As Russia's invasion sought to erase Ukraine from the map, Moscow's Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a key ally of dictator Vladimir Putin, met via video last week with Pope Francis.

The Religion Guy had planned to propose a  wartime sidebar about the theological justifications for combat that could run any time, but suddenly the theme has gained timely mainbar status.

That's because an official Vatican release reported that Francis stated this at the meeting: "There was a time, even in our churches, when people spoke of a holy war or just war. Today we cannot speak in this manner. A Christian awareness of the importance of peace has developed. Wars are always unjust, since it is the people of God who pay."

Francis' 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti declared similarly that "it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a 'just war'." 

Francis deplores the bloodshed in Ukraine, but did not publicly castigate Putin or Russia by name, presumably in case a neutral papacy could help negotiate an end to the conflict. (That argument is used to explain Pope Pius XII's silence during Nazi Germany's Holocaust against European Jewry.)

Journalists can, at this point, ask several logical questions:

* Is Francis declaring dead the church's "just war" teaching, first formulated in the 5th Century by St. Augustine?

* Should 1.36 billion Catholics shift to pacifism, which excludes support for all wars?

* Is Ukraine wrong to take up arms to defend its existence as a sovereign and democratic nation?

Nearly all Christian commentators agree that Russia's aggression is evil and Ukraine's military defense against it is justified. 

Rather than explore just war thinking here, The Guy refers reporters to a solid historical explainer from The Pillar that seeks to harmonize various official Catholic expressions. The article spells out the two aspects of just war doctrine, jus ad bellum (deciding whether to wage war) and jus in bello (military conduct during war).

Journalists working on this will want to ponder two other articles that address Ukraine. George Weigel, Catholic specialist at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, posted this — “ ‘Thinking Catholic’ about Ukraine and the just-war tradition” — for the online Catholic World Report.  Protestant Mark Tooley (202-682-4131), president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, wrote this — “Christian Realism vs Cynicism & Idealism” — for its foreign policy magazine Providence.

Weigel insists that "the just war tradition is the normative way of thinking about the challenges of war and peace" within "a classic Catholic understanding" aimed at "the ends of peace, freedom and justice." He applies just-war criteria to endorse Ukraine's military defense and to argue that Putin's conduct lacks any moral legitimacy — so no-one who understands Catholic thinking "can possibly make credible excuses" for Russia's ad bellum or in bello.

Tooley says there are three ways a Christian might think about Ukraine: cynicism, idealism and realism. He's a follower of U.S. theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), who famously urged fellow "mainline" and liberal Protestants to discard pacifism in favor of "Christian realism."

For Tooley, the pacifist form of idealism, which would not challenge Putin, has declined greatly in popularity and will fall further due to Ukraine. Another type of idealism would argue urgently for full maximal western involvement against "Russian brutality," including "no fly zones," even if that produces a wider war.

Cynicism for him is a moral cop-out that "sees no vital American interest in Ukraine," shuns "overseas humanitarian crusades," sees U.S. policy-makers as corrupt, doubts much can be achieved and therefore figures the answer as "mostly just to look away" and turn isolationist.

Tooley's favored "realism" begins from the realization that "the Ukraine War is a clear case of unjust aggression calling for solidarity with the attacked victim." Therefore Ukraine's friends should help with weaponry, sanctions, diplomacy and rhetoric.

But realism should simultaneously shun "unwise and potentially calamitous direct military intervention." Which is pretty much the moral path the Biden Administration attempting to pursue.

FIRST IMAGE: Uncredited illustration with essay entitled “A brief introduction to the just war tradition: Jus ad bellum,” at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission homepage.