Fr Liam Power: Pope Leo calls out false premises of the war in Iran

President Donald Trump shocked the world on Wednesday with his criticism of Pope Leo. In a post on Truth Social, he claimed that the pope “was weak on crime, terrible for foreign policy, weak on Nuclear weapons.” 

To cap it all, the president declared that if it wasn’t for him Leo would not have been elected pope.

Vice-President JD Vance supported Trump. He took issue with Pope Leo's statement that disciples of Christ are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.” 

Vance advised that “it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of what’s going on in the Catholic church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” 

I find it incomprehensible that Vance, a recent convert to Catholicism, would fail to recognise the moral implications of the war in Iran.

The hostile response from the president and vice president to the Pope’s invocation of the beatitude “Blessed are the peacemakers” is consistent with a more sinister effort to silence the Vatican just before the outbreak of the war.

In January, the Under Secretary of Defence, Eldridge Colby, summoned the then Papal Nuncio to the United States, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, to a meeting at the Pentagon (not to the State Department, where diplomatic business is normally conducted). The Trump administration was furious with Pope Leo who condemned the zeal for war in his address to the diplomatic corps in the Vatican. Eldridge reputedly threatened the Pope and the Church that if they did not side with the US in their war effort, there would be serious consequences. 

“America has military power to do whatever it wants; the Church had better take sides and it had better be the right side.” 

Eldridge invoked the memory of the Avignon papacy. In the 14th century, Popes took up residence in Avignon, France, instead of Rome, due to tremendous military pressure from the King of France, Philip IV, who opposed the independence of the Church. Pope Boniface was kidnapped at the time and murdered.

Pope Leo did not flinch. His response: he refuses to attend the 250th celebration of American independence on July 4. Instead, he will visit the Island of Lampedusa in Southern Italy on that day. (Lampedusa is the primary Mediterranean entry point for African migrants reaching Europe, and serves as a pilot site for screening of asylum seekers.) 

I also find it to be so hypocritical of the Trump administration to have attempted to justify their condemnation of the Pope's critique of the war and American foreign policy as an unwarranted religious intrusion into politics. At the same time, high-ranking officials in the administration, such as Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defence, and indeed even the President himself, have claimed that the war has divine sanction. Hegseth had asked the American people to pray “every day, on bended knee... for a military victory in the Middle East in the name of Jesus Christ.” 

He stood up after military strikes in Iran and said that God deserves the glory: “Tens of thousands of strikes and sorties carried out under the protection of divine providence… a massive effort with miraculous protection."

Hegseth represents the views of Christian Evangelical Nationalists, many of whom are closely associated with the Trump administration. I was shocked to see a televised prayer service in the Oval Office where Trump was surrounded by Evangelical Church leaders praying for his success in the war. These are leaders who subscribe to the absurd theological viewpoint of Christian Zionism, which supports a belief that the return of the Jews to the Promised Land would satisfy the conditions for the second coming of Christ. 

They fully support the Jewish claim on Palestinian territory, which, according to orthodox Judaism, was mandated by Divine command in the scriptures. This claim is based on a literal interpretation of Genesis 17:8, “The whole land of Canaan will be yours.” 

So, there is unequivocal support for Israel in the current war. Viewed through the apocalyptic lens of Armageddon, the war is the final conflict when Jews will finally take possession of the Promised Land, and Christians can then look forward to the second coming of Christ.

Such an absurd theological force is driving this terrible war. Pope Leo has roundly condemned the use of God to justify violence. 

“Blessed are the peacemakers! But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.” 

He declared that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them… their hands are full of blood."

The brutal theocratic regime in Iran has blood on its hands as well. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard represents a deviant derivative of mainstream Islam, claiming as it does, that Shia Muslims in Iran were destined to lead and unite Islam in a war against the West.

Inspired by the leadership of Pope Leo, we must pray that the authentic Gospel message of peace will prevail and that moderate Judaism and orthodox Islam expose the blasphemous, heretical deviance in their religions, which is fuelling this war.