EWTN News portal reports that Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, published an op-ed titled “Just War 101: Catholic teaching for a dangerous moment,” offering what he calls a primer on just war theory amid the U.S.-Iran conflict. The bishop, son of a WWII veteran, presents the standard four conditions for *jus ad bellum* (last resort, proper authority, just cause, proportionality) and two for *jus in bello* (noncombatant immunity, proportionality of means). He references Pope Leo XIV’s calls for peace, acknowledges the Iranian regime’s evils, and even permits preemptive action against an enemy “on the brink of attacking.” Yet his treatment is sandwiched between the haunting story of Father George Zabelka, chaplain to the Enola Gay crew, who later repented of blessing the atomic bombings, and concludes with a plea for prayer and peace. The entire exercise is a masterclass in bureaucratic moralism—reducing the Church’s solemn teaching on war to a sterile checklist while remaining silent on the supernatural order, the reign of Christ the King, and the very possibility that modern warfare, waged by secular states devoid of Catholic principle, is intrinsically incapable of meeting the Church’s conditions. This is not Catholic doctrine administered; it is naturalistic ethics dressed in ecclesiastical vestments, a symptom of the conciliar Church’s capitulation to the world.
The Shell of Doctrine Without the Soul
Bishop Conley’s op-ed presents the architecture of just war theory as though it were a neutral academic framework, stripped of its supernatural foundations. He states: “the Catholic Church is not inherently pacifist and does not mandate the renunciation of all violence” and that “war be a last resort, declared by a proper authority, have a just cause, and be proportional.” These phrases are technically lifted from the tradition, yet they are evacuated of all Catholic substance. The Church’s teaching on war is not a self-contained ethical module; it flows from the Kingship of Christ over all nations, the obligation of rulers to govern according to divine law, and the supernatural end of man. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, proclaimed: “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The “proper authority” that can declare war is not any sovereign state, but one that recognizes its subordination to the divine law and the Church’s moral teaching. When Conley speaks of the U.S. government as a “proper authority” capable of waging just war, he implicitly baptizes a regime founded on religious indifferentism, Masonic principles, and the denial of Christ’s social kingship. Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (error 55) and that “the civil power has authority to rescind, declare and render null, solemn conventions… entered into with the Apostolic See” (error 43). The United States government is a product of the very liberalism and indifferentism that the Church has condemned. To treat it as a “proper authority” for waging just war is to ignore the Church’s constant teaching that only a state ordered to God can legitimately exercise the sword.
The Omission of Christ the King and the Supernatural Order
The most damning silence in Conley’s piece is the complete absence of any reference to the reign of Christ the King, the obligation of nations to publicly acknowledge Him, and the supernatural consequences of war. Pius XI taught: “If rulers and legitimate superiors will have the conviction that they exercise authority not so much by their own right as by the command and in the place of the Divine King, everyone will notice how religiously and wisely they will use their authority… peace will flourish and internal order will be established.” Conley’s op-ed never asks whether the United States, or Iran for that matter, has any intention of ordering its affairs according to the commandments of Christ. The question is not whether a particular military action meets abstract criteria of proportionality, but whether the belligerent nations are in a state of grace, whether they have consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart, whether they have repented of their public sins. The False Fatima Apparitions file notes that “the idea of ‘national conversion without evangelization’ contradicts Catholic ecclesiology.” Conley’s just war framework is precisely this: a national calculus of violence without any reference to conversion, evangelization, or the supernatural order. It is a purely naturalistic ethics, the kind condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu, where moral laws are treated as “an empty word” divorced from divine sanction (error 59). The bishop’s silence on these matters is not an oversight; it is a theological statement. It reveals a Church that has abandoned its supernatural mission and reduced itself to a chaplaincy for secular power.
The Heresy of “Proportionality” Without a Supernatural End
Conley speaks of proportionality as though it were a utilitarian calculation: “the harm inflicted must be proportionate to the legitimate military objective.” But what is a “legitimate military objective” in a world where states do not acknowledge God? The Church’s teaching on proportionality is inseparable from the bonum commune ordered to eternal salvation. Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei, taught that the state’s end is not merely temporal welfare but the facilitation of virtue and the attainment of heavenly beatitude. When Conley applies proportionality to a conflict between the United States and Iran, he implicitly accepts the legitimacy of their temporal ends—security, geopolitical stability, nuclear nonproliferation—as though these were the ultimate goods. But the Church teaches that “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men” (Pius XI, Quas Primas, quoting St. Augustine). A state that does not order itself to God cannot be truly happy, and its wars, however “proportionate” in a material sense, are ordered to a false end. Conley’s framework is thus a “reform of the concept of Christian doctrine” condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili (error 64), where doctrine is adapted to the “progress” of the age rather than the immutable truth.
The Enola Gay Chaplain: A Weaponized Narrative
Conley’s invocation of Father George Zabelka, the Enola Gay chaplain who later repented, is particularly revealing. He recounts Zabelka’s horror at the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, quoting the airman’s description of “thousands of scorched, twisted bodies writhed on the ground in the final throes of death” and Zabelka’s conclusion that “War is now, always has been, and always will be bad, bad news… It is not Christ’s way.” This narrative is deployed not to challenge the legitimacy of the U.S. government or the entire apparatus of modern warfare, but to inject a note of humanitarian angst into an otherwise sterile ethical framework. Zabelka’s repentance is used to soften the edges of just war theory, to make it more “pastoral,” without ever drawing the logical conclusion that if modern war is inherently contrary to Christ’s way, then the structures that wage it—secular, godless states—are incapable of waging just war. The Church has always taught that “the injustice of an act when successful inflicts no injury on the sanctity of right” (condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus, error 61). Conley’s use of Zabelka is a rhetorical sleight of hand: it acknowledges the horror of war while leaving the structures that produce it untouched. It is the conciliar method in miniature—lamenting the fruits while nurturing the poisoned tree.
The Preemption Heresy and the Denial of Last Resort
Perhaps the most dangerous assertion in Conley’s op-ed is his claim that a country does not “have to wait until an enemy is on the brink of attacking” before acting. This directly contradicts the Church’s insistence that war must be a last resort. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that all peaceful means must be exhausted before recourse to arms. Preemption, as articulated by Conley, is the doctrine of the modern secular state, which claims the right to strike first based on intelligence assessments and threat analyses. It is not the Catholic teaching. The Church has always held that the burden of proof lies on the one who would initiate hostilities, and that the presumption is against war. By endorsing preemptive action, Conley effectively nullifies the condition of last resort, reducing it to a formality. This is the logic of the “principle of non-intervention” condemned by Pius IX (error 62), inverted: instead of non-intervention, we have the duty to intervene preemptively. The bishop’s position is not a development of doctrine but a capitulation to the militaristic ethos of the American empire.
AI Weapons and the Abdication of Moral Responsibility
Conley raises the issue of AI-directed autonomous weapons, citing theologian Charlie Camosy: “deadly actions in war require human beings to be the ones morally responsible.” This is presented as a forward-looking concern, a sign of the bishop’s engagement with contemporary issues. Yet it is a distraction from the deeper problem: the entire framework of just war as applied to modern nation-states is bankrupt. The Church’s teaching on moral responsibility is rooted in the doctrine of the soul, sin, and final judgment. Pius XI taught that “the annual celebration of this solemnity will… remind [rulers] of the final judgment, in which Christ… will very severely avenge these insults.” Conley never mentions the final judgment. He speaks of moral responsibility as though it were a matter of human agency in the moment of targeting, not as a matter of eternal damnation for those who wage unjust wars or command the destruction of innocents. The conciliar Church, having abandoned the doctrine of the abomination of desolation and the reality of the Antichrist’s structures, can only gesture at ethical concerns without grounding them in the supernatural order.
Conclusion: A Church That Prays for Peace While Blessing War
Conley concludes by standing “in solidarity with Pope Leo and Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, in urging Catholics and all people of goodwill to pray for a peaceful solution.” This is the conciliar refrain: prayer without doctrine, peace without justice, solidarity without truth. The Church before 1958 would have demanded not merely prayer but the conversion of nations, the acknowledgment of Christ the King, the repudiation of secularism and liberalism. Instead, Conley offers a “Just War 101” that is nothing more than a bureaucratic checklist for the American war machine. The Defense of Sedevacantism file reminds us that “a manifest heretic cannot be Pope” and that “heretics are already outside the Church before excommunication.” The bishops of the conciliar sect, having embraced the errors of Vatican II—religious freedom, ecumenism, the separation of Church and State—are manifest heretics. Their “teaching” on just war is not the Church’s teaching but a naturalistic ethic designed to reconcile Catholic consciences with the wars of a godless world. The faithful must reject this entire framework and return to the immutable tradition: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice” (Matt. 6:33). Only when Christ reigns over nations will there be true peace. Until then, the prayers of the conciar Church are hollow, and its just war theory is a blasphemy.
Source:
Bishop Conley weighs in with ‘Just War 101’ (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 09.05.2026