The Universal Light of Christmas: From Crib to Existential Choice

 

Savio Saldanha SJ

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18050444

25-12-2025

 

 Introduction: The Multicultural Heart of Christmas

            Growing up in India, Christmas was never experienced as a festival enclosed within Christian boundaries. It was a shared cultural and spiritual event—warm, vibrant, and unmistakably multicultural. Our home became a place of encounter: neighbours and friends of every faith—Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians—came to admire the Nativity crib and the decorated Christmas tree. Conversations lingered, sweets were exchanged, and differences were suspended, if only briefly, in a shared atmosphere of joy.

            Long before I could articulate it theologically, this experience impressed upon me a simple but profound conviction: Christmas announces a birth meant for all. Christ is not born into a religious enclave but into a fragile world, for humanity as such—across caste, creed, status, and belief. Christmas thus gestures toward a universal human longing for hope, peace, and recognition. A quote widely attributed to Rabindranath Tagore says this, “Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.” Indeed the birth of Jesus announces that very hope which is alive in all Christians and people of goodwill today.

            Yet this intuitive universality also provoked deeper questions. How does this comforting and inclusive message stand in dialogue with modern philosophical critiques that challenge faith, morality, and tradition? And how does the Church today articulate the enduring meaning of Christmas amid skepticism, crisis, and pluralism?

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Philosophical Reflections: Christmas and the Question of Choice

            At the heart of Christmas lies the mystery of the Incarnation—God freely choosing vulnerability, finitude, and human history. This theological claim inevitably raises philosophical questions about freedom, meaning, and responsibility. Two modern thinkers, standing at opposite poles, illuminate this tension: Jean-Paul Sartre and Friedrich Nietzsche.

 

Sartre’s Paradoxical Affirmation: Christmas as Existential Choice

            It is one of the great ironies of modern philosophy that Jean-Paul Sartre, an avowed atheist and architect of existentialism, wrote a play centred on the Nativity. While imprisoned in a German POW camp in 1940, Sartre composed Bariona, or the Son of Thunder for his fellow prisoners.

The play’s protagonist, Bariona, is overwhelmed by despair. Living under Roman oppression, he resolves that his people should refuse to bring children into a world destined for suffering. Yet his encounter with the Christ Child disrupts this logic. Bariona ultimately chooses not despair, but sacrifice—laying down his life so that hope might survive.

            For Sartre, this is not a confession of divine grace but an existential revelation: human beings are not defined by their situation but by their choices. Even in a prison camp, even under tyranny, one can choose hope over nihilism. In this sense, Sartre’s Christmas becomes a drama of freedom and responsibility.

            Strikingly, this resonates with the Christmas of my childhood. The sharing of joy across religious lines was not mandated by doctrine; it was a choice — an existential affirmation that hope could be enacted even amid difference. (But then, it was a different India that our generation grew up in, where friendship and respect did not know religious boundaries, where we celebrated all festivals with equal gusto and reverence. The hatred would be sowed later, slowly and steadily – but that is a topic for another time.) Sartre’s unexpected Christmas thus affirms, from outside faith, something Christianity proclaims from within: that meaning emerges when one freely commits oneself to life and hope.

 

Nietzsche’s Radical Rejection: Christmas as Moral Weakness

            If Sartre paradoxically affirms Christmas, Friedrich Nietzsche radically rejects it. For Nietzsche, Christianity represents a profound distortion of human flourishing. He famously denounces it as a “slave morality” — a system that glorifies weakness, humility, and compassion while suppressing strength, creativity, and vitality. From this perspective, Christmas — the celebration of a poor, vulnerable child proclaimed as Savior — epitomizes what Nietzsche sees as life-denying. Rather than affirming the will to power, Christianity invites reverence for dependence and suffering. The Incarnation becomes, in Nietzsche’s reading, an obstacle to humanity’s ascent toward the Übermensch, the self-creating individual beyond conventional morality.

            Nietzsche’s challenge remains unsettling. It forces Christians to ask whether Christmas has been reduced to sentimental comfort or social convention. Is the celebration an evasion of responsibility, or does it truly demand transformation? His critique exposes the risk of celebrating Christmas without conversion — embracing its warmth while avoiding its cost.

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The Catholic Magisterium: The Incarnation as Enduring Truth

            Against both existential reinterpretation and radical rejection, the Church’s Magisterium insists that Christmas is not merely symbolic or optional. Its meaning rests on the historical and salvific reality of the Incarnation.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC §§457–460) articulates this clearly. The Word became flesh:

·         To reconcile humanity with God, restoring communion broken by sin.

·         To reveal God’s love, not as abstraction but as embodied self-gift.

·         To make us partakers of the divine nature, drawing humanity into God’s own life.

            Christmas, therefore, is not simply about moral inspiration or existential courage; it is about God’s initiative. Salvation begins not with human striving but with divine descent. Yet this descent does not negate freedom — it summons it.

            Recent papal teaching has consistently drawn out the social and ethical implications of this mystery. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis presented the Christ Child as a “light in the darkness,” insisting that genuine faith must translate into concrete solidarity. His call for equitable access to vaccines was not a political aside but a theological claim: if God enters human vulnerability, then no vulnerability is morally invisible. Across subsequent Christmas messages, Francis has returned to this theme: the Incarnation grounds a commitment to peace, care for the poor, and resistance to indifference. Christmas thus becomes a criterion for judging social arrangements, not merely a devotional feast.

            Pope Leo XIV in his first Christmas homily (2025) proclaimed that in the birth of Jesus, the “great light” long sought in the heavens entered human history as a vulnerable child who revealed God’s saving love and the true dignity of every person. He insisted that God’s omnipotence appeared in the powerlessness of the newborn Christ, whose need for care makes every human life—and especially the poor, children, and strangers—a privileged place of God’s presence.​ Drawing on Benedict XVI and Augustine, he contrasted divine humility with human pride and a distorted economy that treats people as merchandise, arguing that the Incarnation unmasks such slavery and offers genuine freedom. He thus described Christmas as a feast of faith (God made man), charity (self-giving love), and hope (peace announced to the world), sending believers forth, “unafraid of the night,” to meet the dawn of a new day as messengers of peace.

            Hence, I feel that Nietzsche’s thoughts can be strongly refuted through these Church teachings and Papal addresses which ask Christians to move against the current tide of consumerism and treating people as ‘commodity’ to treating the vulnerable with respect and dignity. ​Christianity hence, does not make people meek but rather inspires countless men and women to love and serve Jesus in the forgotten sectors of the modern society.

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Ignatian Discernment: From Crib to Concrete Decision

            Within the Ignatian tradition, Christmas is not only contemplated; it is discerned. St. Ignatius invites the faithful, in the Spiritual Exercises, to imaginatively enter the mystery of the Incarnation — to see, hear, and feel God’s choice to dwell among the poor and vulnerable. This contemplation is never an end in itself. It leads to discernment of spirits: learning to recognize movements that draw one toward faith, hope, and love (consolation), and those that lead toward self-absorption, fear, or despair (desolation). When we apply Ignatian discernment to Christmas, it helps us avoid two common extremes.

            The first is sentimentality. Christmas can easily become only about warm feelings, decorations, nostalgia and emotion. When this happens, the radical meaning of the crib is softened. We forget that God chose poverty, vulnerability, rejection and that the birth of Christ challenges our comfort and calls us to conversion.

            The second temptation is cynicism. From this perspective, the Incarnation is dismissed as unrealistic, weak, or naïve—a nice story that has little power in a harsh world. This attitude echoes Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity as glorifying weakness. Cynicism refuses to believe that humility, mercy, and self-giving love can truly transform history.

            Ignatian discernment refuses both extremes. Instead of asking only, “How does Christmas make me feel?” or “Is this story believable?” it asks a deeper question: Where is God acting now, and how am I being invited to respond? Discernment listens to the movements of the heart and leads toward concrete choices — greater compassion, responsibility for the vulnerable, and commitment to justice. In this way, Christmas becomes not just a memory or a myth, but a living call to faith in action. In this light, Christmas becomes an existential and spiritual crossroads. It demands not only belief but decision — how one will live in response to a God who chooses nearness, poverty and vulnerability.

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The Universal Light as Call and Choice

            When viewed through philosophy, theology and discernment, Christmas emerges not as a comforting myth but as a demanding revelation. Sartre reminds us that hope must be chosen. Nietzsche warns against hollow celebration without strength or authenticity. The Church proclaims that God has already chosen humanity, irrevocably, in the Incarnation.

            The universal joy of my childhood — where neighbours of all faiths gathered at the crib — now appears not as mere nostalgia, but as a lived intuition of a deeper truth: the light of Christmas is universal because the vulnerability of God addresses every human conscience.

            This light does not coerce; it invites. It does not deny freedom; it radicalizes it. To celebrate Christmas authentically is to allow oneself to be questioned: Will we choose hope over despair, solidarity over indifference, responsibility over retreat?

            In an age marked by fragmentation and suspicion, the Christmas crib remains a silent but persistent challenge. It asks whether we will allow ourselves to be transformed by a God who enters history without power, without violence, and without exclusion. The universal light of Christmas ultimately confronts us with an existential choice—one that must be renewed each year, not merely remembered.

Conscience at the Crossroads: A Final Synthesis

            All these philosophical and theological threads ultimately converge on the terrain of conscience, the interior space where freedom, responsibility, and grace meet. Christmas, when taken seriously, places conscience at a crossroads: between Sartre’s insistence that meaning is forged through choice, Nietzsche’s provocation that an immature morality risks becoming evasive comfort, and the Church’s proclamation that God has already chosen to enter human vulnerability. The Incarnation does not bypass conscience; it summons it. Faced with the fragile God of the crib, conscience must decide whether to remain anesthetized by sentiment, custom, or critique, or to engage in the slow, costly work of discernment. In an Ignatian key, this crossroads becomes a place of election — where one freely chooses to align one’s life with the logic of the Incarnation: solidarity over domination, hope over despair and responsible love over moral abdication. Christmas thus endures not as a seasonal memory, but as an ongoing moral summons addressed to every human conscience.

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Bibliography

• Catechism of the Catholic Church. §§457–460, 2307–2317.
• Francis. Urbi et Orbi Christmas Messages (2020, 2024). Vatican City.
• Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises. Especially the Contemplation on the Incarnation.
• Pope Leo XIV. (2025, December 24). Full text: Pope Leo XIV’s Christmas night homily. Catholic News Agency. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/268681/full-text-pope-leo-xiv-s-christmas-night-homily
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality. 1887.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 1883–1885.
• Sartre, Jean-Paul. Bariona, or the Son of Thunder. 1940.
• Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes. Vatican City, 1965. 

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Forests, Faith, and the Crisis of Conscience: Reflection on State-Led Deforestation in India.

-Savio SALDANHA SJ

22-12-2025

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18024369

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Introduction: Development at the Cost of Breath

            India is facing an ecological crisis that is no longer abstract or distant but acutely visible in the lived reality of its people. Large-scale deforestation carried out or sanctioned by the state — whether for coal mining in Bihar, infrastructure projects in Aarey Colony (Mumbai), development in Nashik’s Tapovan, or mining and urban expansion in the Aravalli ranges — signals a troubling trajectory. These interventions occur at a time when several Indian cities repeatedly feature among the most polluted in the world, and when climate vulnerability disproportionately affects the poor, tribal communities, and future generations.

            What makes this crisis particularly alarming is not merely the scale of ecological destruction, but the ethical contradiction it exposes. The current Indian government, which explicitly grounds its ideological vision in Hindutva, appears to neglect the very ecological sensibilities embedded in India’s religious and philosophical traditions. This dissonance invites a deeper moral and cultural examination: has India, in the pursuit of rapid economic growth and corporate-friendly development, lost the narrative that once connected land, life, and the sacred?

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State Power, Corporate Interests, and Ecological Violence

            The clearing of forests for extractive industries — particularly coal mining linked to large corporate conglomerates — raises serious questions about environmental governance in India. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are often diluted, public consultations reduced to procedural formalities, and dissenting voices — especially those of Adivasi communities — frequently silenced through legal, political, or coercive means (Lele & Menon, 2014; Baviskar, 2011).

            Forests in India are not empty land banks awaiting “productive use.” They are complex ecosystems and cultural landscapes inhabited by communities whose cosmologies, livelihoods, and identities are inseparable from the land. The destruction of forests is therefore not only ecological violence but also social, cultural, and spiritual violence. When trees are felled in the name of development, what is often erased are entire ways of knowing and being in the world.

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India’s Religious Heritage and Ecological Consciousness

            India’s civilizational self-understanding has long been shaped by religious worldviews that emphasize coexistence with nature rather than domination over it. This is evident across traditions.

            The Hindu thought, despite its internal plurality, contains a strong ecological ethic rooted in the concepts of dharma, ṛta (cosmic order), karma, and ahimsa. The Vedic and Upaniṣadic vision of divinity as immanent — “the One dwelling in all” — undermines any theological justification for reckless exploitation of nature. The idea that the Earth (Bhūmi Devi) is sacred, that rivers are mothers, and that trees and mountains possess spiritual significance reflects a cosmology in which humans are trustees rather than owners of the natural world. From this perspective, large-scale deforestation for short-term economic gain is not only environmentally destructive but profoundly adharmic.

            Buddhism strengthens this ecological sensitivity through its emphasis on interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda), compassion (karuṇā), and mindfulness. The Buddha’s ethical framework, particularly the Noble Eightfold Path and the Five Precepts, fosters restraint, awareness of consequences, and non-harm — values directly opposed to extractivist development models that externalize ecological costs.

            Jainism offers perhaps the most radical ecological ethic among world religions. Its unwavering commitment to ahimsa, aparigraha (non-possessiveness), and anekāntavāda (non-absolutism) challenges modern consumerism and limitless growth. In a Jain worldview, environmental destruction is not merely imprudent policy but a moral failure that threatens the very possibility of life.

            Islamic teachings on khilāfah (guardianship) and tawḥīd (oneness) similarly frame nature as a divine trust rather than a commodity. The Qur’anic insistence on moderation, prohibition of waste (isrāf), and accountability before God establishes a powerful religious critique of environmental excess.

            Sikhism articulates an explicitly ecological spirituality in which air is the Guru, water the father, and Earth the mother. The principle of sarbat da bhala (the welfare of all) renders environmental destruction ethically indefensible if it harms the collective good. The Sikh vision of humanity as “one unit” further exposes the moral bankruptcy of development that benefits a few while endangering many.

            Christian and Jewish traditions, particularly through the theology of stewardship, tikkun olam, and contemporary ecological theology (e.g., Laudato Si’), reinforce the idea that the Earth belongs to God and that human dominion is never absolute but accountable.

            Across these traditions, a common moral intuition emerges: harming the Earth ultimately harms humanity itself. So, it is ironic that a nation which boasts of rich cultural and religious heritage should forget one of the basic fundamentals of the very philosophy guiding it.

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Hindutva, Selective Memory, and the Loss of Narrative

            Against this rich religious-ecological heritage, the current political deployment of Hindutva appears strikingly selective. While invoking civilizational pride and religious identity, it often sidelines the ethical core of Hindu philosophy—particularly its insistence on restraint, reverence for life, and harmony with nature. The use of religious symbolism alongside policies that enable ecological degradation risks reducing religion to cultural rhetoric emptied of moral substance.

            This selective memory is compounded by the suppression of dissent. Environmental activists, journalists, scholars, and indigenous leaders and people who challenge state-led development narratives are frequently portrayed as “anti-national” or obstacles to progress. Such framing not only undermines democratic discourse but also forecloses the possibility of collective moral discernment.

            As I reflect on this convergence of ecological destruction and political silencing, I am struck by a deeper crisis: we seem to have lost the narrative. India’s ancient story of coexistence with nature—sustained by religious imagination, local wisdom, and ethical restraint — is being replaced by a technocratic narrative of growth without limits and development without accountability. When dissent is suppressed, society loses not only opposition but memory, imagination, and conscience — and in the name of the very religion which advocates the protection of forests and peaceful co-existence.

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Conclusion: Reclaiming Conscience in an Ecological Age

            The destruction of forests in India today is not merely an environmental issue; it is a civilizational test. It asks whether India’s religious and philosophical traditions will remain living moral resources or be reduced to hollow symbols mobilized for political ends. It asks whether development can be reimagined within an ethical framework that prioritizes life, dignity, and sustainability rather than extraction and profit.

            The way ahead begins with acknowledging that environmental destruction is inseparable from questions of power, inequality, and narrative control. Forests are cut not simply because development demands it, but because certain lives, knowledges, and futures are considered expendable. Any genuine path forward must therefore place ecological justice at the center of democratic and ethical reasoning.

            First, environmental governance in India must be re-anchored in transparency, accountability, and participation. Environmental Impact Assessments must cease to be procedural formalities and instead become robust, independent processes that meaningfully include affected communities—especially Adivasi and forest-dwelling peoples whose lives are most directly shaped by ecological decisions. Protecting forests cannot be reduced to compensatory afforestation or carbon accounting; it requires safeguarding living ecosystems and the cultures that sustain them.

            Second, religious traditions in India must reclaim their prophetic role. If Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all contain deep ecological wisdom, then religious leaders and institutions cannot remain silent or selective in the face of environmental destruction. Faith, stripped of ethical courage, risks becoming a tool of legitimization rather than transformation. A credible religious response today demands speaking truth to power, resisting the instrumentalization of tradition, and affirming that harm to the Earth is harm to humanity itself.

            Third, education and public discourse must be reoriented toward ecological literacy and moral imagination. This involves recovering suppressed narratives—tribal cosmologies, local ecological practices, and dissenting philosophies—and allowing them to challenge dominant models of growth and consumption. Development must be reimagined not as limitless extraction, but as the enhancement of collective well-being within ecological limits.

Finally, hope lies in rebuilding solidarities across differences. The ecological crisis transcends religious, caste, and national boundaries. It calls for alliances between environmental movements, faith communities, scholars, and ordinary citizens who refuse to accept ecological collapse as the price of progress. At this crossroads, the task before us is neither nostalgia nor despair, but discernment: choosing life over convenience, justice over silence, and responsibility over indifference. The future of India’s forests—and of its moral soul—depends on these choices. Finally, at this crossroads, conscience must be reclaimed—not as private sentiment, but as public responsibility.

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References

Baviskar, A. (2011). Cows, cars and cycle-rickshaws: Bourgeois environmentalism and the battle for Delhi’s streets. Economic and Political Weekly, 46(12), 75–81.

Gadgil, M., & Guha, R. (1995). Ecology and equity: The use and abuse of nature in contemporary India. Penguin.

Lele, S., & Menon, A. (2014). Democratizing forest governance in India. Oxford University Press.

Pew Research Center. (2021). Religion in India: Tolerance and segregation. https://www.pewresearch.org

Pope Francis. (2015). Laudato Si’: On care for our common home. Vatican Publishing House.

Shiva, V. (1989). Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. Zed Books.

United Nations Environment Programme. (2023). Air pollution and health in South Asia. UNEP.

World Health Organization. (2023). Global air quality guidelines. WHO.

Saldanha S.(2022) The care of Environment: A moral virtue or a Secular Duty. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7733127

 

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Should a Machine decide to kill: Catholic Conscience and the Ethics of Unmanned Combat Vehicles

Savio Saldanha SJ

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17993534

20-12-2025 

            I recently watched a movie, about some Unmanned Aerial Vehicle operators’ dilemma. They are ordered to target a building where a terrorist is hiding. While outside this building a young girl is selling bread. The operators face a dilemma, fire the missile and kill the innocent girl with the terrorist or let the terrorist escape. I could feel their tension within me as I watched and hoped that the girl would be somehow miraculously saved. But after the movie, I began reflecting on the news reports about the UCV’s.

            Unmanned combat vehicles (UCVs) expose a fault line in contemporary conscience: they promise “clean” warfare while intensifying the moral distance between the one who kills and the one who dies. At this crossroads, Catholic moral theology and recent papal teaching converge on a clear point: no machine may be allowed to decide to take a human life, and any system that obscures or fragments human moral responsibility is ethically suspect, even when it operates inside a “just war” framework. The question of my reflection, “is it ethical, using robots to kill human beings?”

From Predator Drones to “Killer Robots”

            UCVs emerged in the late 20th century as tools for reconnaissance and targeted strikes, exemplified by the U.S. Predator and Reaper drones used from the Gulf conflicts to Afghanistan and Iraq, and later in theatres like the Armenia–Azerbaijan and Russo‑Ukrainian wars. What began as remotely piloted aircraft has expanded into an ecosystem of unmanned ground vehicles, kamikaze drones, and sea‑borne systems increasingly coupled with artificial intelligence for detection, tracking, and engagement.

            At each step, two promises drive their deployment: greater protection for one’s own soldiers and “surgical” precision in targeting, ostensibly reducing civilian casualties. At the same time, these systems deepen a psychological and moral distance: operators may be thousands of kilometres away, or, the machine may operate in fully autonomous modes, humans may be removed from real-time decision-making altogether, turning battlefields into laboratories for live testing of algorithms.​

            The fact that unmanned combat systems cost a fraction of the previously conventional systems this makes it possible for small countries with limited defence budget to field a sizeable fleet of UCV’s. Unmanned aerial systems operating in swarms can overwhelm enemy air defences and cause severe damage to their military and other infrastructure facilities. UCV’s can operate in high-risk zones thus reducing own casualties while inflicting serious casualties on the other side. These entire factors make the UCV’s a lucrative deal.

A New Technological Temptation

            Philosophically, the ethical problem is not technology as such but a new configuration of power, distance and uncertainty. Hans Jonas, was a German American philosopher. While reflecting on technological power in general, he argued that the unprecedented scale and irreversibility of our actions demand a new “imperative of responsibility”, which is act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the continued, genuinely human life of humanity on earth. For Jonas, not everything that can be done technologically ought to be done; technological possibility must be constrained by an anticipatory ethics that takes seriously the worst‑case scenarios, a “heuristics of fear” that refuses naïve optimism about neutral progress.​

            The ethical challenge posed by UCVs is not technology itself, but what technology enables when it reshapes responsibility. Hans Jonas’s Imperative of Responsibility offers a crucial philosophical lens here. Jonas argued that modern technological power has outpaced traditional ethical frameworks. Jonas’s thought resonates deeply with Catholic moral theology. His insistence on restraint, foresight, and responsibility parallels the Church’s emphasis on prudence, moral accountability, and the common good.

            When we apply this principle to autonomous or semi‑autonomous weapons, Jonas’s approach highlights two dangers: first, that the chain of responsibility becomes so distributed (programmers, commanders, operators, political authorities) that no one decisively “owns” the lethal decision; and second, that the very success and efficiency of these systems seduce societies into normalising permanent, ‘low visibility’ warfare. What looks like rational, data driven targeting can conceal a profound moral abdication, since algorithms cannot bear responsibility or suffer remorse, yet their opaque decisions shape life and death on the ground.

            At this point, I believe it is important to clarify my stance. Unmanned combat vehicles are not intrinsically immoral; rather, the ethical evaluation depends on the manner of their use and the degree of human moral responsibility retained in their deployment. These Unmanned systems are a boon when they are used for non-lethal activities like monitoring traffic, delivering medical aid and essential supplies to remote places and some are even configured for medical evacuation. My argument is therefore not anti-technology, but ethically critical. As Hans Jonas insists, the problem is not technological capability as such, but moral abdication — when human agents allow responsibility for life-and-death decisions to be obscured or displaced by technical systems.

Just War, Human Agency, and the Limits of Delegation

            Catholic moral tradition does not approach war with naïveté. Classical ‘just war’ theory — articulated by Augustine, Aquinas, and reaffirmed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§2307–2317) — insists that even in a defensive war, combatants are bound by moral principles. Among these, ius in bello principles such as discrimination and proportionality require concrete moral judgment in each act of lethal force.

            Contemporary ethicists analysing autonomous weapons argue that systems which remove or radically weaken human control over individual lethal decisions cannot in practice reliably satisfy these principles, because algorithms cannot adequately interpret context, intention, surrender, or non-combatant status in the way moral agents must.

            A detailed philosophical analysis by Wendell Wallach and Allen Colin concludes that “human‑out‑of‑the‑loop” weapons — those that select and engage targets without real-time human intervention — are “highly morally problematic”. This is precisely because their design and use impede human agents’ ability to exercise morally informed judgment, and thus amount to an abdication of responsibility. Even where there remains a nominal “human in the loop,” the speed, complexity, and opacity of AI‑driven targeting can according to Robert Sparrow reduce the human role to rubber‑stamping, undermining the requirement that each act of lethal force be a genuinely personal, accountable decision.​

            Catholic ethics does not claim that unmanned platforms are intrinsically immoral. Rather, it insists that lethal force is morally non-delegable. When technology undermines the capacity of human agents to exercise responsible judgment, it exceeds the moral limits of delegation.

The Magisterium’s Emerging Witness

            Over the last decade, the Holy See has consistently raised alarms about lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), often popularly called “killer robots,” explicitly including armed drones and unmanned vehicles in this category. Vatican representatives to the United Nations have warned that removing human agency from the moral equation is problematic not only ethically but also for the foundations of international humanitarian law, since “autonomous weapons systems cannot be considered as morally responsible entities.”

            Pope Francis had repeatedly sharpened this concern. In his interventions on artificial intelligence and war, he insisted that no machine should ever be allowed to choose to take a human life. Thus calling for the development and use of lethal autonomous weapons to be reconsidered and ultimately banned. In 2024 he addressed world leaders, stressing the need for “ever greater and proper human control” and warning that AI lacks the human capacity for moral judgment and therefore must not be entrusted with lethal decision-making. This magisterial trajectory is not a marginal footnote to Catholic social teaching; it flows from a consistent defence of human dignity, the primacy of conscience, and the demand that technological progress be subordinated to integral human development and the common good.

Conscience at the Console: The Drone Operator’s Dilemma

            From a pastoral standpoint, Church voices have begun to recognise that unmanned warfare creates a new kind of combatant whose battlefield is a screen. Vatican officials have noted that drone operators and those involved in deploying unmanned systems often lack adequate formation and time for moral discernment, even as their split‑second decisions affect lives far away, with psychological and spiritual consequences for both victims and operators.

            There is a double “anesthesia” at work here. On one side, geographical and sensory distance can dull empathy: there is no blood, only pixels; no cry, only data. On the other, institutional distance fragments responsibility: engineers, commanders, analysts, and politicians can each tell themselves they merely played a minor technical role, while the system as a whole carries out lethal actions without any single conscience fully confronting their gravity. For a Christian, this runs directly counter to the vocation to see and respond to the concrete face of the other, especially the vulnerable enemy who remains, even in war, a bearer of the imago Dei.

Is It Ethical to Use Robots to Kill?

            This brings me back to my initial question - “Is it ethical, using robots to kill human beings?” This cannot be answered in the abstract, as though there were a single switch to flip between “ethical” and “unethical.” Catholic moral theology pushes us to distinguish levels:

• If “robot” means a system that autonomously selects and kills targets without meaningful, responsible human control, current magisterial teaching and serious philosophical reflection converge toward a negative answer: such systems should not be developed or used, and should be subject to a binding international ban.
• If “robot” means an unmanned platform (air, land, sea) still under robust human moral agency, then the perennial criteria of just war — just cause, right intention, last resort, proportionality, discrimination — still apply, and the question becomes whether such platforms actually help or hinder compliance with these criteria in practice.​

            Yet even in the second, more nuanced case, there remains a deep unease in the Christian conscience. The more warfare becomes asymmetrical, remote, and technologically mediated, the easier it becomes for powerful states to wage low risk perpetual conflicts with minimal domestic political cost and minimal existential exposure of their own soldiers. Jonas’s ethics of responsibility, Pope Francis’s appeals for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons, and the Vatican’s insistence on non‑delegable human agency all point in the same direction: technological sophistication does not lessen the gravity of killing; it heightens the demand for moral scrutiny and self‑limitation.

A Conscience at the Crossroads

            Writing as a theology student and Jesuit scholastic my own context sharpens this debate. I stand between at least three pressures: a global South that often bears the brunt of “remote” wars and experimental weapons, a Western context in which high‑tech security discourses are taken for granted, and an ecclesial tradition increasingly vocal about the non‑negotiability of human moral agency in the use of force. This is not a purely theoretical knot; it intersects with the lives of families fleeing drone‑shadowed skies, with soldiers and operators wrestling with guilt, with policy debates that risk drifting far ahead of public moral reflection.​

            As a Jesuit, I feel that in this situation Ignatian spirituality offers a way forward. Ignatian discernment can offer a way of resisting both technological inevitability and moral numbness in the age of unmanned war. Instead of treating UCVs as neutral tools whose use is determined only by strategic necessity, discernment asks: what is this technology doing to my desires, my imagination and my capacity to be moved by the suffering of concrete persons? In the Ignatian tradition, one is invited to “compose the place,” to place oneself prayerfully in the concrete scene — here, the drone feed, the targeted house, the girl selling bread — and to notice the interior movements that arise: consolation that draws toward reverence for life and justice, or desolation that manifests as indifference, fascination with power, or rationalisation of avoidable harm. Examined in this light, decisions about designing, authorising, or operating UCVs cannot be reduced to technical risk assessments; they become moments of encounter with the Crucified in history, who identifies himself with the victims of “clean” warfare as well as with soldiers whose consciences are strained to breaking point. Ignatian discernment thus calls Christians involved in these systems — engineers, officers, chaplains, policymakers — to a slow, honest scrutiny of spirits, so that choices about “robotic” killing are made, if at all, under the sign of the poor and crucified Christ rather than under the seduction of efficiency, distance, and fear. Although it might feel cliché or impractical to some, I sincerely believe that it is the only manner in which human conscience and responsibility can act in justifiable manner in the usage of the UCV’s.

            From this crossroads, a Christian response might be framed in three movements. First, a clear “no” to machines deciding who lives and who dies — an ethical red line voiced both by Jonas’s imperative of responsibility and by Pope Francis’s call that no machine should ever choose to take a human life. Second, a rigorous, honest examination of whether current patterns of unmanned warfare are truly serving just peace or merely lowering the threshold for resorting to force, especially against populations with little power to respond. Third, a renewed commitment to form consciences — of engineers, military leaders, policymakers, and even religious leaders — capable of resisting the seduction of “clean” killing and insisting that human lives, even enemy lives, are never reducible to targets in a dataset.​

            At this intersection of drones and doctrine, algorithms and ethics, my reflection becomes a question addressed not only to the whole Church but to the entire humanity: will our conscience allow itself to be automated, or will it reclaim the slow, costly, deeply human work of responsibility in the age of unmanned war?

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Bibliography

Aljazeera. “Pope Francis Calls for Ban on ‘Lethal Autonomous Weapons’ at G7.” 14 June 2024.

Catholic Culture. “Pope, at G7 Summit, Calls for Ban on Lethal Autonomous Weapons.”

Catholic News Agency. “Vatican Again Calls for a Moratorium on Killer Robots.”

Catholic Philly. “Autonomous Weapons Systems Threaten Peace, Says Vatican Official.” 27 March 2019.

Holy See Mission in Geneva. “Technology Should Better Human Life, Not Take It.” 17 September 2025.

Jonas, Hans. The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

​National Catholic Register. “Drone Wars: The Morality of Robotic Weapons.” ​

Pope Francis. Address on Artificial Intelligence and Peace, G7 Summit, June 2024 (and subsequent appeal: “Reconsider the Development of Lethal Autonomous Weapons”). Vatican News. 9 July 2024.

Stop Killer Robots Campaign. “Statement to the UN General Assembly First Committee on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems.” 13 October 2020.

UN, Holy See Statements. “Emerging Technology at the Service of Humanity: Called to Be Peacemakers.” Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, 21 May 2024.

Wallach, Wendell, and others. “Autonomous Weapons and Moral Responsibility.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War, Oxford University Press, 2016. 

 

When Rivalry becomes Revelation: Reflecting on Mary’s Immaculate Conception through the Dominican–Franciscan Debate.

Savio Saldanha SJ

DOI- 10.5281/zenodo.17917758

13-12-2025

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When Questions Shake Faith

            I recently found myself reflecting on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception while preparing for the Feast on 8 December. Until now, like many Catholics, I simply trusted the Church’s teaching without considering its long and dramatic development. But while reading about the medieval debates on this topic, I learnt about, the theological conflict between two of the oldest Orders of the Catholic Church; the Dominicans and the Franciscans. I was struck by how heated and divisive the question once was. At the same time, a thought troubled me: Why do such doctrinal questions disturb us so much when challenged? Often, when someone questions a dogma, we feel confused. If we search for answers and do not find them convincing; doubt can creep in — sometimes deeper than we expect. 

            Here I found wisdom in St. Ignatius of Loyola. In the Spiritual Exercises, he warns that the evil spirit often “shows his tail” precisely in moments when confusion replaces clarity, pushing us toward discouragement and mistrust (Ignatius, 1991, pp. 335–336). Ignatius encourages Christians to prepare themselves intellectually and spiritually, to grow in wisdom, and to meet such questions with freedom rather than fear. It is with this spirit — faith seeking understanding — that I turned to the history of the Immaculate Conception. What I discovered was not a tidy theological consensus, but a centuries-long battle that at times looked like a civil war inside the Church. And yet, through this conflict, the Holy Spirit brought the Church to clarity.

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When Theology Divides: Franciscans vs. Dominicans

By the 13th and 14th centuries, theological Europe was sharply divided:

• Dominicans, led by St. Thomas Aquinas, believed Mary was sanctified in the womb after conception.
• Franciscans, eventually led by John Duns Scotus, argued she was preserved from original sin from the very first instant.

            Scholars have described this centuries-long conflict as one of the most intense theological rivalries of the Middle Ages (Pelikan, 1996, pp. 201–205). Universities were divided; popes cautiously tried to keep the peace; theologians accused each other of heresy — and sometimes worse.

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The Spanish “Blue Habit” and a National Devotion

            In 14th-century Spain, Franciscan enthusiasm became so passionate that priests began wearing blue habits to honour Mary’s Immaculate Conception. This practice became so deeply rooted in Spanish piety that even today many statues of Mary in Spain — and former Spanish colonies — depict her in blue robes (Rubial García, 2002, pp. 88–90). The Spanish Church eventually received a rare privilege: to use blue liturgical vestments on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. This is one of the few times national devotion influenced Roman liturgy so visibly (Thurston, 1904). The rivalry was not just theological — it shaped art, liturgy, culture, and identity.

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The Theological Breakthrough of John Duns Scotus

            Many theologians — Aquinas, Bonaventure, Albert the Great — hesitated to affirm the Immaculate Conception because they feared it contradicted the universality of Christ’s redemption. Then came John Duns Scotus (1308), the quiet Franciscan whose brilliance reshaped everything.

His core reasoning can be summarised in the famous maxim:

Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit

“God could do it; it was fitting that He do it; therefore He did it.” (Alluntis, 1956, p. 54)

 The Heart of Scotus’s Argument: Preservative Redemption

Scotus argued:

1. A perfect Redeemer does not merely heal wounds — He prevents them when possible.
2. If Christ’s merits could be applied across time (as all agree), they could be applied before Mary was conceived.
3. Therefore, Mary was redeemed more perfectly — not less — by being preserved from original sin from the first moment.

            Scotus reframed the debate: Mary did need Christ’s redemption — she needed it even more, because hers was the most perfect form of redemption possible. Modern scholars widely agree that Scotus provided the decisive intellectual framework that made the dogma ultimately definable (Williams, 1995; Cross, 1999).

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Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Scotus – A Comparison

To understand how radical Scotus’s position was, it helps to briefly compare:

Aquinas (Dominican)

• Denied the Immaculate Conception.
• Argued Mary was sanctified after animation (Aquinas, ST III, q. 27, a. 2).
• Feared the doctrine would compromise Christ’s universal redemption.

 Bonaventure (Franciscan)

• Also denied the Immaculate Conception formally.
• But believed Mary was sanctified in the womb “in the same instant” she contracted original sin, leaving no temporal gap (Bonaventure, Sent. III, d.3).
• His praise of Mary’s holiness laid emotional and theological groundwork for Scotus.

 Scotus (Franciscan)

• Affirmed complete preservation from the first instant.
• Introduced the idea of preventive redemption.
• Overcame the logical obstacles that blocked earlier thinkers.

            As Richard Cross (1999) notes, the move from Aquinas to Scotus marks “one of the most profound shifts in medieval theological reasoning” (p. 131).

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The Long Road to 1854

            Although Scotus wrote in 1307–1308, the dogma was not proclaimed until 1854, after centuries of debate, popular devotion, and papal encouragement.

Key moments include:

• 1476–1483: Pope Sixtus IV (a Franciscan pope) approved the feast but forbade anyone from calling opponents “heretics.”
• 1661: Pope Alexander VII explicitly taught the substance of the doctrine.
• 1854: Pope Pius IX defined it dogmatically in Ineffabilis Deus (Pius IX, 1854).
• 1858: Bernadette at Lourdes hears Mary say, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

 French historian Étienne Gilson once remarked that the proclamation was the “revenge of Scotus” (Gilson, 1952, p. 19).

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What This Means for Us Today – A Personal Reflection

            As I pondered this history, I realised something important: The Church’s doctrines mature through time, debate, and even conflict.

            We imagine doctrines descending from heaven fully formed. But in reality, the Church — guided by the Spirit — often discerns truth slowly, wrestling with Scripture, tradition, reason, and cultural pressures. This should not make us anxious. It should make us humble. When someone questions a doctrine like the Immaculate Conception, our faith need not be shaken. Instead, as Ignatius suggests, we must:

• recognise the enemy’s temptation to confusion,
• respond by seeking wisdom,
• grow in knowledge,
• engage the tradition,
• trust that the Spirit guides the Church across history.

            Learning about the centuries — long struggle between Franciscans and Dominicans did not weaken my faith — it strengthened it. It reminded me that truth is not fragile, and that God works slowly, patiently, through human instruments who disagree passionately yet seek the same Lord. In a world where doctrinal disputes often turn into online shouting matches, the story of the Immaculate Conception offers a counter-witness: that through patient discernment, heated debate, and deep love for Christ, the Church eventually arrives at unity.

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 Conclusion – From Conflict to Clarity

The Immaculate Conception is not merely a Marian privilege. It is a lesson in how God guides the Church.

• Through intellectual struggle.
• Through rival schools of thought.
• Through saints who disagree yet remain faithful.
• Through centuries of prayer, devotion, and reflection.
• Through a Spirit who unites what human beings divide.

            In the end, the doctrine stands as a celebration of Christ’s perfect redemption and Mary’s perfect cooperation with grace. And for us — Christians walking through seasons of doubt or confusion — it is a reminder that faith grows when we engage, learn, reflect, and trust.

            This, truly, is the crossroads of conscience.

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References

Alluntis, F. (1956). Duns Scotus and the Immaculate Conception. Franciscan Institute Publications.

Aquinas, T. (1981). Summa Theologica (Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Trans.). Christian Classics. (Original work ca. 1270–1273)

Bonaventure. (1882). Commentaria in Libros Sententiarum (Vol. 3). Quaracchi.

Cross, R. (1999). Duns Scotus. Oxford University Press.

Gilson, É. (1952). Duns Scotus: Introduction to His Fundamental Positions. University of Toronto Press.

Ignatius of Loyola. (1991). The Spiritual Exercises (G. E. Ganss, Trans.). Institute of Jesuit Sources.

Pelikan, J. (1996). Mary Through the Centuries. Yale University Press.

Pius IX. (1854). Ineffabilis Deus. Vatican Press.

Rubial García, A. (2002). La Virgen Inmaculada y su Culto en la España Medieval. Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Thurston, H. (1904). The Immaculate Conception. Burns & Oates.

Williams, T. (1995). “Why Duns Scotus Matters for Modern Marian Theology.” Franciscan Studies, 55, 45–68.

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