The Catholic Neoconservatives at War: The Battle for Control of Catholic Just War Teaching in America

Abstract

ABSTRACT There has been a small but very powerful and influential group of American Catholics who advocated for frequent America intervention around the world during the Cold War and now during the nearly twenty year long War on Terror. This group, which has proudly adopted the label ‘neoconservative’, wielded tremendous influence upon American conservative Catholic perceptions of economics, theology, sexual morality, and a host of other fields throughout the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. One of the most powerful ‘memes’ the Catholic neoconservatives were able to convey to American conservative Catholics was the notion that it was the role of the United States (and broader NATO) military to bring about peace through the creation of a global (neo-)liberal political, economic, and cultural order. As the neoconservative movement has come to an end, it is time to examine how the Catholic neoconservative theory of just war developed, gained ascendency, but ultimately dissolved in the course of the twenty-first century.