One of the Catholic church’s most senior leaders in the U.S. tore into Donald Trump’s war in Iran for not being “morally legitimate.”
“At this present moment, the U.S. decision to go to war against Iran fails to meet the just war threshold for a morally legitimate war,” Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, the archbishop of Washington DC, said in an interview with the Catholic Standard Monday.
According to McElroy, Catholic teaching does not permit wars without just cause, stating, “If preventative war were to be accepted morally, then all limits to the cause for going to war would be put in extreme jeopardy.”
More than 1,200 people have been killed since the war was initiated by joint U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran--a toll that’s expected to increase. Secretary of the Department of Defense Pete Hegseth warned that Tuesday would mark the “most intense” day of strikes.
The archbishop of Washington, D.C., criticized Trump for failing to provide a clear justification before authorizing military action against Iran.
“One of the most worrying elements of these first days of the war in Iran is that our goals and intentions are absolutely unclear, ranging from the destruction of Iran’s conventional and nuclear weapons potential to the overthrow of its regime to the establishment of a democratic government to unconditional surrender,” McElroy said.
The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The commander-in-chief has flip-flopped on his rationale for why he decided to attack Iran. He has also remained vague about his goals for the nation and how long the war will last.
Initially, Trump said the strikes were meant to target Iran’s nuclear program and bring about regime change. He then claimed that the United States was facing an imminent threat from Iran.
The president triumphantly declared Monday, “This is the beginning of building a new country,” but Hegseth insisted Tuesday that the war is not a nation-building exercise.
Trump first said the war would last four to five weeks, but then said Monday it would end “very soon” after oil prices sharply rose. And then, he angrily declared on Truth Social later the same day that they would take more aggressive action against Iran.
Like many other Americans, McElroy doesn’t believe “the benefits of this war will outweigh the harm which will be done.”
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that just 29 percent of Americans back the airstrikes. Public backing for the war has been waning as oil prices have risen dramatically, which will raise prices on nearly everything if America’s war efforts are sustained.
The Department of Defense also identified the seventh American killed in the conflict—a toll Trump himself has warned can rise. “Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is.”
Pope Leo XIV, for his part, has taken a more cautious stance on the war.
“Let us raise our humble prayer to the Lord that the roar of bombs may cease, that weapons may fall silent, and that space may be opened for dialogue in which the voices of peoples can be heard,” the Pope said on Sunday.
This isn’t the first time the nation’s top Catholics have found fault with the Trump administration.
In January, following Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s capture and Trump’s attempted takeover of Greenland, three archbishops released a joint statement deriding America’s war mongering. Without explicitly naming Trump, they asked for military action to be seen as a last resort.
National Catholic Reporter slammed JD Vance for being a fake Catholic after he called Renee Nicole Good, a mom killed by ICE in Minneapolis, a “domestic terrorist.” The Reporter said his actions were a moral stain, and that his Catholic faith “was little more than a political prop.”
