MILITARY SERVICE. -
I. Soldiering as a Profession
Soldiering, from the Latin *militia*, may be considered both as a profession and as a temporary or occasional performance of military service. Apart from all that pertains to the pure art or history of warfare, and apart from the legitimacy or otherwise of war (v.), the practice of military life—which has accompanied and continues to accompany human history as one of the professions freely or coercively undertaken—has given rise and continues to give rise to ethical and social problems.As a profession, it is not intrinsically illicit. The Hebrew people also had its armies, and Holy Scripture uses military service as an image of man’s life on earth, in struggle with his own passions and the seductions of the external world (Job 7:1; 14:7; 2 Cor 10:4; 1 Tim 1:18; Jas 4:1; 1 Pt 2:11), and compares the heavenly hosts to armed legions (Deut 17:3; 2 Chr 33:3; Is 24:21; Jer 8:7; Lk 2:13; Acts 7:42).
Among the first to respond to the baptism of repentance preached by John the Baptist were soldiers (Lk 3:14). The same occurred with the preaching of Jesus and the Apostles. Jesus, healing the daughter of the centurion, praises the officer’s faith (Lk 8:1–10; Mt 8:5–13). And St Peter is commanded to baptize the centurion Cornelius, the first among pagans (Acts 10:1ff.).
Among the early Christians were whole cohorts of soldiers; suffice it to recall the almost affectionate expressions of Pope St Clement in his letter to the Corinthians (“our legions,” “our generals”: 1 Cor 37) and the Christian soldiers in the Twelfth Legion, known as the Fulminata (Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, V, 5, 2–6). Tertullian, still a Catholic, pointed out to pagans that there were Christians even in the military (“we have filled all your ranks... even your camps, your tribes, your decuries”: *Apol.*, 37, 4: PL 1,525). When later he inclined toward Montanism, he argued that Christians could not be soldiers, highlighting the patent antithesis between the two states and minutely describing the practices demanded by military life—from the oath to death—which are in conflict with Christian faith and morals, which can never acknowledge the necessity of sinning (*necessitas delinquendi*). The acts that Tertullian saw as necessitating sin were those that filled military life: the oath (*sacramentum*), the sword or battle, injustice, guard duties, the violation of the Lord’s Day, the guarding of temples, feasts [orgies], standards, and cremation. In particular, the oath (*sacramentum*), directed more to the pagan deities than to the emperor, was a solemn act, a *pompa diaboli* (De idol., cap. 19: PL 1,767–68). Moreover, the Christian, a child of peace, cannot familiarize himself with instruments of death, war, and destruction (De Corona, 11: PL 2,111–13).
The excessive rigorism of Tertullian on this matter was not shared by the true ecclesiastical tradition, which has always regarded military service as licit, though 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 4th century, in order to uproot Christians, carried out a purge in the army (cf. Fliche-Martin-Frutaz, II, p. 422). The moral assessment of the military profession has always been limited to indicating the dangers to be avoided in its exercise, such as plundering and corruption of morals, 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: “He commanded that those who receive their proper stipend should not be prohibited from soldiering” (*Epist.*, 138, 2, 15: PL 33,531–32; cf. also *De diversis quaestionibus*, 79, 4: PL 40,92). The practical Augustinian rule, which doubtless echoes the Baptist’s admonition to soldiers (Lk 3:14ff.), would later be taken up by St Bonaventure (*In Evang. Lucae*, cap. 3, V. 14, n. 31: *Opera omnia*, VIII, Quaracchi 1895, p. 77). Moreover, the Catholic doctrine of just war (v.), under certain conditions, in a world internationally little or not at all organized, implies as a consequence the liceity of the military profession.
Only in the Middle Ages, when the upheavals and fusion of ecclesiastical and civil powers brought about by feudalism tempted even ecclesiastics to take up arms, and the sad phenomenon arose (though in some cases necessary as a quasi-right of legitimate defense) of bishops, abbots, etc., leading armed bands, did the Church intervene 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), even claiming absolute abstention from arms for clerics (v. PRIVILEGES OF CLERICS). St Peter Damian went so far as to condemn the actions of Pope Leo IX, who took the field against the Normans, asserting that not even for the defense of the faith was it lawful to take up arms (*Ep.*, IV, 9: PL 144,316). This was soon contradicted, however, by the preaching of the Crusades (v.) and the Church’s action in that sphere.
II. CURRENT MILITARY SERVICE: RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN
Up to the French Revolution, the recruitment of the public force was based on the system of voluntary enlistment. For the first time, compulsory military service was proclaimed in France, along with the equality of all citizens before it, on 10 January 1794. The Napoleonic invasions gave the first impetus to its adoption in almost all States during the past century (cf. L. Taparelli, *Saggio di diritto naturale*, 8th ed., II, Rome 1949, n. 1220, p. 142ff.). In Italy it was introduced in 1875. Today, only a few nations still adopt the primitive system of voluntary enlistment (England, the United States, etc.), though even in these there is a marked trend toward compulsory conscription.The same Taparelli wrote around 1830: “The first man who permanently increased armies by enforced levies did immense and useless harm to humanity; for every other society was able and had to do the same, and thus the contrast between the two warring sides remained equal, while the damage to each was vastly greater” (ibid., n. 1354, p. 225). This view was echoed by Leo XIII at the time when compulsory conscription was becoming widespread in Europe, and even during the war Benedict XV declared (letter of 4 November 1917): “Conscription has, for a century now, been the cause of a multitude of evils.” Nevertheless, the Church has never preached rebellion against this state of affairs, for that would signify social disorder. It regards compulsory military service not as a normal means of organizing the army (as it is now, especially in the nations of continental Europe), but as an extreme measure to be resorted to only in cases of national defense, and to be abolished as soon as possible. Nonetheless, since the question of whether national defense at any given moment requires compulsory military service is a technical one, and it falls to rulers, advised by experts, to decide, the citizen must submit to it, though he is not forbidden from influencing public opinion toward the abolition of compulsory military service, so that this may exert pressure on the government and, in turn, on others in the international arena. Thus, it is not only licit but a duty to combat, on the basis of Catholic moral principles, the idea of militarism (v.) as a caste and authority in itself, almost constituting an autonomous force within the State to the detriment of the common good, of 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 October 1931 [ibid., 23, 1931, pp. 393–97]).
However, since the serious collective necessity may justify, at least in practice and for the time being, military service, the so-called conscientious objection (v.) against it is illicit (according to the prevailing opinion of Catholic moralists). Military service is currently a personal tribute that the citizen owes to the State by legal justice (the opinion that it involves penal laws is hardly tenable) and by obedience to the law of the State, which requires able subjects to be trained, so as to be ready on occasion to defend the public and social good. It may also, in particular cases, become unjust insofar as it is directed toward an unjust war, or is excessive in its demands, or violates natural, positive, and ecclesiastical laws (in Catholic countries), as, for example, by requiring service from a person indispensable for the support of his family, by not providing adequately for religious practices and good morals, or by obliging invalids or those exempt by ecclesiastical law to perform it (cf. can. 121 and the Lateran Concordat, art. 3).
Given the above: 1) it is not lawful for a citizen, legally obligated, to evade military service. By doing so: a) in the case of volunteering or voluntary substitution for a person obligated to military service, commutative justice is violated (since a contract underlies the situation), and restitution (v.) is owed. Moreover, in such circumstances, deserters are bound to return to service; they may be excused from returning only by consideration of the most severe penalties inflicted upon deserters. Whoever, by contract, substituted for another and then deserted must compensate the damage suffered by the one who was substituted. b) In the case of compulsory conscription, desertion, being merely a violation of legal justice, does not entail an obligation of restitution. In time of war (or on the verge of war), desertion is in itself a grave sin against legal justice, and often also against charity toward oneself and against piety, insofar as it exposes one more certainly to death (imposed as a penalty) and causes serious harm to one’s family, who may even be deprived of military subsidies, perhaps indispensable for their support. Deserters, however, are not to be compelled by conscience to return, given the severe penalties they ordinarily incur. In times of peace, desertion is not too readily to be imputed as a grave sin, since no serious harm comes to society from individual desertions under ordinary circumstances. Serious harm could easily arise, however, if desertions were to occur in large numbers for ideological reasons contrary to the right social order.
2) Those who are illegally compelled to perform military service (such as those indispensable for family support, clerics, etc.), by evading it, do not sin if the means used are lawful; if the means are unlawful, they sin on account of the unlawfulness 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 physicians or public officials to be exempted from military service are not bound to make restitution. According to the more common opinion, physicians and officials responsible for examinations are bound to perform their duties faithfully by commutative justice; therefore, in the case of an unjustly granted exemption, they are bound to restitution, which, however, cannot in practice be enforced, given the likelihood of the opposing opinion that only legal justice is involved.