Sir, – Fr Seamus Murphy SJ claims that the 1916 Rising, which the State is currently celebrating as a decisive event in the achievement of national independence, did not meet the criteria of "just war" and therefore should be roundly condemned by current leaders of the Republic ("Government betrays the Republic in desire to placate the ghosts of 1916", Rite & Reason, January 12th).
But Fr Murphy’s notions of “just war” are very strange indeed.
In 2003 he claimed to be applying the same theology of liberation when he publicly endorsed the US-UK invasion of Iraq, which, apparently unlike the 1916 Rising, fully met the criteria of "just war". He wrote: "The people of Iraq want peace and an end of oppression. They want neither Saddam nor war. But given Saddam's addiction to war . . . he is likely, if left in power, to provoke more wars. That, coupled with the oppression and terror, far outweighs the burden of the US/UK invasion. At worst, the US/UK invasion is the lesser evil, at best a liberation." ("Liberation Theology and the Iraq War", The Irish Catholic, September 25th, 2003).
Following the achievement of independence, the people of the Irish State enjoyed 93 continuous years of peace. Following the US-UK invasion of Iraq, that country has experienced over a decade of the most horrendous warfare and destruction.
We should be grateful to Fr Murphy for revealing to us the faulty criteria not so much of liberation theology but of latter-day Jesuitical casuistry. – Yours, etc,
PHILIP O’CONNOR,
Howth,
Dublin 13.