I completely agree. Once the Church has enunciated a moral principle, that one can defend one’s self and family, the prudential judgment as to how to accomplish that is up to the faithful. Obviously the Church might have something to offer if your solution were a 5 megaton nuclear device about proportionality and so on.

The bigger problem is that every time the Church, either as a whole or at the level of an episcopal conference, weighs in on something beyond delineating moral principles and defining certain absolutes - e.g. abortion, it devalues its moral stock and becomes entangled in partisan politics.

To see where this leads, consider the Episcopal Church. Prior to WWII it was well-respected in American political and social discourse. Now no one listens to it, even its own members.