VaticanNews portal (April 15, 2026) publishes an editorial by Andrea Tornielli that presents the teaching of the line of usurpers on peace and war, from Benedict XV to Leo XIV, arguing that the concept of “just war” has become practically untenable in the modern era due to the destructive power of contemporary weapons. The article traces a supposed “development” of doctrine through the magisterium of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Francis, and Leo XIV, culminating in the latter’s call to “put the sword back into its sheath” and reject the “idolatry of power.” This editorial is nothing but a thinly veiled modernist manifesto that systematically dismantles the Church’s immutable teaching on the moral legitimacy of defensive war, replaces the supernatural mission of the Church with naturalistic pacifism, and reveals the conciliar sect’s fundamental apostasy from the Social Kingship of Christ.
The Hermeneutic of Continuity as a Weapon of Apostasy
Tornielli’s editorial employs the classic modernist strategy of the “hermeneutic of continuity” — the conciarist lie that the revolutionary teachings of the post-1958 usurpers represent a legitimate “enrichment” and “deepening” of prior doctrine. The article states: “This teaching has gradually been enriched and deepened, to the point of recognizing how increasingly difficult it is to claim that a ‘just war’ exists.” This language of “enrichment” and “deepening” is the very vocabulary of Modernism condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), where he rejected the proposition that “Christian doctrine was initially Jewish, but through gradual development, it became first Pauline, then Johannine, and finally Greek and universal” (Proposition 60), and that “truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Proposition 58). The notion that the Church’s moral teaching on war can “evolve” to the point of practical negation is not development but corruption — precisely the error condemned by the Holy Office under St. Pius X, who identified such thinking as “the synthesis of all errors” — Modernism itself.
The Immutable Doctrine on Just War: A Catholic Certainty
The Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Ghost, has always taught — and will until the end of time teach — that war can be morally legitimate under specific conditions. This is not a matter of “past centuries” with “swords and clubs,” as Tornielli dismissively suggests, but a perennial application of the natural law and divine positive law to changing circumstances. The conditions for a just war were articulated with precision by the Church’s greatest theologians — St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, Francisco de Vitoria, and Suárez — and were never abrogated by any legitimate pontiff.
The conditions are: (1) legitimate authority; (2) just cause (namely, defense against aggression, recovery of what is rightly owed, or punishment of grave evil); (3) right intention (the restoration of peace and justice, not hatred or domination); (4) proportionality of means; (5) last resort; and (6) reasonable hope of success. These conditions are derived from the natural law, which is immutable, and from divine revelation, which does not change. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), even in its compromised post-conciliar form, acknowledges these conditions — though Tornielli and the usurpers cite this acknowledgment selectively, omitting the crucial point: the conditions have not changed; only the circumstances of their application have become more complex.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), taught with absolute clarity that Christ the King possesses authority over all nations, and that rulers who refuse to recognize this authority contribute to the destruction of society: “When God and Jesus Christ — as we lamented — were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed, because the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed.” The right of a nation to defend itself against unjust aggression flows directly from the recognition of Christ’s Kingship over the social order. To deny this right is to deny the Social Reign of Christ — which is precisely what the conciliar sect has done since John XXIII opened the floodgates of revolution.
The Usurpers’ Line of Apostasy: From Benedict XV to Leo XIV
Tornielli constructs a genealogy of “peace teaching” that begins with Benedict XV’s 1917 letter describing World War I as an “useless slaughter.” While Benedict XV’s description of that particular war’s futility may have been pastorally appropriate, it was a prudential judgment about a specific conflict — not a doctrinal negation of the just war tradition. To extrapolate from a prudential wartime statement a universal moral principle is a fundamental logical error, one that Tornielli and the entire conciliar apparatus commit systematically.
The article then cites John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris (1963), which stated that “it is almost impossible to think that in the atomic era war could be used as an instrument of justice.” Note the careful phrasing: “almost impossible” — not “impossible.” John XXIII, the architect of the conciliar revolution, was already laying the groundwork for the practical negation of the just war doctrine while maintaining plausible deniability. This is the modus operandi of Modernism: to undermine doctrine through ambiguity and gradual erosion rather than open denial.
Paul VI’s cry of “No more war!” at the United Nations — an institution dedicated to the erasure of Christ’s Kingship from international order — was not a theological statement but a political gesture of capitulation to the spirit of the world. John Paul II’s “often unheard appeals” to prevent conflicts in the Middle East were similarly prudential and political, not doctrinal pronouncements. Francis’s Fratelli tutti (2020) went further, declaring: “We can no longer think of war as a solution, because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits… Never again war!” This is not Catholic teaching; it is utopian pacifism indistinguishable from secular humanitarianism.
And now Leo XIV — the current usurper on the Chair of Peter — continues this trajectory. Tornielli quotes him: “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!” This is not the language of a Successor of Peter exercising the magisterium cathedrum — it is the language of a secular moralist, indistinguishable from the platitudes of the United Nations or the World Council of Churches. Where is the mention of Christ the King? Where is the recognition that nations have a duty to defend the innocent, to resist unjust aggression, and to uphold the natural law? Where is the supernatural framework of sin, grace, and final judgment that gives Catholic moral teaching its coherence and authority?
The Omission That Condemns: Silence on Christ the King
The most damning feature of Tornielli’s editorial is not what it says but what it omits. The article is entirely devoid of any reference to the Social Kingship of Christ, the duty of nations to publicly recognize His authority, the reality of sin as the root cause of war, the necessity of grace and the sacraments for true peace, or the final judgment that awaits all nations. This silence is not accidental; it is the defining characteristic of the conciliar sect’s naturalistic humanism.
Pius XI taught in Quas Primas: “The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” And further: “Rulers of states therefore should not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ, but should fulfill this duty themselves and with their people, if they wish to maintain their authority inviolate and contribute to the increase of their homeland’s happiness.”
True peace — Pax Christi in Regno Christi — is impossible without the recognition of Christ’s Kingship over individuals, families, and states. The conciliar sect’s “peace” is the peace of the world, the peace of compromise with evil, the peace that Our Lord explicitly rejected: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword” (Matt. 10:34). The peace preached by Leo XIV and his predecessors is not the peace of Christ but the peace of the Antichrist — a false peace that leaves souls in the grip of sin and Satan.
The Idolatry of Dialogue and the Rejection of Authority
Tornielli describes Leo XIV as calling for “peace, dialogue, and negotiation with both realism and prophetic clarity.” This triad — peace, dialogue, negotiation — is the holy trinity of the conciarist religion, replacing the true Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. “Dialogue” has become the supreme virtue of the post-conciliar sect, superseding truth, doctrine, and the authority of the Church. Pius IX condemned this spirit in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), rejecting the proposition that “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80).
The call to “put the sword back into its sheath” — attributed to Leo XIV as an echo of Jesus in Gethsemane — is a gross misapplication of Scripture. Our Lord’s command to Peter in Gethsemane was addressed to an individual acting without legitimate authority in a specific circumstance; it was not a universal moral principle abolishing the right of nations to defend themselves. The Church has always distinguished between the perfection of the Gospel counsel (which applies to individuals in specific circumstances) and the precepts of the natural law (which bind all societies at all times). To conflate the two is to fall into the error of the Anabaptists and other heretics whom the Church has consistently condemned.
The Naturalistic Reduction of the Church’s Mission
The entire editorial operates within a purely naturalistic framework. War is discussed solely in terms of “destructive power,” “modern weapons,” “drones,” “civilian casualties,” and “disproportionate spending on rearmament.” There is no mention of the supernatural order, no recognition that war is ultimately a consequence of original sin and actual sin, no call to repentance and conversion as the path to true peace, no reference to the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the supreme means of obtaining God’s mercy and averting His justice.
This naturalistic reduction is the hallmark of Modernism. St. Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), identified the fundamental error of the Modernists as the denial of the supernatural order and the reduction of religion to a purely human phenomenon. The conciliar sect’s “peace teaching” is a perfect illustration of this error: it addresses the symptoms of war (weapons, destruction, civilian deaths) while ignoring the cause (sin), and it proposes purely human solutions (dialogue, negotiation, disarmament) while rejecting the only truly effective remedy (conversion to Christ and submission to His Church).
Conclusion: The Peace of the World Versus the Peace of Christ
Andrea Tornielli’s editorial is a compendium of every error the conciarist sect has propagated since 1958: the hermeneutic of continuity as a cover for doctrinal revolution, the naturalistic reduction of the Church’s mission, the replacement of Christ’s Kingship with secular humanitarianism, the idolatry of dialogue and negotiation, and the practical negation of the just war tradition while maintaining the appearance of continuity. Leo XIV’s call to “put the sword back into its sheath” is not the voice of the Vicar of Christ but the voice of the world — the same world that cried “Crucify Him!” and that continues to reject the Kingship of Christ in every age.
The true peace of Christ is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice — Iustitia et Pax osculatae sunt (Justice and Peace have kissed, Ps. 84:11). This justice is founded on the recognition of God’s sovereignty over all creation, the authority of His Church to teach and govern, and the duty of all nations to submit to the law of Christ the King. There is no peace without Christ, no Christ without His Church, and no Church without the uncompromising proclamation of His total Kingship over every aspect of human life. The conciliar sect, from John XXIII to Leo IV, has betrayed this truth and led countless souls into the false peace of apostasy. Let the faithful reject this counterfeit and cling to the immutable Tradition of the Church, which alone possesses the words of eternal life.
Source:
Popes and wars in the contemporary era (vaticannews.va)
Date: 15.04.2026