By The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See has strongly denied reports that the government demanded the Vatican throw support behind U.S. military actions.
U.S. officials are continuing to defend ongoing military actions in the Middle East amid criticism from top Catholic leaders around the world and after media reports that the Pentagon demanded the Vatican throw its support behind its ongoing military maneuvers.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin this week stressed the need for “more voices of peace, more voices against the madness of the rush toward rearmament” after several weeks of U.S.-led strikes against Iran have reportedly resulted in thousands of casualties and have raised the specter of a sustained global war.
The two countries agreed to a temporary ceasefire on April 7 while negotiations play out, but the agreement has been marred by subsequent Israeli strikes in Lebanon as well as disputes over Iranʼs reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global shipping route whose closure upended global markets and sent oil prices skyward.
Before the ceasefire, U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened the annihilation of the “whole civilization” of Iran if the country failed to accept U.S. terms — a vow that drew an explicit rebuke from Pope Leo XIV.
“Attacks on civilian infrastructure [are] against international law [and are] also a sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction that the human being is capable of,” the pope said after Trumpʼs threat. “We all want to work for peace. People want peace.”
“I would invite citizens of all the countries involved to contact the authorities, political leaders, congressmen, to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war,” the Holy Father said.
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops President Archbishop Paul Coakley also condemned the threat, arguing on April 7 that such rhetoric “cannot be morally justified.”
Coakley at the time “call[ed] on President Trump to step back from the precipice of war and negotiate a just settlement for the sake of peace and before more lives are lost.”
‘A victory for the United States of America’
Amid rebukes from Catholic leaders around the world, U.S. leadership has celebrated both the military action and the ceasefire that came after Trumpʼs apparent willingness to destroy Iran, a threat that critics said pointed to the potential deaths of millions of civilians.
In a release on April 8 after the ceasefire was announced, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called the ongoing actions in Iran a “decisive military victory.”
“President Trump forged this moment,” Hegseth said. “Iran begged for this ceasefire — and we all know it.”
The terms of the ceasefire are themselves in dispute, leaving open the question of whether military action will resume before the two-week window expires.
Iran has argued that the Israeli strikes in Lebanon violated the agreement. The U.S. government, meanwhile, said Iran agreed to reopen the critical Hormuz Strait amid ongoing peace negotiations, but United Arab Emirates industry minister Sultan Al Jaber said on April 9 that the strait has not been fully reopened.
Still, U.S. officials have continued to boast of the success of the mission. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine said on April 8 that coalition forces “achieved the military objectives” they set out to accomplish in Iran, including the destruction of much of Iranʼs military forces.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt similarly called the campaign “a victory for the United States of America,” one that “the president and our incredible military made happen.”
The putative victories after sharp criticism from Catholic leadership come as tensions between the U.S. and the Vatican appear to be strained.
On April 6 the Free Press reported that the government in January summoned then-Apostolic Nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre to the Pentagon, allegedly delivering to the diplomat a “bitter lecture” demanding that the Holy See “take [the United States’] side” in global military conflicts.
An official with the Department of Defense told EWTN News in a statement on April 9 that the Free Press report was “highly exaggerated and distorted.”
“The meeting between Pentagon and Vatican officials was a respectful and reasonable discussion,” the statement said. “We have nothing but the highest regard and welcome continued dialogue with the Holy See.”
The apostolic nunciature in the United States of America on April 9 also confirmed the meeting, saying in a statement that Pierre visited the Pentagon on Jan. 22 and that the cardinal “discussed current affairs” with U.S. officials.
“Meetings with government officials are a standard practice for the nuncio, who serves as the Holy See’s ambassador to the United States,” the nunciature said. “The apostolic nunciature is grateful for the opportunities to meet and dialogue with government officials and others in Washington to discuss areas of mutual concern.”
Vice President JD Vance, himself a Catholic, was asked about the report on April 8 while in Hungary. He told media he would “like to talk to Cardinal Christophe Pierre and, frankly, to our people, to figure out what actually happened.”
“I think itʼs always a bad idea to offer an opinion on stories that are unconfirmed and uncorroborated, so Iʼm not going to do that,” the vice president said at the time.
Pierre retired in March; Pope Leo XIV subsequently appointed Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia to replace him. Caccia has thus far been silent about the Iran conflict, though in the recent past he has been an open critic of war and an outspoken proponent of peace.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, he told the United Nations Security Council in October 2023 that war “is always a defeat,” and he lamented the “lasting end to the cycle of violence that has engulfed” the Holy Land.
U.S. leaders have justified the Iranian conflict by alleging that the Middle Eastern country represents a threat to the U.S. and to global peace. Ahead of the ceasefire, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that Iran was “violating every law known” by allegedly striking commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
He described the country as “a regime that doesnʼt believe in laws or rules or anything like that.”
Parolin, meanwhile, this week called for “more voices raised in favor of our poorest brothers and sisters” and urged the Catholic world — including Catholic universities — to seek out “new economic models inspired by justice.”
“I am struck by how much determination … with which the military option is presented as decisive, almost inevitable,” the cardinal said.
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Wait. Is the fellow going to lunge at me for commenting on this matter because I am not an American; and disqualify everything I might add good as well as cancel me outright, then. Is that how this goes.
Is the fellow a lady even? How should I know.
Fr. that “quagmire” suggests a good hypothetical discussion for the sake of getting a full AMERICAN assessment of the state “justice” is in/is not in, the just cause and ends not attaining or not reached. Not attainable, not reachable, etc. It could be the lunging one (he/she) was attempting to prevent me from eventually describing how bad things are or could be -assuming I had the mind to do it, which I haven’t done. He/she demonstrating an excess of caution and yes, my not being American, I can’t make up for it as an American, that’s true.
And still I haven’t gone into it here.
He/she is reading this stuff and not replying. I am supposed to assume he is a he. Can’t acknowledge I could have a good mind to provoke new considerations.
Why do you worry about a fellow being a lady?
Your posts appear here; how have you been canceled?
What is the good of your comment? Pray tell.
Thank you meiron. Your assurance of not being cancelled here!
The unidentifiable writer referred to by me presented only an aggressive posture and a wrestle of names. My comments on ICE at the time, indicated forms of moderation; and as it turned out the Federal Government would seem to have gone more in that direction subsequently. May I suggest: Trump pays attention to varies sources.
On the question of war, now, here I would maintain a reserve and let the “authorities” take the more general comment under on-going advisement and into their private deliberation re national security, etc. It IS true that some explicit extrapolation can yield prejudice even when the prejudice is not intended.
Let’s see then if they are faced with a sequence of unjust decision situations and if they will indeed elect the wrongs that making those decisions would bring.
“What is the expedient?”
They know what they achieved so far, if anything, as well as what the actions taken have exposed for everyone to see. Major burden is on them and I am praying for them.
Unjust war cascades into successive unjust decisions even after the violence has abated.
Agreed, but can you please explain how US-Israeli-Lebanon-Gazan-Iranian military actions constitute unjust war. I really want to know your thoughts on that. Thanks.
Again, it’s complex. Israel’s war against Lebanon and Hezbollah is multi faceted. Israel has a just cause against the Iranian supported Shia terrorists. It also has interest in the continued demolition of Iran. A truce between Iran and the U.S. is not being celebrated in Israel.
It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination that present Israeli policy in Lebanon has reference to Israel’s preference of a demolished, entirely neutralized Iran. Netanyahu’s interest is entirely focused on Israel’s survival.
If we [the U.S.] had met our objectives in Iran – coupled with a universal ceasefire including Lebanon, there would be much less negative response from the Vatican. Cardinal Patriarch Pizzaballa’s justified criticism of Israel’s policy in Gaza and Lebanon, including Israel’s recent prohibitions of access to the holy sites in Israel during Holy Week would likely have lessened.
We’re now quagmired. Despite enormous military superiority. An American government that has achieved major moral renewal in its statutes and policies is in danger of losing everything. Francis X Maier’s On Doing the Right Thing gives N Korea as an example why we should obliterate Iran to win a peace. That’s easily said. Enormously difficult to achieve [Iran had already followed the N Korea strategy bunkered underground, beneath mountains. They’re being refurbished by allies Russia, China, N Korea]. Perhaps the best pursuit would be to follow Vatican urging and limit Iran’s capacity by containment.
About the Strait of Hormuz, might we be reminded how the Ottoman Empire tied up travel routes through the Eastern Mediterranean in past centuries? In a simple world this stranglehold was broken when the Portuguese confirmed an alternative route around African and the Cape of Good Hope…Bartolomeo Diaz in 1488, and Vasco da Gama reaching India in 1498.
On a grand scale, the alternative route to Hormuz, for an isolationist United States at least, would be total domestic production (the possibly phallic “Drill, baby, drill!”), and a reasoned approach to ideologically-trashed solar, wind and other supplemental alternatives.
Meanwhile, what then of the rest of the world, as if they also matter?
These are interesting times! Calling for foresight, wisdom, strategic understanding, national resolve, and a dash of atmospheric theology attentive to existential sobriety—toward both today’s slippery slope and tomorrow’s looming risk of nuclear blackmail.
The asymmetry of acquired Western traditions of diplomacy versus time-capsule Iran where jihad IS the very definition of a “just war.”