SERVIZIO MILITARE. -
I. MILITARY SERVICE AS A PROFESSION
Military service, from Lat. militia, may be considered both as a profession and as a temporary or occasional service of the human being. Leaving aside everything that is purely military art or history, and war (v.), the practice of military life, which has accompanied and continues to accompany the history of human life as one of the professions freely or compulsorily undertaken, has raised and continues to raise ethical and social problems.As a profession, it is not intrinsically illicit. The Jewish people likewise had its military forces, and Sacred Scripture refers to military service as an image of human life on earth, in struggle with its own passions and with the seductions of the external world (Iob 7,1; 14, 17, II Cor. 10, 4; I Tim. 1,18; Iac. 4,1; I Pt. 2, 11), and compares the heavenly hierarchies to armed hosts (Deut. 17,3; II Par. 33,3; Is. 24, 21; Ier. 8,7; Lc. 3, 13; Act. 7,42).
Among the first to hasten to the baptism of repentance preached by John the Baptist were soldiers (Lc. 3, 14). The case was repeated with the preaching of Jesus and the Apostles. Jesus, in healing the centurion’s daughter, praised the officer’s faith (Lc. 8,1-10; Mt. 8, 5-13). And St Peter was sent to baptize Cornelius the centurion, the first among the pagans (Act. 10, 1 sgg.).
Among the first Christians were companies of soldiers; it would suffice to recall the almost affectionate expressions of Pope Clement in his letter to the Corinthians (“our legions,” “our generals”: I Cor., 37) and the Christians serving in the XII Legion, called Fulminata (Eusebius,
Hist. eccl., V, 5, 2-6). Tertullian, while still a Catholic, pointed out to the pagans that there were Christians even in the military (vestra omnia implevimus... castra ipsa, tribus, decurias: Apol., 37, 4: PL 1,525). When he later turned toward Montanism, he maintained that Christians could not be soldiers, highlighting the evident antithesis between the two states and describing in detail the practices required by military life, from the oath to death, which conflicted with the Christian faith and morality, which can never acknowledge the necessity of sinning (necessitas delinquendi). For Tertullian, the acts that filled military life were the cause of this necessity of sinning (sacramentum, gladium seu praelium, inimititia, stationes, infractio diri dominici, custodia templorum, coenae [orgies], cecilia, crematio). In particular, the oath (sacramentum), which is directed more to the pagan divinities than to the emperor, is a solemn act, a pompa diaboli (De idol., cap. 19: PL 1, 767-68). Moreover, the Christian, a child of peace, cannot become familiar with instruments of death, war, and ruin (De Corona, 11: PL 2, 11-13).
Tertullian’s excessive rigorism on this matter was not shared by the authentic ecclesiastical tradition, which has always regarded the military profession as licit, although fraught with moral dangers. In practice, even after Tertullian, Christians continued to serve in the army, so much so that Galerius, at the beginning of the fourth century, in order to root out the Christians, carried out a purge in the army (cf. Riche-Martin-Frutez, II, p. 422). The entire moral assessment of the military profession confined itself to indicating the dangers to be avoided in military service, such as plundering, moral corruption, etc., without condemning the use of arms in itself, so long as military service remained free and not obligatory. St Augustine briefly summarizes the traditional view: Quibus proprium stipendium sufficere debere praecepit, militare utique non prohibuit (Epist., 138, 2, 15: PL 33, 531-32; cf. also De diversis quaestionibus, 79, 4: PL 40, 92). The Augustinian practical rule, which undoubtedly echoes the Baptist’s admonition to the soldiers (Lc. 3, 14 sgg.), was taken up by St Bonaventure (In Evang. Lucae, cap. 3, V. 14, n. 31: Opera omnia, VIII, Quaracchi 1895, p. 77). Moreover, war (v.), under certain conditions, in a world that was little or not at all internationally organized, entails as a consequence the lawfulness of the military profession.
It was only in the Middle Ages, when the upheavals and fusion of ecclesiastical and civil powers brought about by feudalism also attracted ecclesiastics to the practice of arms, and when the sad phenomenon arose—although in some cases necessary as a sort of right of legitimate self-defense—of bishops, abbots, etc., leading armed forces, that the Church intervened to condemn this abuse (Roman Council [1059], can. 10: Mansi, XIX, 915; Council of Tours [1060], can. 6: ibid., 927; Council of Gerona [1068] can. 5: ibid., 1071), indeed asserting for clerics absolute abstention from arms (v. PRIVILEGI DEI CHIERICI). St Peter Damian went so far as to condemn the conduct of Pope Leo IX, who had taken the field against the Normans, asserting that it was not lawful to take up arms even in defense of the faith (Ep., IV, 9: PL 144, 316). This was soon to be contradicted Crusades (v.) and by the Church’s activity in that field.
II. MILITARY SERVICE AT THE PRESENT TIME: THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN
Until the French Revolution, the system of volunteering was in force for the recruitment of the public forces. For the first time, compulsory military service and the equality of all citizens before it were proclaimed in France on 1 January 1794. The first impetus toward its adoption in almost all States during the last century came from the Napoleonic invasions (cf. L. Taparelli, Saggio di diritto naturale, 8ª ed., II, Roma 1949, n. 1220, p. 142 sgg.). In Italy it was introduced in 1875. Today, only very few nations employ the original system of volunteering (England, the United States, etc.), with a marked tendency toward compulsory conscription even in these nations.Taparelli himself wrote around 1830: “Immense harm, and harm useless to humanity, was done by the first man who increased the armies through permanently forced conscription; for every other society could and had to do likewise, and consequently the opposition between the two warring parties remained equal, while the harm to individuals became incomparably greater” (ibid., n. 1354, p. 225). This thought was taken up by Leo XIII at the moment when compulsory conscription was becoming generalized in Europe, and even in the midst of the war Benedict XV declared (letter of 4 Nov. 1917): “Conscription has been, for a century now, the cause of a multitude of evils.” Nevertheless, the Church has never preached rebellion against this state of affairs, because that would signify social disorder. It regards compulsory military service not as a normal form of army organization—as it has become established today, especially in the nations of continental Europe—but as a means to which recourse should be had only in extreme cases (national defense), and which should be abolished as soon as possible. Nevertheless, since the question of whether national defense at a given moment does or does not require compulsory military service is a technical question, and it is for rulers, enlightened by experts, to decide, the citizen must submit to it, although he is not forbidden to influence public opinion in favor of the abolition of compulsory military service, so that public opinion may exert pressure on the government and the government, in turn, on other governments in the international sphere. Thus it is not only lawful but also a duty, on the basis of Catholic moral principles, militarism (v.) as a caste and authority unto itself, almost as though it were to constitute an autonomous force within the State, to the detriment of the common good, of the other classes, and of individuals (cf. the encyclicals of Benedict XV, Pacem, Dei munus pulcherrimum, 23 May 1920 [AAS, 12, 1920, pp. 209-18], and of Pius XI, Nova impendet, 2 Oct. 1931 [ibid., 23, 1931, pp. 393-97]).
Since, however, the grave collective necessity justifies, at least in practice and for the present, military service, conscientious objection (v.) to it is illicit (according to the prevailing opinion of Catholic moral theologians). Military service is currently a personal tribute that the citizen owes to the State by legal justice (the opinion that it concerns penal laws is difficult to sustain) and by obedience to the law of the State, which requires able-bodied subjects to undergo training, so that they may be ready, when the occasion arises, to defend the public and social good. It may also, in particular cases, become unjust, either because it is directed toward an unjust war, or because it is excessive in its manner, or because natural, positive, and ecclesiastical laws (in Catholic countries) are violated; for example, by requiring service from a person indispensable to the support of the family, by failing to provide sufficiently for the practice of religion and good morals, or by obliging the disabled or those exempt under ecclesiastical law to perform military service (cf. can. 121 and the Lateran Concordat, art. 3).
With this established: 1) a citizen who is legally obliged to do so may not evade military service. In doing so: a) in the case of volunteering, or of the voluntary substitution of a person obliged to perform military service, commutative justice is violated (for a contract lies at the basis of the arrangement), restitution (v.). Indeed, if they desert under such conditions, the guilty parties are bound to return to service; they may be excused from returning only in consideration of the very severe penalties inflicted on deserters. Anyone who substituted for another by contract must, if he deserts, compensate the person whom he substituted for the damage suffered. b) In the case of compulsory conscription, desertion, being merely a violation of legal justice, does not entail an obligation of restitution. In wartime (or on the imminent approach of war), desertion is in itself a grave sin against legal justice; it is also often a sin against charity toward oneself and against filial piety, insofar as one exposes oneself with greater certainty to death (imposed as a punishment) and causes serious hardship to one’s family members, who may even be deprived of military benefits, perhaps indispensable to their support. Deserters, however, must not be compelled by an obligation of conscience to return, given the severe penalties ordinarily incurred. In peacetime, desertion is not too readily to be imputed as a grave sin, since under ordinary circumstances no serious harm comes to society from individual acts of desertion. Serious harm could easily result if desertions were to occur en masse, for ideological reasons contrary to the right social order. 2) Those who are illegally compelled to perform military service (sons necessary for the support of their families, clerics, etc.), if they evade it, do not sin, provided that the means employed are licit; if the means are illicit, they sin on account of the illicitness of the means, but not against justice; if they desert after having taken an oath of loyalty, they sin only against the violated oath. 3) Those who bribe doctors or public officials in order to be exempted from military service are not bound to restitution. According to the more common opinion, doctors and officials assigned to medical examinations are bound to carry out their office faithfully by commutative justice; therefore, in the case of an unjust exemption granted, they are bound to restitution, although in practice this cannot be imposed, given the plausibility of the contrary opinion, according to which the obligation derives only from legal justice.