About the Presentation

Can making war be justified? The answer of the whole of Christian tradition is “Yes.”  But is there a problem with our modern notion and practice of warfare? The Christian answer to this question is also “Yes.”

These two questions and their answers will make for a very interesting discussion. Tune in and find out things you may never have considered about the conditions necessary for a just war.

Presented by: Fr. Hugh Barbour, O.Praem.

Moderated by: Fr. Ambrose Criste, O.Praem.

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About the host and moderator

Fr. Hugh Barbour, O.Praem. (Host)

Fr. Hugh Barbour, O.Praem., is a Norbertine of St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California. He grew up in South Pasadena and is a convert from the Episcopal Church. After earning a bachelor’s degree in classics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Fr. Hugh entered St. Michael’s in 1982 and was ordained a priest in 1990. He earned a license in patristic theology at the Augustinianum and a doctorate in philosophy at the Angelicum in Rome. He has taught philosophy at St. Michael’s to the Abbey’s junior professed seminarians studying for the priesthood since 1992 and was prior of the abbey from 1995 until 2017. Fr. Hugh has been active over the years in weekend parish ministry and in giving talks and retreats; he has served as chaplain of the St. Thomas More Society of Orange County and as censor deputatus of the Diocese of Orange, and he is a knight commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre. He began his chaplaincy at Catholic Answers in September 2017.

Fr. Ambrose Criste, O.Praem. (Moderator)

Fr. Ambrose grew up in Denver Colorado, the middle of three children. He attended Regis Jesuit High School, the all-boys Catholic preparatory school run by the Jesuit Fathers, and then went on to Colorado College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Classics, History, and Political Science. He won the Rhodes Scholarship, and so continued his education at Oxford University in England. Hearing the call to the religious life and the priesthood, he began visiting religious communities, including several of the Norbertine Canons Regular. He entered St. Michael’s Abbey of the Norbertine Fathers in Orange County, California, and eventually pursued his priestly studies in Rome, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum), and then the License in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Fr. Ambrose made his final profession in 2006, and was ordained a priest in 2008. He lives at St. Michael’s Abbey, the monastery of his profession, where he is the novice master, the master of the junior-professed, and the vocations director. The Norbertine Canons there at St. Michael’s rejoice to have a large, young, and thriving religious community with many worthy vocations and a magnificent canonical life.

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