Doing what we do best

I very much appreciate the sentiment that motivated Rob's moving post, but I would point out that there are pressing moral issues that people with the training we have need to be thinking about RIGHT NOW. For example, in an otherwise sterling column, the usually sensible Peggy Noonan called for shooting looters on sight. Somebody somewhere soon is probably going to have make that very call, given the way things are heading down in New Orleans. Would it be morally licit to do so?

I honestly don't know what the right answer is. On the one hand, as I understand Catholic doctrine, it is morally licit for a soldier fighting a just war to kill. On the other hand, as I understand Catholic doctrine, while the death penalty has not been per se deemed morally illicit, recent Church teaching has been trending in that direction and, in any event, makes clear that there are very few cases in which it can be justified. For a police officer or National Guardsman to shoot armed looters, especially in self-defense or defense of others, strikes me as clearly being more closely analogous to the former. On the other hand, for a police officer or National Guardsman to shoot unarmed looters in defense of property looks more like an extra-judicial execution.

Thoughts? BTW, I posted essentially the same observation over at my personal blog, where I also opened the comment section so that people who want to chime in can do so.