Cardinal Fernández criticises Israel, Russia and the United States during consistory

“The enormous disproportion of the military interventions in Gaza and southern Lebanon, is evident. In fact, since these are territories that are not densely populated, the percentage of civilian deaths relative to the total population, the enormous number of children killed (at a much higher rate than in other countries at war), and the number of homes bombed allow us to speak of total destruction. Yet, whether in the case of Russia or the United States, the justification for foreign powers getting involved in the wars in the Middle East is seemingly always some form of supposed ‘self-defence.’”

That is what Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández told his fellow cardinals on Friday afternoon, in his introduction to the second thematic session of the extraordinary consistory currently taking place in the Vatican.

Doctrine of the Church is manipulated

Fernández, the Argentinian Prefect of the Dicastry for the Doctrine of Faith, delivered a reflection on what he described as a “culture of power”, which Pope Leo XIV criticized in his recent encyclical Magnifica humanitas. “‘A profound “cultural” transformation is underway that facilitates the outbreak of new wars’, said the cardinal.”

“This is a globalized culture that fosters a certain passivity on the part of the individual in the face of the unchecked advance of certain forms of power—not least due to new communication tools that have been vastly enhanced by Artificial Intelligence.”

According to Fernández, the Church’s Social Teaching is being “manipulated to provide a theoretical foundation for the most unjust wars; instead of stopping wars, it helps to justify them.” Pope Leo XIV, he said, seeks to put an end to this distortion. Legitimate defence, he stressed, can only be understood in a strict sense. “‘Only if understood “in the strictest sense” (ibid.), that is, not in the broad and overly open sense of so-called ‘preemptive wars’,’ said Fernández.”

‘The right of proportionate defence’

During their roundtable working groups, the cardinals discussed the theme extensively. Fourteen groups presented reports on their deliberations: eight groups of cardinals under the age of eighty, and three of the ten groups of older cardinals, which also include those working in the Vatican.

“Many groups shared the need to go beyond the logic of just war, since the Gospel is not imposed by force, and instead to speak of the right to a proportionate defence,” reads the summary provided by the Vatican.

“All groups also spoke of the deep and urgent responsibility to build peace and the civilisation of love. (...) Many emphasised that this requires a credible witness, first of all within the Church, of a different language that looks at everyone as persons and not as ‘others’: a language of listening, forgiveness, reconciliation, restorative justice, and gestures capable of touching the hearts of men and women, including those involved in conflict, and opening them to understanding the wounds caused by the conflict itself. A language that promotes the search for unity in the Church.”

There was also discussion about the need for dialogue with other religious convictions, “in particular with Islam.”

Finally, attention was also given to “the role of political power, freed from the toxic entanglement with economic power.”