Robert F. Drinan

About the Author: Robert F. Drinan is a Jesuit priest and a professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington, D. C. This article was written on February 8, 1991, three weeks after the start of the Gulf War.

Four of the traditional seven conditions established in Catholic teaching for a just war cannot, in my judgment, be fulfilled in the Persian Gulf war.

The seven norms for a just war originated by St. Augustine, defined by St. Thomas Aquinas and synthesized by Suarez and others require:

1. The war must be declared by a legitimate public authority possessing the power to do so. The action of the U.N. [United Nations] Security Council with regard to the invasion of Kuwait may have fulfilled this requirement.
2. A real injury must have been suffered. The injury done...