Speaking in English, Leo called on the citizens of the countries involved “to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen—to ask them, tell them, to work for peace and to reject war always.”
Donald Trump
Posted inEditorials
Trump threatened Iran’s ‘whole civilization.’ That’s a war crime—not a just war.
Should President Trump follow through on his threat of indiscriminate destruction of civilian infrastructure, he will have unambiguously committed a war crime.
Posted inNews
US bishops’ leader rebukes Trump after he threatens Iran’s ‘whole civilization will die tonight’
In a post the same day on his social media website, Truth Social, Trump said, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Posted inShort Take
Bombing civilians in Iran to spare soldiers violates moral and international law
The principle of sparing civilian lives is a cornerstone of international law. And the hatred caused by the killing of noncombatants jeopardizes long-term peace.
Posted inThe Weekly Dispatch
On immigration and war, the U.S. bishops are echoing Oscar Romero
Decades after his martyrdom, Romero’s insistence that the laws of God stand above law created by humankind and the edicts and commands of political and military leaders has been repeated by bishops in the United States, speaking against war-making and mass deportation.
Posted inShort Take
The Trump administration treats war like a video game
Crude memes about attacking Iran hint at a deeper connection between video games and the desensitizing features of modern warfare.
Posted inDispatches
Bishop Seitz urges ICE agents not to follow illegal deportation orders
In a pastoral letter on March 15, Bishop Mark Seitz urged immigration enforcement agents not to follow illegal orders and denounced the “grave moral evil” of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
Posted inYour Take
Our readers on the moral resistance to Trump’s ‘politics of rage’
“The federal government’s approach is out of all proportion to the scope of the problem of a small percentage of undocumented immigrants that have committed crimes.”
Posted inThe Weekly Dispatch
A Catholic guide to understanding the war with Iran
The church’s just war tradition has been challenged by contemporary theologians as insufficient and outdated, yet it remains a worthy filter through which to judge the moral defensibility of a turn to war-making.
Posted inEditorials
Against Unjust and Unjustified War with Iran
The Trump administration’s reasoning not only fails to meet the criteria for military action in any formulation of just war theory or international law, it also fails the test of common sense.