The leader of all Catholic chaplains in the United States’ armed forces has questioned how righteous the US military’s campaign in Iran is, saying that “under the just war theory – it is not”.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, told CBS News in an interview set for broadcast Sunday that while Iran “was a threat with nuclear arms”, waging war on the theocratic state constituted “compensating for a threat before the threat is actually realized”.
The just war theory is a philosophical and legal framework, rooted in the theologies of Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, that is designed to help determine when starting war is morally justifiable – or jus ad bellum – and how it should be conducted, or jus in bello.
It directs that war is a last resort, undertaken only to correct serious wrong, and it requires legitimate authority, right intent, and proportionality in order to obtain peace.
“The Lord Jesus certainly brought a message of peace and also – I think war is always a last resort,” Broglio told CBS. “I’m not making a judgment about that because I really don’t know. But I do think that it’s hard to cast this war – you know – as something that would be sponsored by the Lord.”
Broglio’s comments are likely to inflame political divisions over the war’s justification, particularly among those who are religious and may generally support Donald Trump. The Trump White House maintains that Iran’s history of terrorism sponsorship, coupled with its missile program and production of highly enriched uranium, justifies the action.
Democrats, however, described it as “war of choice” and accuse Trump of sidestepping lawmakers’ approval.
As the war becomes more prolonged, recent polling from YouGov and the Economist has found Trump’s approval rating at 35%.
During a sit-down with Face the Nation recorded in advance of its broadcast, Broglio was asked how he viewed the rhetoric of US defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who has asked Americans to pray “every day, on bended knee” for a military victory “in the name of Jesus Christ”.
Broglio said “it’s a little problematic in the sense” that Jesus preached peace and spoke of war in terms of being a last resort.
But Broglio qualified his position, adding: “They may have information that led them to think that that was the only choice they had.”
Broglio said he would line himself up with Pope Leo XIV, history’s first US-born Catholic pontiff, “who has been urging for negotiation”.
Leo has indeed urged Trump and other leaders to find ways to scale back violence in the Middle East – and to find an “off-ramp” in the war with Iran.
In a homily during a mass on Thursday, the pope said that the Christian mission has often been “distorted by a desire for domination, entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ”.
Broglio said he counseled Catholic service members to “do as little harm as you can – and to try [to] preserve innocent lives”. He noted that the way conscientious objection is framed in the US military, “you cannot object to a specific war or a specific action. You can only object to ‘I’m opposed to war.’”
He added: “The question might be, would generals or admirals have space to perhaps, say, ‘Can we look at this a different way?’
“But having spoken to some of them too, they’re also in the same dilemma.”
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