While various leading U.S. prelates have taken the position that the U.S. war with Iran fails to meet the Churchʼs classic just war criteria, opinion on the matter is not unanimous.
In recent days, one of the countryʼs most prominent bishops in the public arena, Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, contended that itʼs not even the role of the Churchʼs leaders to make a final determination about whether a particular war is just or not.
“The role of the Church,” Barron wrote in an X post on April 20, “is to call for peace and to urge that any conflict be strictly circumscribed by the moral constraints of the just war criteria,” which is outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2309).
However, he continued, “it is not the role of the Church to evaluate whether a particular war is just or unjust.” To buttress his argument, Barron cited the catechism’s explicit “just war” doctrine teaching (No. 2309) that “the evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.”
“So, is the war in question truly the last resort?” Barron asked, referencing just war criteria. “Is there really a balance between the good to be attained and the destruction caused by the war? Are combatants and noncombatants being properly distinguished in the waging of the conflict? Do the belligerents have right intention? Is there a reasonable hope of success? The posing of those questions — indeed the insistence upon their moral relevance — belongs rightly to the Church, but the answering of them belongs to the civil authorities,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, other clergy with significant public influence, such as Archdiocese of New York priest Father Gerald Murray, a former U.S. Navy chaplain, hold outright that the U.S. military action against Iran does qualify as a just war.
In an extensive appraisal of the situation in the light of just war teaching, Murray wrote in The Free Press that “the justice of the United States attack on Iran is confirmed by the Iranian regime’s admissions.”
Murray cited U.S. negotiator Steve Witkoff, who revealed that in the days just prior to the outbreak of the war “both Iranian negotiators said to us [Witkoff and fellow U.S. negotiator Jared Kushner] directly with, you know, no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs, and that was the beginning of their negotiating stance.” The Iranian negotiators told their U.S. counterparts, Witkoff continued, that “they had the inalienable right to enrich all their nuclear fuel that they possessed.”
“A nuclear-armed Iran with ballistic missiles is an imminent threat to the United States, Israel, and many other countries,” Murray said.
“The advanced state of uranium enrichment meant that the United States and Israel faced an imminent threat. The clear intent of the Iranian regime to build nuclear weapons has not changed. Given that, it was just for the United States and Israel to attack Iran in order to eliminate the nuclear threat,” Murray affirmed, calling the joint military action “an act of protection, rather than aggression, under just war theory.”
Murray also pointed out that the negotiations that preceded the attack on Iran “show the length to which the United States was willing to go to avoid war — evidence that the strike was a last resort.”
Furthermore, he noted that when Witkoff and Kushner told the Iranian negotiators that the United States would provide non-weapons-grade uranium to Iran for 10 years if it stopped pursuing nuclear weapons, they were rebuffed by the Iranians.
“They rejected that, which told us at that very moment that they had no notion of doing anything other than retaining enrichment for the purpose of weaponizing,” Witkoff recounted.
“I do believe this is a just war precisely because of the nature of the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the United States, Israel, and its allies,” Murray said in a separate interview. “The just war criteria, in my opinion, does not require that we first absorb a nuclear attack before we can actually then respond to try to destroy their nuclear weapons.”
The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February but have been in a ceasefire since April 8, which President Donald Trump extended indefinitely amid negotiations. No side has agreed to long-term peace.
Pope Leo XIV criticized the war and urged peace while Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the attack “does not seem to meet the conditions” of just war.
On April 23, Leo doubled down on his opposition to war, saying he encourages “the continuation of dialogue for peace” amid the ceasefire negotiations.
“As a pastor, I cannot be in favor of war, and I would like to encourage everyone to make every effort to seek responses that come from a culture of peace and not of hatred,” the Holy Father said.
Tyler Arnold contributed to this report.