May 9-10, 2026
Dear parishioners,
As you know, I usually don’t get too deep into politics in my bulletin columns. I don’t think I really need to convince anyone that partisan issues don’t belong here. I do make some exceptions when the current events pertain directly to the Church’s dogmatic teaching on faith and morals. However, even then, my intention is always to stick precisely to the Church’s teaching, and not get into the weeds of politics proper. I intend to maintain that goal, but this week’s column inevitably has a foot in both worlds, simply by nature of the subject itself.
In the last month, the news has been unavoidable. Everyone has certainly seen the bombastic remarks made by President Trump and Vice President Vance, which openly attacked Pope Leo for his opposition to the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran. The president even took to social media to claim that the Holy Father is “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” (emphasis original). In the same post, the president went further, and made the self-aggrandizing claim that he himself was the reason that Pope Leo was elected as the successor of Peter. As if that wasn’t enough, the president went so far as to post a blasphemous AI-generated image of himself as Jesus healing someone.
I would like to express that President Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo are not only unfounded, they are also reprehensible and insulting. These actions are unbecoming of the office of the president and never should have happened. Please join me in praying for the president that he does not go down this same road in the future.
Staying within the context of the events mentioned above, I would like to focus more directly on one particular item. In an interview with Fox News, VP Vance made a startling claim. He said, “I certainly think that, in some cases, 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.” This statement actually contradicts what Vance himself said a few days earlier at a Turning Point USA conference, namely, that his and the president’s job is to apply moral principles to complex world issues.
The problem with VP Vance’s statement is that he tries to create a bizarre separation between “matters of morality” and “dictating American public policy.” His statement implies that there are situations in which he and the president must knowingly break from Catholic moral principles in their execution of public policies. In this particular case, he seems to be suggesting that the conflict in Iran is not a matter of morality, or at least that Pope Leo is wrong in his assessment of the moral nature of U.S. involvement in the war.
I will admit, however, that some of Pope Leo’s statements on the current Iran conflict could have employed more nuance regarding the Church’s teaching of what constitutes a just cause for entering a war. This would have brought more clarity to the issue at hand. But the Holy Father is correct overall to insist that the current conflict is not actually justified by the Church’s Just War Theory. He has consistently called for, and prayed for, a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and this is what the pope is supposed to do.
In the hope of explaining this issue further, I will provide more details on the Church’s Just War Theory in next week’s column. Additionally, I will share a few concise thoughts on how the recent U.S. actions in Iran do not meet the criteria contained in the Just War Theory. Hopefully, this will shed some light on Pope Leo’s opposition in this regard.
Blessings,
Fr. Ammanniti
