, trying to achieve justice. These would all be seen as just cause in keeping with just war theory.

The other one that comes out from Augustine is right intention. And here, remarkably enough, love is often seen as one of the intentions of war. Okay. Um, in fact, I think at one point Augustine says it must be waged out of love to correct evil, to restore peace, and to protect the common good. Okay, so your intention is love. I'm protecting, again, like I mentioned, the weak, the weak people. So, the cause is, yeah, protecting the innocent, but it's motivated by the intention of love because, uh, and again, keep in mind, when I use the word love in this context, before the pre-modern era, I'm not in any way, shape, or form invoking sentiment or what is understood by love today, kind of like, you know, meaningless emotionalism. This is hardcore love, Christian love, muscular love, which is to say caring, which is to say sacrificing oneself for the good of the other. That would be the classic definition of love, uh, in a Christian sense, which is willing the good of the other. Nothing sentimental or cloying about it. So, that's why you can see in this context, and for Augustine, that love is one of the primary forms of intention behind just war. All right? To correct evil, restore peace, protect the common good. And also, your intention should never be hatred, revenge, a desire to inflict cruelty, or for power or gain, monetary gain, influence, power, etc. Okay. And here's a quote from Augustine: "The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit, the fever of revolt, the lust of power, and the like. All these are rightly condemned in war." Meaning, if you do go to war, you should make sure those are not your intention.

Okay. Another one that comes out of Augustine's is legitimate authority. Okay. Only public, real authorities with with real authority, which is given to them, whether it's a king, a pope, or a president in the modern era, it has the capacity to declare and wage a just war. It can't just be any job blow. Okay? Again, this is Augustine. It's not me. Um, and all of it should be geared towards peace, ironically. So, here's another quote: "Peace should be the object of your desire." From Augustine. "War should be waged only as a necessity in order that peace may be obtained. We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace." This says the Berber from North Africa. Um, he also concedes that war is always tragic, even a just war, which is, and this is all a reflection of sin, and therefore it should all be undertaken with a sort of sorrow and compunction, not enthusiasm or bravado. Killing in war still requires spiritual repentance, and some interpretations of Augustine's thought, actually. And here's, but here's now a, a good, because I was looking at some of his writings. Here's a, a solid St. Augustine quote in regards to just war. He writes, quote, "Those who have waged war in obedience to the divine command or in conformity with His laws, God have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked men. Such persons have by no means violated the commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill.'" All right. And again, we, it bears to emphasize that the rendering which I think begins with King James, "Thou shalt not kill," from the Ten Commandments, is much more accurately rendered as "Thou shalt not murder." There's a whole different, it's different. Murder is, of course, unjust. Killing is very generic. It's just, uh, ending life. So, even within the Ten Commandments, there's room to understand it as, "Thou shalt not unjustly kill," meaning, "Thou shalt not murder," as opposed to kill. And of course, Augustine understood this. Okay.

Augustine also touched on, uh, you know, things like the conduct in war, you know, mercy toward the vanquished, protecting non-combatants if possible. Um, but he also really focused on why a war can be just, then, you know, looking at the detailed rules during fighting. Now, so that's Augustine. Now, Aquinas, St. Aquinas. And now he's the fellow that really systematizes and codifies just war theory. And he credits it, credits it all to Augustine, his predecessor by almost a millennium. In his grand work, the Summa Theologia, or the Sum of All Theology, Aquinas, who lived between 1225 and 1274, like I said, systematizes what Augustine said from all the various writings into a clear doctrine of just war theory. And now it starts becoming much more formalizes, formalized. And he condensed it essentially to three essential conditions. One, a legitimate authority. Okay, which means only proper rulers can declare war, which we saw, uh, was one of the considerations of St. Augustine. So, basically, what, uh, Aquinas did is he took all those disparate writings of, uh, Augustine, and now he really, uh, condensed it to three points. Legitimate authority, just cause, again, that's the big one. Okay, which again, he also, uh, interpreted as typically defense against aggression or punishment of wrongdoing. And the third one was again, right intention, which we looked at, which the aim must be good. It must be to bring about something good, peace, justice, uh, protection of the innocent. It should not be revenge or gain. Okay. It should, uh, it should be to secure peace, possibly to punish evildoers, and to uplift the good. All right. So, those, that's the, the general history of how just war theory was articulated. It starts with Augustine, and then it goes to Aquinas. But like I said, all throughout, you have different Christian theologians who put in their two cents, and oftentimes it's actually very interesting and telling.

So, here's one, Isidore of Seville. Um, this man is not much later than Augustine. He lived between 560 and 636. And, um, you know, he's, he also gave a very precise definition of just war, and he wrote that a just war, or to summarize, a just war is one that is waged to avenge wrongs, when a nation or state must be punished for refusing to make amends or for injuries, to restore what it has unjustly taken. Those are my words. Those, I'm not reading you a quote, but that's how I basically paraphrase what he was saying. Okay? And you can look into it. Look him up, uh, Isidore of Seville, and what he thinks about just war. So, compared to Augustine, for example, and like I said, he's a near contemporary, he's much more blunt and legalistic, and his emphasis is on actual punishment and restitution. So, war is justified if it corrects a wrong, especially if the enemy refuses justice one way or the other, and, um, and the cause matters more than the inner intention. So, uh, for Seville, um, Isidore of Seville, as opposed to, um, Augustine and later Aquinas, he doesn't really talk a whole lot about intention. He's more kind of legalistic. You did wrong, you need to be punished, right? And he doesn't dwell on motives as much, but he's also not, uh, he's not mainstream. I'm using him as an example to show you that there were different iterations throughout Christian history of different theologians who had different ideas about just war. Not, not radically different, as you can see, by and large, Isidore is in agreement. Um, but like I said, the personality of the man apparently comes out, just like the personality of Augustine and Aquinas comes out, and in the sense that he's more interested in things like justice and less about intention, but he's not mainstream. Like I said, mainstream would be the, what I just gave you, the Augustine-Aquinas, um, paradigm. And, um, again, to emphasize, so someone like, uh, Isidore of Seville, um, he's more, uh, he's more interested if a wrong has been committed and if it can be rectified, even if it is with force. All right, that's the historic rendering of the Catholic doctrine of just war theory.

But now, it is, as usual, and as all human things are, it has continued to, uh, change and progress and move on historically, and, uh, yeah, I'm still trying to read this. Uh, all right. Um, so here I'm going to give you what, uh, what the Catholic Church says today. This is the final word, and this is from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It has numbers. This is 2309. And this is now the final word on how Catholics believe the only way a war can be justified is actually, as you're going to see, a little more restrictive than the earlier interpretations, um, from Augustine to Aquinas, and is, is all right. So, the first one, and now this is quote, these are actual quotes I'm reading to you from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2309. First one, quote, "Grave and certain damage." The damage inflicted by the aggressor must be lasting, grave, and certain. In other words, the person you want to attack in a war, this person must truly be engaged in, in causing grave, lasting, and certain damage to your side or to the innocent side. All right. So, again, this is very much similar to just cause. What, what is the just cause? Well, that guy that I'm going to attack and go to war with is engaged in grave damage and violence. Okay? It's lasting. It's grave, and it's certain. That's number one. Number two, it has to be a last resort. Okay? So, all other means, again, I'm reading this, this is a direct quote. "All other means, diplomacy, sanctions, etc., must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective." Number three, there has to be a serious prospect of success. "There must be a reasonable chance of success, no futile wars." Now, as you can see, this is a new one, relatively new. This didn't emanate with Augustine, certainly. And the idea, as I understand it, is if Christians are trying to minimize damage and they certainly don't want to see people die, um, okay, and just war is justifiable, well, you better be certain that you have a good chance of success because if you don't, well, you're going to cause even more deaths. All right? So, for example, um, you know, my enemy has a thousand-man army and I have 10. All right? Well, even if the war is just, I really shouldn't attack because all I'm going to do is make sure those 10 die. Okay, so that's the idea behind that, right? And then the final one is number four, proportionality of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Quote, "The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated." Modern weapons make this very hard to satisfy. That's the actual quote. Okay. And I should add that, um, from the beginning, you know, from the times of Augustine, when it was still rather abstract, but certainly by the time of, uh, Aquinas, and even now, whatever conditions are posited, whether they're

The three that I gave you with Aquinus, which basically were coalesced from Augustine, or whether it's the four from the modern church, there are always all four or all three have to be met. So for a just war to be just, uh, I just gave you these four from the catechism. All four would have to be met. You can't just have three out of four. Same with Aquinus. The three: cause, intent, and so forth. All of them had to have to be met. It can't just be, uh, one or the other. And the third one for Aquinus is legitimate authority. Okay.

Um, and then of course also, while we're at it, the doctrine of just war has continued to develop amongst the Catholics or in the Catholic tradition. So now there's also, uh, considerations about what happens during war and how Christians are to behave. So, for example, it's, uh, it's now known and recognized and acknowledged for it to be a just war. During the war, non-combatants and surrendered soldiers who have surrendered must be respected and treated humanely. Okay? And you can't engage in wanton and indiscriminate destruction of cities or populations because this is a crime against God and man. And, um, and, and so on and so forth. So I can, you can see that as, as time progresses and as it makes sense, as we reach the modern era and as war becomes not as necessary as it necessarily was back in the old days in the medieval era when there was a lot of cause for just war, defensive war, which we'll look at real quick. Um, yeah, there's been a lot more restrictions placed on what is a just war today. Okay.

So, in sum, the difference here, here's what we have. We have the Augustine-Aquinas classic just war idea, which has three requirements: competent, uh, formal authority. You have to have a king, a pope, a president, right? Just cause. There has to be a good cause for this. You're preventing evil, uh, you're, you're, you're achieving justice, you're helping the innocent, you're protecting them, defending them. And right intention. You're not doing this for some cynical motive because, uh, for gain or for vengeance or any of that, right? That would be the original. And then according to the catechism, the, the new modern, um, one, it's like I said, has it, it absorbs all of those, but it's also stronger anti-war emphasis and, uh, there's more, as I mentioned, detailed rules for conduct in modern context. Okay.

Now, now, now that we've seen that, we're going to start looking at, and before looking at the question of Iran, we have to see how these rules and requirements have actually played out throughout history, right? Uh, but before we do that, let me take, let me take, remember homie, the cloud. Let's take some super chats.

Um, all right. Rabbitel became a YouTube member. Good job. Thanks. Hamishit Ford became a YouTube member. Good. West of Eden, again, thank you for that wonderful super chat. Coal Train, these last two popes are outright heretical, if not part of the new world order. We need a wartime pope. Prayer without action is meaningless. Well, you know, I've always, uh, this particular pope, I haven't really followed much. He's still kind of new. And, um, but I do recall Pope Francis and some of his shenanigans in this regard. Again, look, I'm not going to attack a pope because he's promoting peace, you know, from the very start. That's what they're supposed to do. But having said that, yeah, there's, you know, there's there's there's a time for this and a time for that. Ecclesiastes says there's a time for peace and a time for war. That's the Bible. And if there's a time for war, because it's just and it's needed for righteousness' sake, then so be it. And it does seem to me that these modern popes are just so committed against war irrespective of the context. Um, but we're going to look into it in the context of the Iran war. I have some quotes of various leading Catholics of what they said. Um, but yeah, light up the word. Muslims also believe that Gabriel blew into her to impregnate Mary. Uh, though apologetics mistranslate vagus slave. Yeah, that's true. I don't even know if it's Gabriel or if it's Allah. Yeah, in the Arabic, I remember that in the Quran, which is literally, "or blew into her." Yeah.

All right. Coal Train, the book *Invisible Weapons* by Cecilia Gapasian Gapaskin is a strong recommendation by Dr. Thomas Madden. *Liturgy and Making of Crusade Ideology*. All right, I will note that everyone, you've heard that's a book to look into.

Katande, thoughts on people saying ISIS and radical groups funded by Israel. And what do you think of me, Hassan? Um, thoughts about, uh, people saying ISIS and radical groups funded by Israel. Yeah, that's actually very common because I am privy to, uh, the Arabic language and what Arab speakers say. I think most Western people would be shocked to learn that actually the prevalent assumption amongst Muslims and Arabs is that ISIS works for Israel. That's the mainstream take, actually. Um, and it's, you know, it's very why they say that is interesting and the arguments being made. But I'll tell you this, ISIS doesn't help itself when it does things like issue, you know, uh, I think it was a few years ago where it actually, uh, it bombed Iran. And this was at a time when, of course, hostilities between Israel and Iran are always going on one way or the other, cold war, maybe. But it bombed them, I think three years ago, Kermon, and it killed a lot of people, at least a hundred Iranians. And then in its message, it said, "Yeah, because they're filthy Shia." Okay, that makes sense. And in that same message, it went on to say things like, "And yeah, don't worry, don't fight Israel now because if you do, you're only going to let the, you know, the, the PLO come to power. And, uh, they're not real Muslims because they're secular, and we don't want them to come to power. So just to wait it, wait it out and instead go to Europe and kill everyone, kill Christians." Okay? So, you know, when it, when it does, and I only tell you this because that's what Arab speaking people and Muslims point to and say, "Yeah, see, they actually work for ISIS. All they're trying to do is make, uh, you know, go kill Europeans so Europeans can hate Muslims." All right. And at the same time, don't attack Israel. So, I'm not saying this is what I believe, but I'm just remarking on the fact that most people don't realize that that is the mainstream taken for granted narrative in the Islamic world, which is that ISIS and radical Islamic groups all work, uh, at the behest of Israel.

Katande, Mr. Freons says Islam, uh, peacefully came into Lebanon. Yeah, I don't think Islam ever peacefully came anywhere.

So James, I don't understand how orthos have such views on war when St. Augustine literally exists as a church father. I don't understand how orthos, orthodox have such views on war when St. Augustine, the Catholic, literally exists as a church father. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not following. I am a little disoriented and sick. Remember, but, uh, yeah, if maybe you can clarify at some point what orthos means, if unless you mean Orthodox, and I don't get the connection.

John, across history, many societies treated the military not just as an institutional force, but as a religious one, a priesthood of violence, guardians of cosmic order, and interpreters of divine sanction. That's true. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, this of course precedes Christianity and religions, exists among pagans and, and so forth. Uh, yeah, war has its, and, and military conflict has its major role amongst various civilizations. Some of it is seen as sacred, as you sort of indicate. But the whole point is amongst Christians. You see, the whole thing was the tension, um, which I kind of alluded to earlier, which is that St. Augustine himself noticed that, okay, there's this extreme pacifism in Christianity, and, uh, and as a result, possibly everyone's getting killed and bad things are happening. The Roman Empire, which is Christian at the time, is being overthrown, and Christians are being persecuted and killed. Not necessarily a good thing. So it started becoming clear that, well, we need, uh, we need to figure this out. It can't just always be pure pacifism. There is a role for war. It's not necessarily, um, you know, a great thing, not something we should advocate or push for or glorify, even, but there's a role nonetheless. It's almost like Christians had to learn the hard way. And again, you know, I've said this before, but when I think to myself, uh, you know, I try to, when I think of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, kind of thing, and, you know, loving your neighbor, peace, and all that sort of thing, which is great, you know, I, I often, or I mentioned, you know, the Mennonites and the Quakers and all these, you know, extreme pacifist groups. I don't get the, the logic or the rationale. Like, how could they even make sense of this? It's one thing for me as an individual to forgive someone. It's one thing for me to get slapped by someone and, you know, hold back and show love and forgiveness. That's good, laudable. Okay. But to you, to you take it to its extreme level and you start realizing there's nothing good about this. Okay. Um, so what if a man, you know, a, let's say a bunch of men barge into a house and start raping the women and murdering the children and raping the children, and the men are there and they all have guns and they can just shoot and kill them. All right. What do you do? Well, if you do nothing, um, well, you have innocent people who did nothing to deserve this, being raped, traumatized, killed. And if you do something, well, you actually kill the offenders. Now, I'm trying to put myself, uh, if I'm in God's position, you know, not to be blasphemous, but, uh, I don't see how letting the innocent ones suffer is somehow virtuous and letting the guilty ones, you know, get away with it. Well, how's this better? Again, if it's me as an individual willing to accept the suffering and the sacrifice, okay, good. I get that. You know, if someone puts a knife to my head and says, "Convert, renounce Christ, embrace Islam, or die," and I choose death. I choose martyrdom. Okay, that's good. It's laudable. I'm not against that. But in the context, if you take it to its extreme, um, interpretation, which like the Quakers and these other groups apparently take, I, it seems to, it loses its logic. Now, it's not a, there's no sense to it. You're just, uh, you know, someone's getting hurt. It's the innocent one, and then the guilty one's not getting hurt. And so how is that virtuous? Who, how is this good? What, someone got hurt? You could have prevented that person from getting hurt, and you didn't. Uh, but you're good because you let the guilty one not get hurt. So I, I don't think, uh, I don't think if Jesus was there, he would actually agree to that sort of pacifism. And I think that's what Christians learned the hard way, you know, with Augustine and in the context of, you know, the, the, the Teutonic invasions of the Roman Empire and its subsequent fall.

Lies destroy lives. Loving one's enemy is completely foreign to Islam. True. Christians can love and fight their enemies at the same time. Being chivalrous. True. We have no justification for being cruel. Exactly. And this is the, this is the difference. Okay. For starters, you know, Christians are called to love. And again, remember, love is not this. So many of the problems we have today in talking about these topics is we just, words don't mean what they used to mean. So again, the word love, when I hear the word love, I can't help but think of something very sentimental and, and, you know, just, uh, uh, you know, uh, weak and I don't know, I don't know what word to use anymore, but not something robust and meaningful, just some emotion, some sentiment. I love, I love so and so. But love in the Christian context, especially agape, even philia, friends, is more concrete. It's, it's about willing the good for someone. All right. So, I could love my enemy. I wish, I wish what's good for him because I know he's mistaken. There's a misunderstanding. Yeah, he wants to kill me and all that, you know, but I still will the good for him. But if he gets out of hand and he starts doing the wrong things and he's hurting innocents, well, I'm going to stop him. And that doesn't mean I have to hate him. Now, I could still will the good for him. Remedial punishment, for example, is, uh, try is willing the good. It's not necessarily punitive. You're trying to hurt this person, for example. So, yeah, but Islam doesn't have that. Islam actually from the get-go teaches Muslims to hate the infidel. All right. Quran 64, you have a good example in Ibrahim, Abraham, because he told his people, "Enmity and hatred shall reign forever between, uh, between you and I, or between us Muslims and non-Muslims until, uh, you embrace or you accept Allah alone." All alone because you're not a Christian, because Christians are polytheists in this rendering.

Malcolm, thank you for all your great content, Raymond. I really enjoy it. Very informative. Well, thank you, Malcolm. And thanks for the, uh, the super chat. I appreciate that. And thank you all. Lies destroy lives. You're on a roll, my friend. If God's love is unconditional and he can do for people what we cannot, the kindest thing we can do for terrorists is send them to God to be judged. They will come to see how awful their sin is. That's a good ironic observation. Let me read that again. If God's love is unconditional, and it is, and he can do for people what we cannot, so the kindest thing we can do for terrorists is send them to God to be judged so they will come to see how awful their sin is. Okay. Yeah, I won't argue with that. Again, you know, this, this also invokes the idea which comes out especially in Augustine. One of the things that he repeatedly talks about, again, like I said, his writings about just war are disparate. They're not focused. But he often talks about how killing is not a big deal. Um, why? Because, uh, he literally says, because you're going to die anyway. The sinner's going to die. I'm going to die. We're all going to die. That's it's not the end of the world, right? Well, that's because Augustine was a real Christian and he believed in an afterlife. He wasn't a materialist, unlike most modern-day Christians who say they believe in the afterlife. But by their behavior, it's very clear they only believe in what's real and material and physical. So for Augustine, and in keeping with just war theory, killing someone is not the end of the world. You know, because we're more concerned with the metaphysical, with the souls of that person and mine and the innocent people. Um, okay. We're all going to die. So, just because I sent you to meet your maker, like you're saying earlier, is, uh, not the absolute worst thing, uh, that one can do. The worst thing is actually to let you get away with what you're doing, which is evil.

Drummer Boy, are you familiar with the true life movie *Machine Gun Preacher* and what is the best way to help Christians in Nigeria and other places where they're being killed for their faith? Well, I think I am familiar because you mentioned Christians in Nigeria, which made me think, yeah, this is a guy who, I, I'm, yeah, I didn't see the movie, but some, a Christian man who went to Nigeria to help them and took up arms. Okay. Yeah, I think that's, uh, I think that's noble and inspiring. I don't know the movie per se or the actual full story, but, uh, what is the best way to help Christians in Nigeria and other places where they're being killed for their faith? Well, one can, of course, do what that man did, which, like I said, is noble, you know. Um, but, you know, happily, I don't think people even need to do that right now. If you're an American, if you're an American, it's so easy to actually, uh, bring relief to a lot of these countries, to the Christians in these countries like Nigeria. It's, it's easy because what I mean is things like sanctions actually would work. The problem is Americans, American leaders don't do anything about it. It's not even worth their effort to say this. And what I, what I'm trying to tell you is, and I know this because I've dealt, I've been at many conferences that deal with this topic, Christian persecution, and almost always the people who speak, experts in this field, they all conclude that the most powerful tool at our disposal is getting our congressmen, our politicians to put pressure on the various countries who are engaged in abuses against Christians because a lot of these countries, to start with, are getting massive aid from the US. So all you have to do is tell these countries, let's say, for example, Egypt, let's say, hey, you know, you have a high-level meeting with, uh, the CC and his cabinet and say, "Okay, enough with this persecution of Christians and discrimination and suppression of churches, or it might actually, uh, you know, uh, influence how much money you get." Oh, I think they would actually comply because it's an easy enough thing for them to fix, right? Um, they would do something. It would, it would improve somehow and it wouldn't cost anything. So, you see, my point is, you don't have to go and fight and take up arms. We're not at that position, okay, yet. Uh, there's things that can be done. The question is, uh, you know, will they do it? And that's the sad thing. You know, so many, again, from these conferences that I've been to, when they talk about this, on the one hand, they say, this is the greatest tool at our disposal. It's very effective. On the other hand, they say, virtually every single congressman and woman and politician will never bother even bringing it up because it's not worth their time.

All right, Katon Kum. I find it rather hypocritical for the Pope to claim peace between Christianity and Islam, yet say and do nothing about the killing of his own people across the world. All right. Now, I assume you're talking about the current Pope. I don't know. Uh, I, I assume you're right. I do know the previous Pope, Pope Francis, was pretty notorious for that sort of behavior. You know, he would write encyclicals about the environment, and it would come out and be published around the same time when Christians were being beheaded for their faith. And he wouldn't write an encyclical about that. All right? So, yeah, that's definitely something to keep in mind about popes. Remember, they're not infallible. And I can say that because I'm not Catholic. Um, and I think a lot of Catholics would say they're not infallible. That I think there's this whole doctrine that the Catholic Pope is only infallible when he's speaking in a certain mode, which apparently many of them never even speak in. I don't know the details about that, okay, but, um, yeah, there's definitely hypocrisy amongst everyone, including the Pope. Why not? He's a man. That does not shock me at all. And I've seen it firsthand, again, especially with the, the previous Pope, Pope Francis, because his tenure was much longer, and I remember following rather closely much of his sayings and doings. So I am familiar with that, and I'm not in any way, shape, or form surprised to find that his successor is exhibiting the same sorts of tendencies.

And do you think modern popes are so irrationally anti-war and pro-Islam because of the negative connotations from the Crusades? I think that explains it. Hm. I think what you're saying is, uh, yeah, they're so paranoid. Yeah. You know what that could be? And we're going to get into the Crusades, actually, but I think what you're saying is that because the Crusades have a negative, uh, uh, connotation, as you put it, um, in the modern era, that popes are maybe a little, uh, hesitant to be seen as promotive of war. But as we're going to see, we're going to look very soon now, uh, at, uh, to what degree the just war theory that I just outlined does apply to or does not apply to the Crusades.

Daniel B, Iraq war vet here. My second tour in 2005, I helped recover a lot of remains of guys who died terribly. IC supported insurgents with IEDs. They have a lot of Iraqi and American blood on their hands. I think it is a just war. Yeah. Okay. I agree with you that the IRGC, the Islamic Republic Guard Corps of Iran, does support terrorism. Um, that they do have Iraqi and American blood on their hands. All right. But then you say, I think it is a just war. Okay, you're free to do that. I'm free to do that. But what we're looking at here is what is the actual Christian doctrine and teaching as codified over the centuries, right? We have to keep that in mind. Now, of course, you're free to, you're free to think it's a just war, and you're absolutely free to act in, in, in keeping with your thoughts, and that's in fact what most people do, right? Um, including Catholics. Uh, I'm sure there's a lot of Catholics when we're all, when this is all said and done, and we've seen what is the Catholic position on the Iran war. Many of them will say, "Ah, you're wrong. I believe it is just." Or many will say, "Ah, you're wrong. I believe it is unjust." Okay, that's just human nature. People end up, uh, you know, based on their own subjective experiences. I'm not saying yours is subjective. You were there. You saw it. You recovered remains and so forth and so on and so forth. So yeah, I don't, I don't blame your, uh, sentiment at all. I'm just trying to say there's a difference between what one feels and what the actual teaching says and what its criteria is, which is what we're examining right now.

Mega Monster, Mega Monster. Have you or will you ever debate someone on modern day debate? I have debated. In fact, this is interesting. I'm trying to resuscitate old videos of myself. And I found one. It's actually my first and to date, as I realize, only debate. And I did this debate. It's, uh, I think I did it. It's in 2007 or eight, maybe nine, between 2007 and nine, very long time ago, and it was with a, a Muslim professor from Columbia. Anyway, it's going to be, I'm going to, I'm trying to digitally restore it and republish it here on the Holy War channel. So stay tuned. Hopefully, it'll come out in the next two, three weeks. I might actually put a little introduction, uh, because it's interesting as I watch myself debating from almost 20 years ago. I see subtle ways that I've changed and, uh, from young Ray to the my current perspective and, uh, anyway, it'll be fun. You'll see it if you watch and, uh, uh, we'll go from there. But, um, but as far as debating, so yeah, it's interesting because ever since that debate, no one's ever wanted to debate me since. So I don't know if it's because that debate was, uh, such a win for me or what, but I've, and I've had people try to set up debates for me, and they don't really come to pass. It's not something I actively pursue because, well, I don't care. I'm not out to debate, but it's not something that I, I've never been invited to a debate and said no.

So Christina, uh, people who claim to be Christian that do bad things probably don't actually practice Christian faith. Muslims who do bad things do practice their faith. Yeah, that's a good, fair distinction. Um, Christianity is ultra-moral, as we know, and, yeah, many people who identify as Christians end up doing bad things because they break those commandments one way or another. With Islam, no, sometimes bad things are the commandments, right? Fighting the infidel, which, speaking of, I think we should actually quickly address. Well, what is Islam's just war theory? And I have to tell you, I find it really annoying. And I've written a lot about this over the years, but I've seen, you know, top-level academics and articles and scholars and, you know, prestigious journals, and they all describe just war in the Christian tradition with jihad. They basically say jihad is just the Islamic version of just war theory, but it also believes in just cause, just intention, you know, proportionality, etc., etc. I've seen this in many publications, and that is just a bunch of garbage. Okay. Just war, as we just saw, or what we described, um, in the Christian tradition is, first of all, you have to have a just cause, which is primarily self-defense, as, as we saw. Yeah. Well, in Islam, the just cause is, you're an infidel, and I need to convert you to Islam or subjugate you one way or the other. That is not just cause from any Christian tradition. Okay. Um, and that's the chief one right there. But also, even the intention, uh, as we saw in the Christian tradition, the intention has to be good. Islam actually glorifies things like vengeance. Uh, you know, there's Quranic verses that talk about healing of the hearts because Muslims, and what it means when you look at the exegesis and the surrounding circumstances of what the Quran verse is talking about, it, they talk about how Muslims' hearts were healed because they saw a decapitated infidel, and that just made them feel good because they hated that infidel so much for his purported crimes. And ISIS would do this often. It would actually in its magazines put images of decapitated infidels and then say, put underneath it, like, uh, for the healing of hearts, Muslim hearts. Okay. So, yeah, just war and jihad have nothing to do with have nothing to do in common with each other. Um, except for the fact that a lot of people in the West lie about it.

Lies destroy lives. Christians in the West need to get ready for persecution. Raymond, have you heard the sermon of Mark Duri at Moody about persecution? Super important message. Um, well, I know Mark Dury and, um, I don't know. Is this a new sermon? Maybe I'll look it up. But yeah, I, I know and like Mark Dury. Good work. So, I'm sure it is an important message. Thanks for the note. I, I will make a note of it.

Daniel, in *Two Swords*, you mentioned the word malicide. Can you talk about that and how it differs from homicide relating to Christian soldiers fighting in war? I will do so because it's actually in my notes and it's part of, uh, this live stream. I will get to that, my friend. Thanks, uh, for bringing it up.

James, Islam's just war theory is just. Yes. I actually wrote an article a long time ago called, uh, uh, what do I call it? Just War or Just Jihad? Just War versus Just Jihad. Just Plain Old Jihad. So that reminds me of that. All right. All right. Well, thank you for all those super chats and good questions. Let us now proceed where we left off.

So we have seen now the history of just war theory, how it manifested itself. We looked at the classical three requirements of Aquinus, uh, based on Aquinus and Augustine. We looked at the more strict requirements of the Catechism of the Catholic Church today. Um, so now before we actually look into how this applies to Iran, which I'm sure everyone's interested in, I wanted to look at how these actually apply historically. One of you mentioned the Crusades, and you said, well, you know, the, the, the church is being reticent and, and, you know, not wanting to be seen pro-war because of the Crusades. You know, they're really embarrassed. Okay. So let's look at the conditions of just war theory and try to answer them one by one in the context of the Crusades. Um, and this is again, this is a mix of the Augustine-Aquinas just war list as well as the more recent Catholic catechism list. All right.

So the first one is legitimate authority. Only a proper ruler can declare war. Well, was that the case with the Catholic Crusades? Yes. In Catholic Crusades, whether it was the Pope, who of course had a lot of political authority in the year 1095 and subsequently, or whether it was the kings who were in keeping with him and who agreed, all declared that it was time to declare a just war. So the first one is met. The big one, just cause. All right. Was there just cause to go and invade what is now called the Muslim world, the Middle East, the Holy Land specifically, or not? Well, what is just cause? We already tried to look at that. Well, just cause is to defend the weak, the innocent, uh, redress wrongs, and try to, you know, to right wrongs. Uh, so, was there that just cause? Absolutely. Yes. Uh, let's remember again, this is the part that it's interesting that the, the cause question, as we look at it now, is the same one that's going to keep coming up. This is really, in other words, I've really looked at a lot of points and I made a lot of points about what just war theory is. It's really the most important, to me, is just cause, and you'll see that is the one where there's always going to be some debate about. So, was there just cause? Again, as the former question pointed out, a lot of, let's say, Christians and Catholics are embarrassed of the Crusades. So that's why they don't want to seem pro-war now. Well, was there just cause for the Crusades? And yes, emphatically, probably more so than most wars throughout history. That, and the fact that we don't know that, just shows you that there's been some real effort to hide that up. Okay.

So, what was happening before the First Crusade? Well, for starters, the Muslims conquered a vast majority or a vast swath of Christian territory. And I've given that number. Sometimes I say two-thirds, sometimes I say 75%. Usually, what I'm doing is I'm conflating one thing. So in the original, in the first century, you, from, you know, 632, from the death of Muhammad to 732, the Battle of Poitiers-Tours, Muslims at least conquered two-thirds of what was then a Christian world. Sometimes I say three-quarters because I'm adding in what came later and is still Muslim, which is Asia Minor, Turkey. But if you look at the totality, what was conquered for a while, which would have been, you know, North Africa, the Middle East, which is still conquered, and Turkey, which is still conquered, but also Spain, portions of France, all the Mediterranean, and all the Balkans. Well, I mean, they conquered at one point at least 70, maybe 80% actually of the Christian world. So you can take a map and figure it out and maybe add the populations up depending on how one judges size. Are we talking about geographical extent or population? But anyway, my point is that, yeah, that was part of the just reasoning. Muslims had conquered what was Christian territory. Number one. So, so it's just to recover it. Number two, the Muslims were then, before the First Crusade and up until the First Crusade, engaged in atrocities against Christians. Whether it was the indigenous Christians living, uh, in the Holy Land, Syrians, Assyrians, um, Armenians, Georgians, further up north, Greeks, uh, in Asia Minor, and so forth. Uh, yeah, they were, they were suppressing them, killing them, abusing them. They were also doing the same thing to the pilgrims, European pilgrims who traveled to the Holy Land for pilgrimage. They would be attacked, mauled, raped, killed, and, uh, financially exploited. So, was there just cause for that? Absolutely. That was there was just cause for that too. And of course, the Muslims were systematically destroying churches, burning them, uh, turning them into stables for their horses, etc., etc. All right. So absolutely there was just cause. So there was legitimate authority. Yes. And there was absolutely just cause. Okay.

What about right intention? Was there right intention? Well, yes. What was the intention? Was it to go get oil and be rich? Well, no. They didn't know about oil, nor could they actually, uh, pull it out of the ground at that time. So, it wasn't oil. Uh, so, what was the intention? Well, the intention is what they said it was. They were going to one, help fellow Christians. Remember I said just war theory revolved around love. Yeah, that's actually how they expressed it when they talked about the Crusades. They actually, a lot of them would express it in the context of love. They would invoke the biblical verse where Jesus says, "No greater commandment is there than to love God and to love your fellow man." They were loving God by going on crusade in order to cleanse and protect and reappropriate the holy places and sanctuaries, the holy suppler, for example, which were being attacked and destroyed and, um, desecrated by Muslims, and they were helping fellow Christians by going and protecting them. So the intention was also very good. Um, okay.

So now, and well, now let's look at the more restrictive, um, uh, definitions from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. One is that, though this is there's some overlap with what I just read to you, but basically that the damage being inflicted by the aggressor, this in this case the Muslims, was lasting, grave, and certain. Yes, it was. I just told you, for for centuries, Muslims had been, uh, attacking, subjugating, conquering Christian territory and abusing Christians, including those who were going on pilgrimage. Was it a last resort? So that's one of the, uh, the just war criteria. Um, had all other means, such as diplomacy and sanctions, uh, been shown to be impractical or ineffective? Well, I would say yes. Uh, in the, in the 11th century, first of all, there was no sanctions. Remember, Europe was the weaker nation, the weaker entity, uh, vis-a-vis the Islamic world, right? So, uh, what could Europe do? There were no sanctions. Today, of course, the West can do sanctions. Uh, what about diplomacy? Well, there were times we know of, uh, uh, Charlemagne and Harun, Caliph Harun al-Rashid, there was some diplomacy between them, and, uh, Charlemagne specifically did it in order to help the Christians that were under, uh, uh, Harun al-Rashid during the Abbasid Caliphate. But by and large, diplomacy could only work so, so much. And as, as we just saw, right, in the decades before the, uh, First Crusade, uh, there was no diplomacy. There was just Turks running havoc and causing chaos and killing and, and in the name of Islam. By the way, lest you think it was just crazy Turks, if you, if you don't have it, check out my *Sword and Scimitar*, especially where I talk about this, um, mostly in chapters four and five, if I recall. All right.

And, um, proportionality. The use of arms. This is the catechism. The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. Well, I don't think so. They were proportionate. Yeah, of course, the Crusaders killed a lot of Muslims. I'm not arguing that. But, uh, the Muslims were killing a lot of Christians before that, right? Um, and speaking of the Crusades, you know, we're talking about different articulations of just war theory. I figured I would mention, of course, we, we mentioned, you know, St. Isidore of Seville, and we mentioned Augustine and Aquinas. And here's St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Now, this is, this is, this was a chief articulator of just war and he theory, and he's definitely a reflection of his times. Okay, which in the context of the Crusades. So St. Bernard is the one who actually, um, is the sort of the spiritual father of the Templars, the Knights of the Temple, who I wrote about in my most recent book, *The Two Swords of Christ*. And, um, he also, he rationalized it. He wrote a whole, um, a tract called *In Praise of the New Knighthood*, which I quote at great length in *The Two Swords of Christ*. And he wrote that things like fighting, even killing, are not intrinsically evil, as we've been discussing, right? Rather, it's the intention and the motivation, okay, the cause, the intention of the fighter that decides the matter. Indeed, he writes, quote, "Danger or victory for the Christian are weighed by the focus of the heart, not the fortunes of war. If he fights for a good cause, the outcome of the battle can never be evil. And likewise, the result can never be considered good if the cause is evil and the intention unrighteous." So this right here, this quote is a classic, uh, encapsulation of just war theory. It both talks about the cause and the intention. And if your cause is noble, I'm helping fellow Christians who are being persecuted, um, and your intention is noble, it's, I'm not doing it out of revenge and hate, I'm doing it out of love, then that's a just war.

This is another quote from him. Um, he basic, so this is going back to one of you. You asked me a question. I said I'd get to it and, uh, because you probably read it in my book, *In Two Swords*, where I talk about it. And basically, St. Bernard said that the new knights of the Temple, the Templars, were not engaged in malicide. Okay. No, I'm sorry, they were engaged in malicide, not homicide. Homicide is killing humans. Malicide is killing evil. All right. And basically, he said their purpose was to exterminate evil, not evil evildoers, who in this context were seen as collateral damage. Uh, and again, going back to Augustine, okay, humans die, we are going to die. If you're collateral damage in the context of killing evil, oh well, maybe you shouldn't have been aligned with evil. So here's another quote from, uh, St. Bernard. He writes, uh, quote, "Surely, if he kills an evildoer, the crusader or the Templar, he is not a man-killer, but, if I may so put it, an evil-killer. Clearly, he is reckoned the avenger of Christ against evildoers and the defender of Christians. Should he be killed himself, we know he has not perished, but has come safely home." You see the kind of thinking there? And keep in mind, when he says that he's an avenger of Christ, avenger in this sense is not one looking for revenge. He's avenging. He's, he's, he's avenging the right. He's bringing the right. He's achieving what is right against what is wrong. But even Bernard, who was a chief articulator of just war and a strong proponent of militancy, as we saw, he's the one that gave the whole, uh, reason and logic to the birth of the Knights of the Temple, uh, he was also quick to say that, you know, he was not trying to provide sheer license to kill. So he insisted that, for example, Muslims should not be, quote, "slaughtered when there is any other way of preventing them from harassing and persecuting the faithful." All right. But as we saw, Muslims had for centuries before the First Crusade and continue to till this day, proven themselves existential enemies to Christians. So that quote, here's Bernard again. Now it seems better to destroy them than to allow the rod of sinners to continue to be raised over the lot of the righteous, lest per chance the righteous set their hand to iniquity. So he's not so much worried that, uh, Muslims might kill the Christians. He's worried that, as has happened so often in fact, that's the story of how Islam spread, Christians and others under the yoke of Islam would convert and leave their faith, in this case Christianity, to become Muslims. And so therefore, they set their hands to iniquity by becoming infidels and leaving the faith. All right.

Now, before you, I don't want, I want to balance this out. So rather than rather than just showing you how, you know, they're all pro-just, I want to give you at least one example of how a Catholic theologian argued that a major war was not a just war from history. And I'm talking about Bartholomew de las Casas. And this was a Spanish Dominican friar who lived between 1484 and 1566. And he came basically to be known as the defender of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. So this is during the time when Spain was, uh, conquering the Americas and the indigenous peoples. So he argued, uh, he actually turned against the Spanish conquest. He, he went against the empire and argued that they were unjust wars according to Christian teaching, according to the teachings that we were just describing. So his core claims, this should sound familiar. We're going to look at the same themes. Was that, well, the Indians, the natives of America had not attacked Spain, which was true. So there was no just cause for war. He also argued that things like, um, forced conversions and violence violated Christian principles. True, at least the forced conversion part. War against them was therefore unjust and sinful. He maintained, especially in his most famous work known as, uh, the title is *A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies*, which came out, came out in 1552, and it's definitely a brutal indictment of the Spanish atrocities committed against the natives. Um, and he also goes, you know, to great length to insist that these were wars driven by greed, not justice. Okay. So this is an example now of a Catholic, how, by invoking just war theory to show that what happened in the Spanish conquest of the Americas was not in keeping with Christianity, was not a just war, and was not rationalized according to Christian principles.

Now, interestingly, there was, for every yin, there's a yang. So there was another Spanish, um, uh, theologian who actually argued the exact opposite, and this would be Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, contemporary to the aforementioned man. He was, this one was born 1490, died 1573, and he was basically the main intellectual defender of Spain's conquest of the Americas, and like I said, the, the, the chief opponent of Bartholomew de las Casas. So basically, he argued that the wars against the indigenous peoples could be, and were in fact, just, right? Not because they were for defense, clearly he couldn't make that argument, but to civilize, punish, and reform. So already we see a certain, a certain elasticity to the definitions that we had earlier articulated and outlined as, uh, befitting just war. So his main arguments were that, you know, the wars that Spain, the Catholics, were waging against the indigenous peoples of the Americas were one, to punish wrongdoing because of practices like human sacrifice. Okay. Well, that that sounds legit, right? Um, and again, you can see how this sort of echoes with the thoughts of people like Isidore of Seville, who seemed, who was a little more, you know, a little more blunt about just war and didn't care so much about intention the way Augustine did. So the first thing is, okay, well, these people are engaged in savagery, they are engaged in human sacrifice. Well, it's just to actually go and punish and cause them to stop doing that. All right. Secondly, well, we would protect victims. In this case, uh, war can stop grave injustices, including against those who are being, uh, uh, you know, sacrificed or even cannibalized. It would also aid evangelization. The war can open the way for Christianity, which would be seen as a good thing. He also made arguments that would be completely unpopular today, such as that some societies are just naturally born to be ruled, and that the natives of the Americas sort of were slavish by nature, and they needed someone to govern them. Okay. Um, so as you can see, this is, so now we have another Cath, we saw one, uh, Catholic, Bartholomew, arguing that the war, uh, in America, the conquistadors, was not just, and here we have another one who's making sort of rationalizations saying they are just. And this, by the way, really, in a way, encapsulates everything because as we're going to see, whichever war it is, you're always going to find, no matter what the actual outline and guidelines of just war is, you're going to find someone who's going to argue one way, who's going to argue what you want to hear. Um, unfortunately. So as objective as one can try to be, there will always be those who try to say, well, yeah, it actually is just because of X, Y, and Z, as we just saw, um, you know, he was arguing about the, the natives are just slave-like by nature and therefore they should be dominated, which by today's standards would not work, right? So he actually, um, this man, what was his name? This, uh, um, not Bartholomew, that's the first one, but Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, as we can see, this is the sort of a man who sort of, you know, I don't know, are his intentions pure? A lot of people, in fact, most historians would say.

No, this is a prime example of someone trying to stretch uh just war theory for um, you know, less than noble reasons. So, the intention is not good. Remember, intention is one of them, right? You have to have good intention. And in this case, the argument was that he was doing this because his real intention was to help the empire basically exploit the Americas, get slaves, get resources, gold, and so forth. And he was trying to give it a Christian just war veneer.

Okay, now before we get into the verdict, let's see if there's any more super chat. All right. Allan, what is your bench press personal record? Ah, well, you might not believe it. Believe it or not, 450 pounds. This would be way, way, way back, many moons ago. And I actually ended up tearing my ch my my pec a little after it because I was trying to do more a few weeks later. Um, but yeah, 450. Never did it again. In my peak, I was able to do 315 like 12 times. Um, which is actually, now when I think about it, it just hurts. My pec hurts and my joints hurt when I think about it. But if you must know, that was my one-time record. Though I wouldn't have you think that I could do that for a long time. This was like a very small peak. Um, I was actually, I had a military press, you know, behind the neck shoulder press with the bars, the barbell. I was actually really good at that. So, as you know, you most people do a lot less with their shoulders than their chest, but my shoulders were actually very close. So, I could do 315 military press behind the neck, 10 reps, free weights, not the machines, not a Smith machine. But those are the old days now. You know, now I'm uh mostly limited to machines and cables and pulleys and whatnot. And certainly nothing near those poundages.

Pop the kettle on, love. Difficult to deny evil exists when you see what Hamas and ISIS have done in the name of their god. Yeah, I'm not one to deny evil exists. So, yeah, I agree. True observation. Lies destroy lives. I don't always agree with you, Raymond, but I deeply respect your opinion. Well, thank you. Thank you for being so gracious in the way you answer our questions. I look forward to reading The Two Swords of Satan. Well, thank you again for your kindness and the and the super chat. And uh, yeah, The Two Swords of Satan. I mentioned that recently as being a potential book I would like to write um as something of a correlary or something to complement the two swords of Christ. And basically, the two swords of Christ, the the theology, the doctrine, by the way, which also is in keeping with just war, I didn't even get into that. But the two swords of Christ is the idea that uh, you know, in Luke, Jesus says, "He who has no sword, go sell your cloak and buy one." They say, "The disciples here are two swords." And he says, "That's tough." That meant for a lot of theologians and especially in the medieval era that he was saying that one sword, that all you need in this world is two swords. One to fight spiritual warfare, one to fight human, secular, material, physical warfare. And that, and taken together, they're enough, right? Uh, so that made, that's how they understood it. That made sense. But the idea of two swords of Satan is, well, what, what exactly are the two swords of Christ needed for? Well, they're to combat the two swords of Satan. And in a recent, I think, livestream, I sort of tried to outline briefly what the two swords of Satan are. And they are again, what you might expect, which is one sword causing physical violence, for example, the persecution of so many millions, about 400 million Christians alone around the world. And then the lesser known spiritual sword that's causing havoc in the West um by just, and and why that sword is so devious is you can see the physical sword, it's physical, it's violent, it kills. The spiritual sword is guised in the concept of this is my own free will, and you know, I'm doing this out of my own mind and my own mentality. No, you've been subverted into killing yourself, actually. Um, so if kill, if Satan can't kill you physically, well, he will cause you to kill yourself and make you think you're doing it because you're free or something like that.

Culturing Jesus said we would be persecuted in his name by many. He never said let it happen or run towards martyrdom. He died so we could live. Deos, I agree. Good point, right? Not only did he say that, um, you know, everyone wants to like look at Jesus and what he did, which is to die, and say that's our job. Well, no, he actually had a specific mission, right? He died for the sins of the world. I can't do that. Can you? Um, so he, if, if he died as, as the innocent lamb of God, and he did, um, there was an actual purpose for it, right? The salvation of the world. What is it for me or you or anyone to just randomly die against evil? Um, so, yeah, I agree with that. Amazing disgrace. I mentioned in chat earlier that I heard the call to prayer recites and glorifies past battles. Could you verify if that's true? Okay. I assume you're talking about Muslim calls to prayer. And uh, they glorify past battles. Uh, I don't know. I, I don't know. It depends which Muslim call of prayer you're talking about and who's doing it. But I do know past battles and conflicts and violence by Muslims where they are, where where they win, especially are definitely glorified in the Islamic tradition, in sermons, in books. Um, so, you know, there may be a fall back from that that you're seeing or hearing. Oh, okay. All right. Let's get to it.

Now we've seen um, now we've seen what just war theory is historically, its me, its its core teachings and principles in the past, in the present. Augustine, Aquinas, all the other um expounders, and also we saw what, and the modern catechism of the Catholic Church, which still holds to it, even though in a more strict way. Um, and we saw diverging views. The, for example, in the case of the conquest of the Americas, some who said this is not at all a just war. Others who rationalized and said it was. And we also saw the Crusades. That, in my opinion, they definitely were just wars. They certainly fit all the criteria. So, what about Iran and what's happening today? Going back full circle to Trump and the Pope, president and Pope, you know, who's right? All right. Well, again, I'm trying to tell you what's being said. This isn't about what I think uh or any particular Christian. We're looking at the concept of just war. So, having researched it, here's what I've come across. The overwhelming majority of certainly official Catholic voices, in keeping with the Pope, are arguing that the Iran war is unjust. Okay, it does not fit the criteria. One of the chief voices among them is Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of Washington D.C. And I saw one of his articles and he's been pretty active about this. And he explicitly applies the aforementioned catechism criteria, which, like I said, is a lot stricter than the more general principles articulated by Aquinas following Augustine. And he has said he's concluded that there is no just cause because Iran was not launching an actual or imminent attack. So, you see, we're going back to the concept of cause. And always, that's that's I think the strongest and most important decisive factor in determining if a war is just according to Christian principles. Okay, what's, what's the cause? And he's arguing that there is no proper cause. There's no just cause because Iran was not launching an actual or imminent attack. Okay. Therefore, the, the war fails the just war theory conditions. He's even called it, quote, "not morally legitimate." Okay. And the key line of reasoning with him and all the other Catholics that I've seen, including, of course, the Pope, Pope Leo, is that Catholic teaching does not allow war to prevent a hypothetical future threat. As we know, of course, much of this war is to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That's how it's framed. And so that is considered not morally uh legitimate as a condition, as a cause, because it's not, it's not, you know, Iran's attacking you now. This is a preventative thing. And basically, what they're saying is preventative war is not just. All right. Um, and that this, again, he directly rejects the war under just war criteria of quote, "imminent threat" and "proportionality." And like I said, this theme is most of them. So, the US Catholic bishops, Catholic peace ethicists, and and all these other groups, um, not one particular group, but a consistent sort of episcopal interpretation is that the war fails just cause for the same reason that the war, a lot of them are saying the war fails as a last resort. So, I guess they're saying uh that, you know, diplomacy and sanctions have not been exhausted. And um, that the war also risks extreme disproportionality. And a lot of them explicitly argue that the Iran strikes do not meet the catechism threshold for defense of war, which I mentioned, particularly in the context of it's not an im, there is no threat of an imminent attack. Okay, it's again, preventative. This is really the key point that they all argue about. This is, like I told you, when it comes to just war, the most important consideration tends to be the cause. Do you have a just cause? And the, the big debate now is, is preventative war just? Historically, it never has been, actually. It would have been no, like the Crusades. We looked at the Crusades. Well, uh, this wasn't a preventative war. Christians were being killed right then and there, habitually, in large numbers. Muslims were controlling historic Christian lands. They were destroying um, the churches in mass, by the way. Okay. In 109, the Fatimid Caliph destroyed the Holy Suppler and according to Muslim sources such as al-Maki, 30,000 churches. So, okay, that, so you can't say that the Crusades were preventative. I'm not necessarily arguing that preventative is, is not just. I'm just telling you what they're saying and how this did not apply. This would not apply to the Crusades, which is ironic. Uh, because the Crusades are the ones that in the popular imagination were not just, but actually, as you see, they did fit a just war criteria. It's just that we don't know what was going on. The context is typically missing. All right. Um, now, here's some others. These are all notes I took. Uh, Catholic academic ethicists, Jesuit moral theology journals, for example, America magazine, NCR, etc. And they're saying also preventative war is repeatedly being described by them as outside Catholic tradition. Capability plus suspicion is not enough for just war cause. Okay? And they keep emphasizing more need for restraint, diplomacy, and a strict reading of Aquinas. So, again, to emphasize, the main, the crux of all this comes down to, is preventative war just or not? And the majority that we're seeing are saying it's not. That's not to say that there aren't Catholic voices who are arguing in the reverse. There are. That side exists, but it's not the official group. It's smaller and it's mostly intellectual rather than episcopal peoples or Catholics. One of them would be Father Gerald Murray, and he's a traditionalist Catholic commentator, and he argues in favor of a qualified just war justification. So, basically, he's saying that Iran is not just a quote future threat, but an ongoing destabilizer. So, pro, and things like proxy warfare, nuclear development are all a composite aggression form, and therefore force can qualify as defensive. Okay, that, that sort of makes sense. And um, basically, the argument is, you don't need missiles already launched. Patterns of aggression can satisfy just cause according to him. So, the bottom line is, um, it's an expanded definition of imminent threat would would would justify action in this sense. Okay. But again, to emphasize, the real dividing line now, all right, across all of this debate collapses into one question, which is, uh, does just cause require an actual or imminent attack, which is the strict reading? Um, and if it does, they are arguing, Bishop McElroy, the bishops, Vatican-aligned, um, uh, uh, clerics, and so forth, are arguing, no, it's not just because there is no actual or imminent attack according to the strict reading. Or is it B, credible long-term threat, expanded reading, which leads to war can be justified according to Father Murray and others. Um, so, as you can see, of course, there's no flat answer unless you want to go with the true hierarchy, which would be the Pope and the cardinals and the Vatican, which is overwhelmingly arguing that this is an unjust war. Okay, so the long and short of it is, the majority official line, unsurprisingly, is that this is not a just war. But there are Catholic voices who are basically saying, yeah, it is. Um, like I mentioned, the highest ranking church authority voices, cardinals and bishops, leaning strongly that it's an unjust war. Um, and the pro-justification arguments, they do exist, but they're mainly among priest commentators and academic realists, not magisterial authority.

Now, one last point that I see personally that, you know, it's worth reflecting on is something of a philosophical point, but it's applicable to what we're discussing about this business of, uh, if it's just or not, the Iran war, and if preventative, uh, war is just. So, the whole question of nukes, nuclear weapons that Iran is trying to get, you know, to what degree does that, uh, change the whole calculus of what we're discussing? And I would argue that it sort of, okay, so if you take this, the strict classical position, which is that it's only just if there really is a physical attack and you can't engage in preventative war. Okay, that's not just. You have to wait until they actually do something. Okay. From a historical point of view, that makes sense. But the historical point of view, you have to understand, is limited to conventional warfare. There were no nukes. So, in a conventional warfare setting, especially from a historical point of view, if, uh, yeah, there there's no imminent threat of what they can destroy me overnight. So, yeah, I would, I'd have to wait until they literally come and attack me with men on horses and spears and swords, and then I would fight them back. And if I did that, if I waited, well, they might kill some of my people, right? I don't know, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, who knows? But the logic was, okay, it wouldn't be, you know, the end of a civilization. Now, with the introduction of nuclear weapons, that sort of changes, doesn't it? If I say, I'm going to wait until there's an actual attack, even including a nuclear attack. Well, now the damage won't be that I'm just going to wait until you attack me through conventional warfare. And the limit of the destruction that you can cause is by nature limited, right? Like we said, it could be just a small amount. By the time you attack me, all I need is a couple minutes to fight back. So maybe the damages you've, you've committed, the people you've killed on my side are pretty minimal. But if we wait and you have a nuclear weapon and you actually use that, well, the damage you can do, you can end an entire, um, civilization, right? As Trump famously said recently. Uh, so I think that that makes the question of preventative warfare a little more legitimate, the nuclear factor, because now it's not just, well, I'm jumping the gun and attacking you because I think you're going to attack me in a normal conventional way, which is very limited by nature, but I'm more concerned that you might, once you have these nuclear weapons, attack me with nuclear weapons, which would be devastating from the right from the get-go, and I might not even be able to respond. So I do think that is an important factor to keep in mind, and it has to do with, uh, the progress of history and the development of technology, which should be kept hand-in-hand with theology and, um, the concept of just war theory.

So I think I'm going to end it there. And like I said, this is what, what, what is being said by both sides, amongst the Catholics, the theologians, actually. But like I told you, when it's all said and done, whether you're, if you're not a Catholic, none of this really matters. Obviously, if you're a Protestant, if you're a Jew, if you're an atheist, well, none of this really matters. It's all about what you think, right? And if you think it's just, it's just. And even if you are a Catholic, as we already know, a lot of people believe whatever they want to believe, even as Catholics. We already saw the example of the Americas and what happened. And you had one guy arguing that the conquest was not just, and you had another guy arguing it was. So obviously, in the end, it's, there's a lot of leeway for anyone to believe whatever anyone wants to believe. Um, so there it is. But I do find it interesting that, you know, there's probably a lot of people today who are for the war against Iran and they think it's just, who in their mind don't think the Crusades are just. Isn't that interesting? And again, it's a reflection of the great ignorance and, you know, willful manipulation and distortion of history. Um, because if anything really fit just war criteria historically, it was the Crusades, even though ironically, they are the things that are constantly being demonized and presented as having nothing to do with just war theory. Okay. And I will now take final questions and comments. Oops. I was being contacted that my phone is off. Um, well, I'm sorry. Can someone tell me where I, uh, which question I didn't answer? Um, yeah, I just found out I must have touched my phone in the wrong way. Uh, if someone can kindly tell me where I, where maybe I left off, and I will resume. Uh, welcome back. Yeah. All right. That was dumb of me. Um, you can hear me now. So, when did you stop hearing me? Uh, let's see now. All right. I might as well. All right. I think, um, all right, maybe I'm just going to go quickly over what I had up.

The short-term goal of peace hides the long-term cost. Yes, this is true. If you always want peace and, you know, look at the cost and the repercussions, you could suppress something that's potentially damaging and much, much worse. Um, lies destroy lives. The IRGC have been engaged in a war against the Iranian people for 47 years. If we help those who are crying out for justice, that seems like just cause to me. I had said yes, I agree. Um, that seems like just cause to me too. And it would fit the just cause criteria, some of it, because what's a just cause? Well, you're liberating oppressed people. Okay. But again, you know, what I've been talking about is not what I think or what you think necessarily, but what is the strict teaching. And I don't think we really came to a conclusion, to be honest with you, because as we saw with the example of the Americas and the Spanish, uh, conquistadors, you had people saying it's an unjust war, and then you had people arguing in reverse. Um, all right. And then there was this one. I had an agnostic friend say that Christians should team up with Muslims against the Jews. I sent him some of your clips, and he thinks they promote hatred. Well, what else is new? Of course. Uh, promote hatred. Um, that's the world we live in now. If you say something true, but that is somewhat critical, that's called promoting hatred because we're such, we're extreme babies. You know, if I say something is negative about a particular creed, that means I want you to hate and kill them. Yeah. All right. No comment. But I, but anyway, thanks for your efforts. Kevin Trent Horn, Catholic apologist, says Jesus drove out the animals only knowing that the money changers would chase after their product, the thoughts. Um, no. I never heard of that. Uh, says Jesus drove out the animals only knowing that the money Oh, I'm sorry. I was thinking of something else. I thought about, I was thinking you were talking about, uh, when you put the demons in the swine and they jumped over the cliff. You're talking about the temple. All right. So, he drove out the animals only knowing that the money changers would chase after their product. Uh, you know, we can pull up the verse. It obviously doesn't, that's just, uh, that's someone reading into it, which is exactly what everyone does nowadays. Um, but I do believe it's pretty, it's written in a way that makes it clear that he drove them both out, one way or the other. You know, I don't, if I, if I had the Greek text in front of me, I would read it to you, but I know I looked at it before, and it's not that he, it doesn't literally say he drove both out, but the phrasing would suggest and fits the idea that he did drive both out. Anyway, as far as, um, you know, Trentor, Catholic apologists, don't know who that is. So, um, it sounds like an intriguing idea, but like most speakers today, they're not telling you what's actually in the text, but telling you what they think is in the text. And that's what I'm trying to stay away from today. I'm not trying to tell you my thoughts, my beliefs, my desires. I'm trying to tell you what it is. I like objectivity and not subjectivity. Lies destroy lives. Please comment on the Fourth Crusade. What would you have me say? I've spoken about it so many times. Uh, yeah, the Fourth Crusade is the aha moment when, uh, people who hate the Crusades get to tell you how the Crusades are horrible because this particular one just went off the rails and it ended up with Catholics, crusaders conquering Orthodox, uh, Byzantium, Eastern Constantinople, I think around 1204, um, and Catholicizing it and so forth, and it was a big disaster. I mean, what can I tell you? I do know the Pope was against it. The, the head of the church, condemned it when it happened. It wasn't supposed to be that, that wasn't the initial, that wasn't the cause or the intention initially of the crusade. It was the usual, go fight the Muslims. But due to a number of developments and machinations between Italians and crusaders, it just ended up being that. And it's okay. So that's what it is. I, I guess anyone who thinks that the Crusaders were immaculate and perfect for them to be decent will point to that and say, "Aha, see, here's, here's a bad episode from the Crusades," which I believe happened. It's true. But for me, someone like me who doesn't think that the Crusaders were infallible people, and yes, of course, they made, uh, mistakes, this is kind of like a, a nothing to me. It's, yeah, I expect that they made a mistake. That's human history. Every single war throughout history is full of all sorts of atrocities. But for some reason, we always only talk about the Crusades. Okay? Everyone has heard of the bad things the crusaders have done. Everyone's heard of the Fourth Crusade. In another world, that would have been considered such an arcane, little-known event. I'm not saying it was a little-known event, but that's how it would have been seen. But nobody seems to know all the big atrocities that happened in all the wars that we're supposed to glorify. No one ever mentions them. No one says, "Hey, you know, America should be ashamed of its entry in World War II because all these American soldiers raped, I don't know, how many tens of thousands of European women, as is well documented. And therefore, we have to apologize for America's entry into World War II." I don't know. So there's definitely, as usual, a sort of double standard when it comes for the to the Crusades, whereby we find one example or whatever example, uh, where the crusaders fell short, and we just harp and harp on that, though we never do that with all the other modern-day wars where they really fall short all the time. Save the West. The Pope has defended Erdogan and Lebanon taken over by Islam and doesn't seem to notice the Nigerian genocide. He is either a gullible CNN BBC fan or has allowed Islam to buy or bully its way into the Vatican. Ah, I have no argument with that particular position. It's not saying that's not to say I fully agree with it, but I can see why you would say that and why you would think that. Yeah, when you know, to me, a Pope first and foremost, again, another fallible person, his job should be a spokesman for Christians, at least Catholics, right? He is the head and the shepherd. And when I find a Pope who is more interested in, you know, protecting the image or reputation of himself or of non-Christians, you know, Muslims, all that, yeah, well, he's obviously falling short. Okay. And, yeah, the, the Nigerian example is definitely applicable. What's happening there and all the abuse and slaughter of Christians, you know, is that being mentioned? Is he talking about that? That definitely is, that could be a just war. That definitely, what's happening to Christians in Nigeria fits all the criteria of a just war. But it's not happening, is it?

Pop the kettle on, love. How is the noob? How's the dog? I miss the dog, to be honest with you. I hope to be reunited with him before too long as my time in exile comes to an end. I'm not in exile necessarily, but All right. Uh, now I did. Let's see if Mr. Dose. All right. Now, let me see. Okay, we're all good there. All right, my friends. There it is. My two cents. Actually, not my two cents, as I tried to make very clear to you. This isn't what I think, because who cares what I think? I'm just trying to determine what, uh, the strictures of just war would say, both about the Iran war, because it came up with the Pope and the President, right? They argued about it recently. And so we wanted to see, well, what, what is the exact definitions of just war? How have they manifested themselves historically, whether it was the Crusades or the, um, Spanish colonization and, you know, attack on the indigenous peoples of America, up until what's happening now with Iran. And we saw the various, uh, explanations and the requirements for a war to be just according to historic Christian, that is to say, modern-day Catholic teaching. And, um, you know, it all comes down to, as I expected, you know, the question of cause. So, everything when it comes to the Iran war, I think fits the just criteria. You have a, you have a, a leader, a formal leader who's behind it. Um, and what's left is really the cause and the intention. Right? So, people that the cynics will tell you, oh, the intention is not about protecting whoever or writing a justice. It's about, you know, stealing their oil. That's an argument being made, for example, um, which I'm not saying is the case. Uh, and the cause is even the bigger one, because people will say, uh, we went and saw the whole point is, is it an imminent threat, and can you engage in preventative warfare, um, in order to, uh, as a way to, uh, is preventative warfare, does that fit just, just war theory? Okay. And that's the question. That's really what it comes down to. A lot of it seems that official Catholicism says no. And but of course, there are Catholic voices that say yes. And as I pointed out, you know, the addition of nuclear weapons is a, is an interesting factor that I do think changes up the entire calculus of what is and what is not just war theory. And with that, my friends, I thank you for your time and attention and your company. And thank you all for your super chats and your questions. And then make sure the volume's not dead. And until next time, uh, take care, and I hope when I see you, I'm feeling a little better because I, and I am feeling better, actually, because I haven't talked all day, and today I did a lot of talking, and I feel a little, you know, revived, as it were. So, all right, take care. Bye.