ABSTRACT
A considerable literature has come into being over the last half-century or so treating the idea of just war in various ways - a literature that continues to grow, producing a proliferation of conceptions of just war. The bishops, for their part, created their own theory of just war as defined by a list of moral criteria that might, in specific instances, permit the use of armed forces despite an overriding 'presumption against war'. The older conception of just war assumed a consensus as to the requirements of natural law: the natural law defined the nature of politics, the meaning of justice, and the responsibilities and rights of people in different places within the natural order and within political communities. From the standpoint of a Catholic ruler, Protestant dissent might easily look like an unjust challenge to the established order and unity of the political community, so that just war might be waged to punish this dissent and enforce conformity.
