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ACCORDING TO LIZ - War is not the answer.
In honor of the 250th birthday of the United States of America, we must meditate on the underlying message of the Pope’s encyclical, an encyclical for which the English title is “Magnificent Humanity” – the glorification of the grandeur and dignity of the human being.
So far, much of the press surrounding the publication of Pope Leo’s words has focused on the sections addressing the proliferation and use of artificial intelligence.
But its pillars are based on the fact that humanity cannot be magnificent if it continues to wage war.
In the Christian bible’s Book of Exodus, the language is very explicit: “Thou shalt not kill.”
It the Torah, the same phrase is generally translated as “You shall not murder” – but murder in the sense of killing that is intentional, unjustified, or performed with malice.
War is always intentional. War to achieve political or financial ends, even when couched in the language of peace or self-defense, can never be justified.
So why is our government so intent on murdering so many people in so many countries?
For the Fourth of July, Americans should celebrate the passage of its first quarter millennium by putting the time of wars and killing squarely in the past and committing to a next quarter millennium based on peace, innovation, and inspiration.
In Magnifica Humanitas, Leo XIV talks a lot about technology, much of it in the context of war and peace. And the debasing of morality and human dignity by automated and indiscriminate state-sanctioned murder.
The Pope acknowledges the Church bears significant responsibility from its second millennium when it appropriated worldly powers and embraced the concept of “just” wars to achieve its own political ends.
Its “Doctrine of Discovery” granted adherents a purportedly God-given right to violently seize non-Christian lands from their indigenous inhabitants and to dominate the territories and their natural resources for the financial benefit of Christian kings and the Catholic Church.
A significant amount of U.S. law also has its roots in this, in the assumed entitlement of the white man.
Pope Francis, on behalf of the Catholic Church, repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery. In 2023.
In his encyclical this year, Pope Leo goes a step further and identifies war as a lynchpin in the crisis of morality at a time of technological primacy when the use of artificial intelligence is asserting more and more influence on political decisions vis-à-vis the economy, corporate aggrandization, and the election of military options for international crisis resolution letting treaties and negotiation and rule of law fall by the wayside.
Both Popes call for change. Not only for the Catholic Church but for all of mankind. For the planet.
As Americans have experienced in recent months, war is a waste of resources – human and material, polluting our air and water, damaging whole populations physically and emotionally. Not to mention the costs of rebuilding to make the global economy work again.
We need to encourage everyone everywhere to stop believing that war is necessary or inevitable and, instead, choose to persistently follow a path towards permanent peace. Peace cannot de facto be achieved through violence, so mankind must find another way.
The Church’s “just war” concept originally sought to restrain indiscriminate violence by asking if a war had a just cause, whether it was legitimately declared, and whether the harm inflicted would be proportionate to the result to be obtained.
It claimed to, but rarely did, support protection for civilians.
Such approval of violence is inexcusable in today’s age of drones, cyber-warfare, artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, nuclear arsenals, and permanent war economies.
Turning the heart of civilian populations – schools and hospitals, apartments and infrastructure, power grids and supply chains of food and medical needs – into battlefields is unhinged.
Pope Francis began turning the Catholic Church decisively back to nonviolence and the teachings of Jesus. In his third encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” he addressed the failure of global cooperation, and warned that “we can no longer think of war as a solution.”
What about self-defense?
As an editorial in the National Catholic Reporter puts it: “Jesus did not give his followers a theory of justified violence. He gave them a way of life. He told them to love their enemies, pray for their persecutors, turn the other cheek and put away the sword. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, welcomed the excluded, confronted hypocrisy, crossed boundaries of purity and tribe, forgave sinners and stood before imperial power without returning violence for violence.”
Jesus in his day, and now through the aegis of the two most recent Popes, called for action, for public and disciplined resistance, much as Americans have seen on the streets of Minneapolis and elsewhere. It is standing up for what’s right without emulating the violence of the Trump troops.
It is maintaining dignity for all Americans – the undocumented and the unhoused as well as those who work and play – and lead – our communities.
Pope Leo’s repudiation of war rests on the realities of the year 2026. Technology cannot be neutral when used in tools of domination, manipulation, and illegal surveillance.
Artificial intelligence has great potential but is terrifying in its employ for impersonal and inhuman decision-making and using autonomous weapons to kill remotely and without remorse.
No-one who calls themself a Christian can accept war as normal. No algorithm can ever make war morally acceptable.
As MLK and Gandhi so ably demonstrated 60 and 80 years ago, nonviolence is not doing nothing. It is active and courageous resistance to oppression based on taking the moral high ground and refusing to emulate oppressors.
Americans must demand their government return to non-violent conflict resolution through diplomacy, international law, accountability, humanitarian aid, and welcoming refugees with the Statue of Liberty whether they are fleeing gang violence, climate change, or repressive regimes.
And on this their country’s birthday, the rebuilding of our society as one of peace, truth and justice. And, above all, one that guarantees freedom.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
