Just War?

The notion of a “just” war, meaning one fought on solid moral grounding, dates back thousands of years to Cicero and the ancient Greeks. It became woven into Christianity in the fourth century when Augustine of Hippo, the Christian philosopher and bishop who is a saint in the Catholic Church, brought religious reasoning to the decision-making around war and how to fight one on moral grounds. More specifically, he said war should be fought to right injustice and to secure peace and shouldn’t use excessive violence or bring harm to the innocent.

On its April 12 broadcast, 60 Minutes featured a lengthy interview with three U.S. Catholic Cardinals discussing the war in Iran and its implications for those of the Christian faith. They echoed Pope Leo’s calls for peace and an end to the conflict and took particular aim at the way Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invokes religion in his discussion of the war and the cavalier language, imagery, and “gamification” he and others in the administration use in their glorification of bombing and killing.

When asked by the interviewer if the Iran war is a just war, Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., didn’t hesitate.

“No,” he said. “Under Catholic teaching, this is not a just war. The Catholic faith teaches us there are certain prerequisites for a just war. You can’t go for a variety of reasons. You have to have a focus, which is to restore justice and restore peace. That’s it.”

Cardinal McElroy agreed that the Iran regime is “abominable and it should be removed,” but called this a “war of choice” and worried that what we’re seeing is “the possibility of war after war after war.”

As a “cradle Catholic,” meaning I was born, baptized, raised, educated, and confirmed a Catholic, I’ve always been perplexed by President Trump’s support among Catholics. He won the Catholic vote by a 12-point margin in 2024, after losing it by only a percentage point when facing Joe Biden, a lifelong Catholic.

I say “perplexed” because of the obvious: virtually nothing President Trump says, does, or appears to believe bears any resemblance to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) through the lens of our President’s behavior, language, and worldview, and you don’t see much overlap. It’s almost as if he read it as a roadmap for what not to do.

Which makes it not surprising when he was asked earlier this year what constrains him on the world stage, and his response was his “own morality.”

For someone so clearly detached from the teachings of Jesus, it was understandable when, after further criticism from Pope Leo about the war, he issued a blistering Truth Social post calling him “weak on crime” and said he’s “terrible” on foreign policy, revealing a complete lack of understanding about the Pope’s role in the world as a religious leader who interprets and urges the following of the Gospel. He’s not a secular politician. He’s the spiritual leader of the world’s largest Christian denomination with more than 1.3 billion baptized followers. His influence spans the globe.

That gap was equally glaring with the President’s subsequent post of an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like healer of a sick man, complete with flowing robes, light radiating from his hands, the American flag, fighter jets, armed combat soldiers, and a soaring eagle. He deleted the post when the predictable backlash across the political spectrum ensued and he later explained, “It was supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better.”

My doctor wears scrubs and a stethoscope.

And this all follows his dropping the F-bomb in a frantic Easter Sunday post and threatening to obliterate the entire Iranian civilization the next day.

Just war indeed.

The President’s actions are having a negative impact on his standing with Catholics. In a survey conducted by Fox News in the last week of March, the President’s approval among Catholics had slipped underwater by four percentage points, slipping from a positive 52 percent approval to a 48 percent approval rating now. My guess is that it will continue to slip as more church leaders and conservative Catholics express their disdain for how the war is being prosecuted and marketed.

When asked by a reporter what Pope Leo thinks about the President’s posts on Truth Social, he said, “It’s ironic – the name of the site itself. Say no more.”