The war in Ukraine and international efforts to initiate a peace process have put global diplomacy in the spotlight. My impression is that neither the media nor its audience fully comprehends the enormous amount of time and effort that go into international diplomatic negotiations.

I certainly didn’t, until I began working at the Vatican Secretariat of State. Only then did I begin to appreciate the extreme patience and painstaking strategy involved in making even modest gains. Steps backward are as common as — indeed, more common than — steps forward until a sudden breakthrough is finally achieved.

What makes recent developments so unusual with regard to the crisis in Ukraine is that, on Feb. 28, the world caught a glimpse of something that usually takes place behind closed doors. What was supposed to be a standard media appearance of two heads of state turned into a relatively mild argument. In fact, what transpired in the Oval Office is so commonplace as to be considered innocuous if it weren’t for the fact that it was conducted in full public view. Even Sts. John XXIII and John Paul II were known to raise their voices when engaged in intense international dialogue.

The recent incident at the White House raises an important question of what the Catholic Church teaches with regard to diplomatic efforts to achieve peace between nations. The question is all the more important given that the media oversimplifies conflict as a matter of taking one side or the other, or characterizes policies as merely “hawkish” or “dovish.” Add to this the temptation to evaluate any particular armed conflict solely on the basis of whether it is just or not, according to the long-refined principles of “just war.”

For example, R.R. Reno, the editor of First Things, relies on those principles to argue that Ukraine’s inability to achieve its objectives and the West’s unwillingness to “enter the fray with sufficient force and commitment” eviscerates the justness of the war.

According to Catholic social teaching, however, there are at least two principles even more fundamental than the principles for determining a just war. The first is the dignity of the human person and “the natural inclination of persons and peoples to establish relationships among themselves” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 433).

On the one hand, such a formulation seems so abstract as to be impractical, but on the other, one can never presume that international agents — whether justifying military engagement or expressing a willingness to enter peace negotiations — are acting according to that principle.

Taking up arms to perform a genocide or invading a foreign country to exploit its natural resources are egregious examples, though circumstances are generally more complicated due to conflicting territorial claims and the shifting migration of peoples over long periods. Similarly, a state can enter bilateral or multilateral negotiations with no intention whatsoever of adhering to the resolutions of an ensuing treaty. In such cases, Catholic social teaching asserts that international law must become the guarantor of international order.

Related to this first principle is the principle of national sovereignty, “understood above all as an expression of the freedom that must govern relations between States.” Many consider this to be the crux of the matter in Ukraine, since, despite its turbulent and immensely complicated history, most of the international community (with the obvious exception of Russia) has recognized its national sovereignty since 1991.

This is of utmost importance, since some purport that Ukraine’s internal divisions and the shocking corruption of several recent leaders mitigate its claim to sovereignty. Yet if we place these two principles together, clearly the free — albeit very messy — internal political ordering of Ukraine is an internal issue that must work itself out through domestic tension.

As for Russia, perhaps no principle of Catholic social teaching is more pertinent than this: “National sovereignty is not, however, absolute. Nations can freely renounce the exercise of some of their rights in view of a common goal, in the awareness that they form a ‘family of nations’ where mutual trust, support and respect must prevail.”

I realize that the application of this principle to Russia would need extensive elaboration, something I do not pretend here. Suffice it to say that the Catholic principle opens up room for the international community to exercise its legitimate juridical power to assist in sorting through contrasting claims and determining the rights of one sovereign nation with respect to another without denying or limiting the independence of either.

As Pope John XXIII taught in his groundbreaking encyclical Pacem in Terris:

“The public authority of the world community is not intended to limit the sphere of action of the public authority of the individual political community, much less to take its place. On the contrary, its purpose is to create, on a world basis, an environment in which the public authorities of each political community, their citizens and intermediate associations can carry out their tasks, fulfill their duties and exercise their rights with greater security.”

None of this makes a solution to the Ukrainian crisis any easier. To the contrary, with a hint of realpolitik, the Church compendium acknowledges that “there is still no international agreement that adequately addresses ‘the rights of nations,’ the preparation of which could profitably deal with questions concerning justice and freedom in today’s world.” The staggering casualties from this tragic war are a heavy price to pay, but they could offer valuable lessons to the international community about how to work toward greater agreement on “the rights of nations.”

Finally, although the Church offers her teaching and, above all, her prayers to bring this bloody war to an end, she would never ultimately claim to have the practical answers to do so. Consequently, there is room for disagreement over the path most conducive to peace. George Weigel emphasizes the “imperialistic dimension” of Putin’s war and his “lie” that Ukraine is “not a distinct nation.” In an interview with the German Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost, Weigel asserted that “there is no happy or just solution to Putin’s aggression that does not end with Putin losing.”

Eric Sammons, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine and heavily influenced by libertarian thinker Scott Horton, takes serious issue with Weigel’s neo-conservative distrust of any gesture Putin makes toward peace.

“George Weigel will not be happy until every last Ukrainian is dead defending US/NATO foreign policy aims,” Sammons posted on X. Other Catholic voices have entered the debate, as indeed they should if they take their Catholic faith and the Lord’s gift of peace seriously.

The fact that the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church treats diplomacy directly only when describing the Holy See’s own diplomatic activity shows that the Church, at least in theory, is anything but altruistic about diplomacy’s expected outcomes. Diplomacy alone cannot be expected to make nations live in peace.

“Only love, in its quality as ‘form of the virtues,’ can animate and shape social interaction, moving it towards peace in the context of a world that is ever more complex,” the compendium states.

Prominent 20th-century diplomat Henry Kissinger had his own way of expressing the same idea — albeit in a minimalist way — in a phone conversation with poet and antiwar activist Allen Ginsberg in the early ’70s: “It is barely conceivable that there are people who like war.” Even those who don’t accept an iota of Catholic dogma must agree with the Church — and Kissinger — on that.

Daniel B. Gallagher is a lecturer in philosophy and literature at Ralston College. He worked for a decade at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State under Popes Benedict XVI and Francis.