Armsbearing and the Clergy in the History and Canon Law of Western Christianity

TEMPORARY FOR BUDGET From proposal submitted 2002 Since the late Roman Empire and down to the present, Christian clergy have often actively participated in warfare, civil conflict, and their own armed self defence. While opinions about such activity have varied considerably, what has almost invariably been assumed is that the church's canon law has always forbidden it. In fact, this has not been the case since major changes were introduced in the 12th and 13th centuries, and it has not been so since then. In the revised Roman Catholic Code of 1917, the clergy were not to bear arms "unless reasonable cause for fear exists," and in the Code promulgated in 1983 the whole question was deliberately sidestepped. These developments in Roman Catholic law are traced in three chapters. For the sake of comparison, two other Christian churches with canon law traditions are also examined in separate chapters. The results are similar.
The Church in England and then of England has not had such a prohibition since the 13th century, while the Episcopal Church in the United States failed to enact one at the General Convention of 1865, which followed the end of the Civil War in which so many clergy participated as soldiers.