Hoya Veteran On Killing And Distinctions

All killing is not evil, there is murder, then their is justifiable homicide and then there is accidental homicide. You can't say something is immoral and moral at the same time.

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Hat tip to the Deacon's Bench. Read the deacon's full post A Catholic soldier: "Sometimes killing is necessary. That doesn't make it right."
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The original Wasington Post article (here)
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Q. You wrote in a piece in ‘The Hoya,’ “As a veteran of combat, I have given this a great deal of thought. I believe that killing –all killing –is evil.’ How does that work for you as a member of the military?

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A. "That’s the really nice thing about being Catholic; that you can make these blanket assertions, and also recognize the futility of being able to totally avoid sin at all times if you are in the world. I guess I am kind of an Augustinian in that sense.

Yes, killing is evil. Killing is wrong. There’s no kind of killing that’s
justified. And I don’t care about all the ‘interpretations’ in the Old
Testaments where it really says ‘Thou shall not murder.’ I don’t care if that’s
a distinction.

I’ve seen killing. Killing is wrong. There’s no way to justify it. And I don’t care if the people that I was in some way participating in the killing of were innocent or guilty, I mean, both happened. They were human beings and killing them was wrong. It just is, and it always will be. I don’t think that we can apply some kind of temporal form of justice or legal system to human life and say ‘OK, in this particular instance, this is OK, this guy can be killed,’ or ‘in this particular instance, he can't.’

"But I understand that sometimes the way that the world is killing is necessary.
There’s just no way to avoid it. That doesn’t make it right.

I don’t think there are too many people –too many soldiers –who would come away from the war and say, even if it were the cleanest war in history, who would still come away from it and say, ‘Yeah, that was all really good. All we did was really good stuff.’ It bothers you and it bothers you for a reason because it’s not the sort of thing that we ought to be doing. In an ideal world we wouldn’t do any of it."

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Here is a portion of the entry on the subject in the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

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Homicide signifies, in general, the killing of a human being. In practice, however, the word has come to mean the unjust taking away of human life, perpetrated by one distinct from the victim and acting in a private capacity. For the purposes of this article, therefore, account is not taken of suicide, nor of the carrying out of the penalty of death by due process of law.
The direct killing of an innocent person is, of course, to be reckoned among the most grievous of sins. It is said to happen directly when the death of the person is viewed either as an end attractive in itself, or at any rate is chosen as a means to an end. The malice discernible in the sin is primarily chargeable to the violation of the supreme ownership of God over the lives of His creatures. It arises as well from the manifest outrage upon one of the most conspicuous and cherished rights enjoyed by man, namely the right to life. For the scope contemplated here,

a person is regarded as innocent so long as he has not by any responsible act
brought any hurt to the community or to an individual comparable with the loss
of life.

Homicide is said to be indirect when it is no part of the agent's plan to bring about the death which occurs, so that this latter is not intended as an end nor is it selected as a means to further any purpose. In this hypothesis it is, at most, permitted on account of a reason commensurate with so great an evil as is the destruction of human life. Thus, for instance, a military commander may train his guns upon a fortified place, even though in the bombardment which follows he knows perfectly well that many non-combatants will perish. The sufficient cause in the case is consideration of the highest public good to be subserved by the defeat of the enemy. When, however, the untoward death of a person is the outcome of an action which is prohibited precisely because of the founded likelihood of its having this fatal result, then in the court of conscience the doer is held to be guilty in spite of his disclaimer of all intention in the matter. Hence, for example, one who fires a shotgun into the public thoroughfare, whilst protesting that he has no wish to work any mischief, is, nevertheless, obviously to be reproached as a murderer if perchance his bullet has killed anybody.

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For the protection of one's own or another's life, limb, chastity, or valuables of some moment, it is agreed on all sides that it is lawful for anyone to repel violence with violence,

even to the point of taking away the life of the unjust assailant, provided
always that in so doing the limits of a blameless defence be not exceeded.

It is proper to note (1) that the danger apprehended for oneself or another must be actual and even, so to speak, imminent, not merely prospective. Hence, the teaching here propounded cannot be adduced to justify the use of force for purposes of reprisal or vengeance by a private individual. This latter is a function belonging to the public authority. (2) No more violence may be employed than is required to safeguard sufficiently the goods already enumerated upon which an unwarranted assault has been made.

The right of self-defence so universally attributed does not necessarily
presuppose in the aggressor an imputable malice.

It is enough that one's life or some other possession comparable with life should be threatened outside of the proper channels of the law. One might, for example, kill a lunatic, or one crazed with drink, although there is no malice on their part, if this were the only effective way to head off their onset.

St. Thomas is careful to say that even in self-defence it is unlawful to kill
another directly, that is, to intend immediately the death of that other. His
mind is that the formal volition of the self-defender should entirely be to
preserve his own life and repulse the onslaught, whilst as to the loss of life,
which, as a matter of fact, ensues, he keeps himself in a purely permissive
attitude.

This contention is combated by De Lugo and some others, who believe it to be right to choose expressly the killing of another as the means to self-defence. In conformity with the Thomistic doctrine is the axiomatic utterance that a private individual may never lawfully kill anyone whatever, because in self-defence one does not, technically speaking, kill, but only endeavours to stop the trespasser. Hence, according to the Angelic Doctor, it would follow that only by due operation of law may a human being ever be directly done to death.

Read the full article (here)