Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services and a noted conservative, declared that the war with Iran is unjust.
In an interview set to air Easter Sunday, Broglio told CBS’s Face the Nation that he took issue with War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s invocation of religion to boost morale in the war. He went so far as to say that Catholic members of the military aren’t bound to obey every order. His comments are particularly notable as he oversees all Catholic chaplains in the U.S. military.
“Under just war theory, no,” Broglio responded when asked if the war with Iran was justified. The war, he said, “anticipates a nuclear threat rather than responding to realized danger.”
The archbishop was referring to the Catholic Church’s doctrine on when Christians can participate in and support a war. The doctrine began its formation after Christianity first went from a persecuted belief to the state religion of the Roman Empire, with one of its leading authors being St. Augustine. Later Catholic figures, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, further expounded on the theory.
He argued that Hegseth’s public prayers for victory and the invocation of Jesus Christ to boost morale were “problematic.”
“It’s hard to cast this war as something that would be sponsored by the Lord,” Broglio said.
He also advised Catholic servicemembers on when to disobey orders, saying it “depends on where you are in the in the chain of command.”
“Obviously, you know the Marine who’s given an order, he’s not in a position, really, to resist that order,” Broglio said. “I mean, he has to obey unless it’s clearly immoral. And then he would probably have to speak to his, you know, to his chaplain, to his chain of command. So I guess my counsel would be to do as little harm as you can, and to try and preserve innocent lives.”
Though Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly condemned the war, even in stronger terms than many of his predecessors, conservative Catholics in the United States have been largely united behind Trump. The rebuke by an archbishop known as one of the more conservative Catholic figures will come as a shock to many conservative Catholics.
Historically, the Catholic Church usually supported Christian states at war, most famously in its explicit call for war to reclaim the Holy Land in the Crusades. This approach had a lasting impact, and even centuries after the mainline Crusades to the Holy Land ended, the pope continued to invoke the concept of holy war to justify resistance against the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim entities. Several popes have even personally led armies into battle, the most recent being Pope Julius II (1503-1513).
As recently as the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1937, the pope openly backed the Nationalist forces of Gen. Francisco Franco and used partisan rhetoric to describe the conflict. In the U.S., which was skeptical of Catholic influence for much of its existence, bishops took a more nuanced view but were typically supportive. Protestant churches have varied in their stances, but most mainline ones have been strongly supportive of the U.S. during its wars.
In contrast, the Orthodox Churches of Ukraine and Russia have openly supported their respective governments in the Russia-Ukraine war.
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Pope Leo has given strongly worded denunciations of the U.S. war with Iran, both directly and implicitly. Perhaps his harshest call came on Palm Sunday, when he proclaimed that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.”
Conservative Catholics in the U.S. have struggled with the sentiment. Most supporters of the war have differentiated between the pope’s jurisdiction on theological matters versus political matters.