is killing innocents at war justifiable catholic
1 Murder, writes Miss Anscombe, is the deliberate killing of the innocent, whether for its own sake or as a means to some further end (War and Murder, p. 45). Deliberate killing of the innocent (or noncombatants) is prohibited by the Just War Theory and is a crime in national law.A traditional account of the Catholic Just War Theory may be found in Chapter 35 of Austin Fagothey's Right and Reason: Ethics in Theory and Practice (St. Louis: C. V. Mosby Co., 1963).urder, some may suggest, is to be defined as the intentional and uncoerced killing of the innocent; and it is true by definition that murder is wrong. Yet wars, particularly modern wars, seem to require the killing of the innocent, e.g., through antimorale terror bombing.