Though much of what I have to say will reflect a perspective based on my own experiences and, to that extent, will take its colouration and emphasis from Catholicism in the U.S. setting and situation, I think the underlying essentials will apply as well to the British and European situations. After all, Catholic opponents of war, wherever they are, must come to terms with the tragic truth that the ‘universality’ of our Church has usually found expression in too ready a willingness to endorse and support participation in wars and (for the last 1500 years at least) a reluctance to challenge its faithful to give active witness instead to its Founder’s teachings of peace and nonviolence.

Something of a re-awakening began in the interval between the two World Wars. In great part due to the writings of the Dominican, Fr. Franziskus Stratmann, there developed what might be described as a ‘Thomist’ or ‘neo-Scholastic’ pacifism. While not yet accepting the ‘absolutism’ of the so-called ‘peace churches’ with their total rejection of all violence and war, this new theological interpretation recognized the impossibility of fitting the weapons and strategies of modern warfare into the traditional concept of the ‘just war’ and its conditions.