The Holy Father recently said something the other day that shook me, saying that God never blesses war, and that those who bloody their hands are never doing God's will.

Obviously the Old Testament is full of instances where God did in fact bless war, however I think it's obvious from context of the Pope's quote he's talking about post-Resurrection.

Even with that caveat, you still have the Crusades, Lepanto, Tours, etc etc that would seem to make us hypocrites so I've been trying to square the circle and here's what I've come up with.

As a father, there may be circumstances in which you logically understand and admit the legitimacy of one of your children needing to kill the other one, but it's never something that you're going to support. Every blow, regardless of how necessary or warranted is going to cause you anguish. Rather than bless any sort of this behavior, you'll lament that your children used their free will to escalate such a situation to where conflict was unavoidable. This is the difference between a judge and a father.

Much like when a man has to cut his arm off, after it has become infected with decades of IV drug usage, it's a great evil that is done to avoid even greater evil. God did not will that you have your arm cut off, God's will was that you never got addicted to drugs, but you circumvented him with your free will.

I'm still working my way through this and would appreciate comments.

RAB91 said:

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I think this is the one he's referring to...

God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient…

— Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex) April 10, 2026

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It's not exactly a treatise on just war theory, but I'd agree the way he worded it seems problematic. Another great example of how tweeting and off hand comments are dumb when you're in such an important position.

CrackerJackAg said:

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I think it's fine. In the Orthodox Church my understanding is that even in self defense for yourself or another that you cannot partake in communion for a period after having killed someone.

It's always bad. Forgivable sure but always bad.

I'm not Catholic or Protestant so I don't view things through a legalistic justified lens like you guys do.

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I have to admit it is one of the few times I've agreed with Cdl Cupich. The tendency of the Trump administration to not just glorify the valor of our soldiers, but "video gamify" the strikes against enemy combatants, is pretty ghoulish.

Making memes cut with electronic music and scenes from movies and video games, while badass, is pretty evil.

Severian the Torturer said:

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CrackerJackAg said:

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I think it's fine. In the Orthodox Church my understanding is that even in self defense for yourself or another that you cannot partake in communion for a period after having killed someone.

It's always bad. Forgivable sure but always bad.

I'm not Catholic or Protestant so I don't view things through a legalistic justified lens like you guys do.

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I have to admit it is one of the few times I've agreed with Cdl Cupich. The tendency of the Trump administration to not just glorify the valor of our soldiers, but "video gamify" the strikes against enemy combatants, is pretty ghoulish.

Making memes cut with electronic music and scenes from movies and video games, while badass, is pretty evil.

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Yeah, I read a letter from a Priest in WW1 lamenting that war has become some guy in a trench calling in a strike to a guy handing coordinates to someone else firing artillery at a person miles away.

It's honestly kind of sick what war has become.

Pope Leo's reference to "those who wage war" is not the same as a those "defending the weak.. preserving peace and restoring order."

Just war theory is based on the latter. Pope Leo understands this better than JD Vance let's just say.

PabloSerna said:

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Pope Leo's reference to "those who wage war" is not the same as a those "defending the weak.. preserving peace and restoring order."

Just war theory is based on the latter. Pope Leo understands this better than JD Vance let's just say.

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Preserving peace takes on some interesting and challenging aspects when one of the parties is about to have a nuclear weapon and is on record as fully intending to use it to fulfill its death cult ambitions.

FTACo88-FDT24dad said:

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PabloSerna said:

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Pope Leo's reference to "those who wage war" is not the same as a those "defending the weak.. preserving peace and restoring order."

Just war theory is based on the latter. Pope Leo understands this better than JD Vance let's just say.

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Preserving peace takes on some interesting and challenging aspects when one of the parties is about to have a nuclear weapon and is on record as fully intending to use it to fulfill its death cult ambitions.

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Launching a war of choice with no evidence of either a nuke or near completion of a nuke is hardly preserving peace. Especially when the party launching the war unilaterally left a ratified agreement and then refused to negotiate in good faith.

Sapper Redux said:

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FTACo88-FDT24dad said:

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PabloSerna said:

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Pope Leo's reference to "those who wage war" is not the same as a those "defending the weak.. preserving peace and restoring order."

Just war theory is based on the latter. Pope Leo understands this better than JD Vance let's just say.

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Preserving peace takes on some interesting and challenging aspects when one of the parties is about to have a nuclear weapon and is on record as fully intending to use it to fulfill its death cult ambitions.

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Launching a war of choice with no evidence of either a nuke or near completion of a nuke is hardly preserving peace. Especially when the party launching the war unilaterally left a ratified agreement and then refused to negotiate in good faith.

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You have no idea what intel they do or don't have.

"… is about to have a nuclear weapon"

Is that what this is all about? Somehow I got confused about the regime change, China, and oil stuff. It's not like we have ever used that (WMDs) as pretext before huh?

FTACo88-FDT24dad said:

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Sapper Redux said:

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FTACo88-FDT24dad said:

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PabloSerna said:

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Pope Leo's reference to "those who wage war" is not the same as a those "defending the weak.. preserving peace and restoring order."

Just war theory is based on the latter. Pope Leo understands this better than JD Vance let's just say.

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Preserving peace takes on some interesting and challenging aspects when one of the parties is about to have a nuclear weapon and is on record as fully intending to use it to fulfill its death cult ambitions.

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Launching a war of choice with no evidence of either a nuke or near completion of a nuke is hardly preserving peace. Especially when the party launching the war unilaterally left a ratified agreement and then refused to negotiate in good faith.

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You have no idea what intel they do or don't have.

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Well, we were explicitly told their nuclear program was "annihilated" last June. And the current war sure as **** doesn't seem focused on getting uranium out of the country. Trump has even talked about releasing $20 billion of Iran's funds as though they couldn't turn around and restart a new nuclear program.

PabloSerna said:

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"… is about to have a nuclear weapon"

Is that what this is all about? Somehow I got confused about the regime change, China, and oil stuff. It's not like we have ever used that (WMDs) as pretext before huh?

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You're not that foolish or smart. Multiple things can be true at the same time.

To use a historical example I struggle with, the nuking of Japan. I do not see any way in which the nuclear strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not gravely immoral actions.

However, I understand why they were done, and I sympathize with a President faced with such a decision whether there are only horrible choices. It would seem to me that as a President faced with that decision, given your mandate to care for your people above others, inflicting disproportionately larger harm to others to avoid a still great deal of harm to your own is warranted, but I know my Church says otherwise, and that's what matters.

I just hope Truman repented and was forgiven

So you were a bigger fan of the starvation of Japan by our naval blockade and plan to invade it with ground troops that would have resulted in millions more dead?

Do you know that conventional bombing, more specifically the firebombing that occurred in April of '45 killed more people than the nukes? Because, if not, it really seems like you are just using some random Tik-Tok or Instagram reels to dictate your understanding of the dynamic that existed in 1945 as the wars were (hopefully) winding down.

Or no, maybe you were a bigger fan of the Soviet Union invading them instead to turn them into a vassal of the communist bloc of Asia instead? I mean that worked out awesome for China..why not Japan? No way millions wouldn't have died due to that.

You are turning into, or more likely already there, a Pablo-level of poster who lacks such a capacity for reasoning, that you are likely best ignored as someone to engage in discourse with.

I'm embarrassed people that are alive today that have access to so much information still make such kindergarten level assessments.

I am not sure that it's Sev that is lacking in critical thinking here, and you owe him an apology imo. The use of nuclear weapons during WWII and their morality continues to be a commonly debated topic ever since they were dropped, even if most would agree that it had upside - they ended the war quickly and with less death overall. And in Catholicism there is clear teaching as to why they violate conditions of a just war, it's not like Sev is just making stuff up.

TXAG 05 said:

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What should he have done instead? Asked nicer?

Japan was given the opportunity to surrender with the threat of being attacked with our new weapon. They ignored it, so we hit Hiroshima. We gave them the opportunity to surrender again, and again, they ignored it. Then Stalin declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria and we hit Nagasaki. Even after all that, it still took them almost a week after that to finally surrender. Conventional war wasn't going to get the job done. Millions would have died and Japan would have been completely destroyed if we had to invade.

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This is the part that I referenced in my original post. Sometimes as a leader you don't have the option of doing nothing and you're only presented with bad options. That doesn't change the morality of the objective act, but it does impact your culpability.

TXAG 05 said:

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What should he have done instead? Asked nicer?

Japan was given the opportunity to surrender with the threat of being attacked with our new weapon. They ignored it, so we hit Hiroshima. We gave them the opportunity to surrender again, and again, they ignored it. Then Stalin declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria and we hit Nagasaki. Even after all that, it still took them almost a week after that to finally surrender. Conventional war wasn't going to get the job done. Millions would have died and Japan would have been completely destroyed if we had to invade.

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We don't actually know how this plays out. But I don't think Japan fights to the last man regardless. They were looking for better surrender terms. With soviets coming in they had two superpowers at once to deal with.

Some historians argue the bombs were a bigger factor some the soviets.

But it's interesting to see people adopt a very consequentialist moral outlook on this issue (which I do think is valid here at least to an extent ) despite coming from backgrounds like Christianity which trends deontological or virtue ethics