As pope seeks dialogue and diplomacy, 2 US cardinals reject US-Israeli war in Iran

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV called Monday for an end to the U.S.-Israel war in Iran, issuing a new but still muted appeal as two of his U.S. cardinals condemned the war, rejected the rationale for launching it and the “video game” way it was being portrayed.

The Vatican spokesman issued a statement late Monday, articulating Leo’s “deep sorrow” after a Maronite Catholic priest, the Rev. Pierre El Raii, was killed Monday in southern Lebanon. Vatican News said Raii, pastor of Qlayaa, was killed in a bombing as he tried to rescue a wounded parishioner.

Leo prayed for all those killed, especially the children.

“He is following events with concern and prays for an end to hostilities as soon as possible,” said the after-hours statement from spokesman Matteo Bruni.

Leo has issued a series of muted appeals for dialogue in the week since the war began, clearly keen to avoid fueling polemics.

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica noted the paradox in an article Monday: The pope is speaking in lay terms of dialogue and diplomacy, while political leaders cite religious arguments and scripture to justify the war.

But while Leo has refrained from condemning the war, his bishops have not.

Cardinal Robert McElroy, the archbishop of Washington, said the United States and Israel had failed to meet the minimum criteria for the war to be considered morally just. Such criteria would have included that it was a response to an imminent threat, that the U.S. and Israel had clearly articulated their intentions, or that the benefits would outweigh the harm.

“Lebanon may fall into civil war. The world’s oil supply is under great strain. The potential disintegration of Iran could well produce new and dangerous realities. And the possibility of immense casualties on all sides is immense,” McElroy told the diocesan newspaper. “For all of these reasons, Catholic teaching leads to the conclusion that our entry into this war was not morally legitimate.”

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Leo’s hometown Chicago, denounced the White House’ social media posts of the war that spliced in action movie clips with real footage.

“A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it’s a video game — it’s sickening,” Cupich wrote in a statement over the weekend that was picked up by Vatican Media. “Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store.”

Cupich and McElroy, both appointed by Pope Francis, have been at the forefront in criticizing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Earlier this year they, joined by Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin, also called on the Trump administration to adopt a moral foreign policy rather than the inflict suffering on the world.

They are not alone. The Filipino Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, vice president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, voiced similar disdain for the spectacle of the conflict and how it risked making modern warfare as a whole detached from human reality.

“From distant command centers, military operators stare at screens where maps, radar signals and algorithm-generated targets move like icons in a computer game. A cursor moves. A coordinate is selected. A click is made. And a missile is launched,” he said in comments reported by Vatican News.

The Holy See has a tradition of diplomatic neutrality but its diplomatic leadership has nevertheless rejected the Trump administration’s justification of attacking Iran preventively.

“If states were to be recognized as having a right to ‘preventive war,’ according to their own criteria and without a supranational legal framework, the whole world would risk being set ablaze,” the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, told Vatican Media last week.

The Vatican's new ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, will have to soon articulate the Vatican position. Caccia was named to the position this weekend that will require juggling the Holy See's relations with U.S. bishops and the White House.

Vatican commentator Massimo Faggioli, professor at Trinity College Dublin, said in a social media post that he will have to manage a new line of tension “between the Vatican of Leo XIV, the first pope from the USA, and this USA of Trump now at the head of a war fueled by a national-religious rhetoric.”

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