{"id":310,"date":"2026-04-30T15:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/30\/what-is-a-just-war-inside-the-war-of-words-between-the-trump-administration-and-the-catholic-church\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T15:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:48:20","slug":"what-is-a-just-war-inside-the-war-of-words-between-the-trump-administration-and-the-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/30\/what-is-a-just-war-inside-the-war-of-words-between-the-trump-administration-and-the-catholic-church\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a just war? Inside the war of words between the Trump administration and the Catholic church\u200b"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Pope Leo\u2019s words on Palm Sunday were pointed. \u201cJesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war\u201d, he said during an address<\/a> at the Vatican. <\/p>\n

A few days later in early April, when Timothy Broglio, the archbishop for US military services, was asked on CBS\u2019s Face the Nation<\/a> if the Iran war is a \u201cjust war<\/a>\u201d in the tradition of the Catholic church, he said: \u201cIt is not. While there was a threat with nuclear arms, it\u2019s compensating for a threat before the threat is actually realised.\u201d<\/p>\n

US Vice President JD Vance \u2013 a recent convert to Catholicism \u2013 and Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, pushed back<\/a>, arguing that the conflict does fit within the church\u2019s just war tradition. <\/p>\n

Just war theory, first articulated by St Augustine in the fifth century, outlines the church\u2019s moral guidelines for political and military leaders to consider before choosing to go to war. But it\u2019s not static, and the church\u2019s own position has become more restrictive in recent years. <\/p>\n

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly<\/a> podcast, Jerry Powers, the director of Catholic Peace Building Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, explains how the Catholic church\u2019s just war tradition evolved and the influence it\u2019s had on US military thinking. Powers was a senior advisor on international policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the Iraq war, and was involved in efforts to persuade the Bush administration not to invade. <\/p>\n

He sets out the difficulty now facing Catholics serving in the US military, whose archbishop has now spoken out against the war they\u2019re being asked to fight. \u201cIt puts military officers and especially soldiers in a real conundrum,\u201d says Powers. \u201cA soldier has no choice but to obey orders, and if you disobey orders you could very serious repercussions. The officer question is a different one because officers are more senior, and I think officers have to just resign their commission if at some point, they think this is an immoral war.\u201d <\/p>\n

Listen to the interview with Jerry Powers on The Conversation Weekly<\/a> podcast. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.<\/em><\/p>\n

Newsclips in this episode from CB<\/a> S<\/a> News<\/a>, AP Archive<\/a>, BB<\/a>C<\/a>, CBS Sunday Morning<\/a>, ABC<\/a> News<\/a>, Rome Reports<\/a>, KREM 2 News<\/a>, MS<\/a> NOW<\/a> and WUSA 9<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed<\/a> or find out how else to listen here<\/a>. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Gerard F. Powers received a grant from the Nuclear Threat Initiative that helped support the Catholic Peacebuilding Network’s Project on Revitalizing Catholic Engagement on Nuclear Disarmament. He is an expert consultant (unpaid) to the Holy See Mission to the UN. From 1987-2004, Powers was a senior advisor on international policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo\u2019s words on Palm Sunday were pointed. \u201cJesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war\u201d, he said during an address at the Vatican. A few days later in early April, when Timothy Broglio, the archbishop for US military services, was asked on CBS\u2019s Face the Nation if the Iran war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}