Drew Christiansen SJ

When the U.S. bishops began drafting their ground-breaking pastoral letter on nuclear weapons, “The Challenge of Peace,”[1] in the early 1980s, Bill Spohn, a brother Jesuit and a fellow ethicist, was a colleague on the faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. All faculty members at that time were engaged in dialogues with… Read the full article

During the Cold War the dominant strategic doctrine was MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction. The irony of the English acronym was grimly acknowledged by proponents and critics alike. You would have to be crazy to initiate a nuclear war that would bring destruction on a global scale. It appears, however, that those MAD days are upon us… Read the full article

The Liberal World Order (LWO) established after World War II is eroding rapidly. The world, especially the Western world, is experiencing a breakdown of responsible governance. Governments withdraw from treaties and agreements; formerly strong governments like Germany’s Grand Coalition are put in question; alliances fray, and international organizations and programs lack funding and the consensus… Read the full article

The Liberal World Order that grew up after the Second World War and matured after the European revolutions of 1989 is now in decline. Values like human rights, the rule of law, democracy, the free movement of peoples, religious and cultural pluralism, and free trade are under challenge. The allure of internationalist liberalism began to… Read the full article

The teaching of the Church has evolved from a conditioned acceptance of nuclear deterrence in the 1980s, to rejection of deterrence as an unacceptable moral rationalization for nuclear armament in the 2000s, to strong support for nuclear disarmament in recent years, leading to approval for the Ban Treaty in September 2017. Catholics have the right… Read the full article

For many observers the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy was overly cautious, especially at a time of high turmoil and human tragedy in the region. In Libya, President Obama was derided for “leading from behind.” In Syria, his failure, after drawing a red line, to bomb Syrian poison gas arsenals was dismissed by hawkish critics… Read the full article