The Narthex
'Target' or Man?
Even in war, the enemy combatant is not a thing to be processed by a machine, but a person
By John M. Grondelski | October 1st 2025 11:36 AMWhat happens when the decision to kill is no longer made by a soldier, but by a machine? Yesterday I attended an excellent pair of expert talks on Artificial Intelligence and Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), organized by students in the Politics Department at The Catholic University of America. LAWS…
READ FULL BLOG POSTRandom Ruminations #16
Ersatz Religion: Partyism... Don’t Get Your Christmas Tree Yet... A St. Andrew’s Surprise?... and more
By John M. Grondelski | November 29th 2024 5:44 PMThe Human Shield Dilemma I’ve long argued that the Church, and particularly the current pontificate, are derelict in not conducting serious discussions about just war theory and contemporary warfare (including the use of human shields and urban warfare). Failure to address these issues suggests what George Weigel has highlighted: a…
READ FULL BLOG POSTJust War Is Still Vital
The Church fails in its teaching duty if its advice is 'hoping & praying' that war goes away
By John M. Grondelski | July 25th 2024 12:22 PMJust war theory remains vital because -- naïve thinking aside -- war is not going away as long as men are sinners. As long as men are sinners, some will try to do injustice to others by force. As long as some are victims of injustice, they have a right…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Eroding Right to Self-Defense
Subways do not exist to be substitute institutions for those who need institutionalization
By John M. Grondelski | May 8th 2023 2:50 PMAs a moral theologian, I am interested in just war theory. Just war theory, which governs whether a country can go to war (jus ad bellum) and what it can do in war (jus in bello), is essentially a nation’s right to self-defense. That’s why I reject the arguments that…
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