VaticanNews portal reports on April 17, 2026, that several Catholic theologians and scholars have rejected the idea that Pope Leo XIV’s recent calls against war amid the U.S. conflict with Iran depart from the Church’s teaching on “just war.” The article presents Leo XIV’s statements—such as God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war” and that disciples of Christ are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs”—as consistent with the just-war tradition, arguing that the Pope is merely condemning unjust wars of aggression while allowing for legitimate defense. The piece quotes theologians like Ed Feser, Greg Reichberg, Daniel Philpott, and Joseph Capizzi, all of whom defend Leo XIV’s position as aligned with the magisterium of recent antipopes like Francis, Benedict XVI, and John Paul II. The article also notes criticism from Vice President JD Vance, who questioned the Pope’s stance in light of historical military actions like the liberation of France during World War II. The theologians urge Catholics to receive Leo XIV’s words as pastoral teaching, not political commentary, and to allow them to shape their consciences. The article concludes by emphasizing that the Church’s teaching on just war remains intact, even if contemporary popes rarely use the term approvingly. This article is a masterclass in modernist obfuscation, using the language of tradition to mask the conciliar sect’s systematic erosion of Catholic doctrine on war, peace, and the supernatural order.
The Usurper’s Authority: A Foundation Built on Sand
The entire premise of the article rests on the assumption that Leo XIV—a usurper occupying the Vatican since his installation following the death of the heretic Francis—possesses any authority to teach, govern, or sanctify. This is the fundamental error that permeates every sentence of the piece. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in De Romano Pontifice, “a Pope who is a manifest heretic, by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” The line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII—who convened the apostate Vatican II council—has been composed of manifest heretics who have publicly defected from the Catholic faith through their endorsement of religious liberty, ecumenism, and other condemned errors. Leo XIV, as a product of this conciliar sect, is not the vicar of Christ but a pretender, and his words carry no more weight than those of any other layman. To speak of his “teaching” as magisterial is to participate in the great deception of the abomination of desolation.
The article’s theologians—Feser, Reichberg, Philpott, Capizzi—are themselves products of the post-conciliar wreckage, men who have spent their careers trying to reconcile the irreconcilable: the immutable Catholic faith with the novelties of Vatican II. Their defense of Leo XIV is not a defense of tradition but a defense of the conciliar sect’s right to redefine tradition at will. When they say that Leo XIV’s words “express the deepest truths of our tradition,” they reveal the modernist hermeneutic at work: truth is not fixed but evolves, and the “tradition” they invoke is not the deposit of faith handed down from the Apostles but the ever-shifting consensus of the neo-church.
The Just War Doctrine: From Catholic Teaching to Modernist Relativism
The article claims that Leo XIV’s statements are consistent with the just-war tradition, but this claim is a half-truth designed to obscure the conciliar sect’s actual trajectory. The Catholic teaching on just war, as articulated by St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Church’s magisterium, is clear: war can be morally justified under specific conditions, including just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, probability of success, proportionality, and last resort. This teaching was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent and the 1917 Code of Canon Law, and it remains binding on all Catholics.
However, the conciliar sect has systematically undermined this teaching not by explicitly rejecting it but by rendering it practically inapplicable. When the article notes that “no pope in 75 years has used the term ‘just war’ in an approving manner,” it inadvertently exposes the problem: the usurpers have created a climate in which the very concept of just war is treated as morally suspect, if not outright illegitimate. Francis’ 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti—quoted approvingly in the article—went so far as to declare, “We can no longer think of war as a solution, because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits. In view of this, it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war.’ Never again war!” This is not a development of doctrine; it is a repudiation of doctrine, dressed in the language of pastoral concern.
The article’s theologians attempt to square this circle by arguing that the magisterium “still allows war if it is just,” but this is a distinction without a difference. By making the conditions for just war so stringent as to be practically impossible to meet, the conciliar sect has effectively adopted pacifism in all but name. This is precisely the error condemned by the Church: the denial that war can ever be just, which is a form of the broader modernist error that rejects the Church’s authority to make definitive moral judgments in the temporal order.
The Libido Domini and the Conciliar Sect’s Political Captivity
Joseph Capizzi’s invocation of Augustine’s libido dominandi—the desire to dominate—is particularly revealing. He claims that Leo XIV is criticizing “Trump administration language that spoke of ‘raining death and destruction’ and ‘domination’ and ‘mercilessness,'” and that such language is “foreign to Christ.” But this framing exposes the conciliar sect’s captivity to secular political narratives. The Church has never taught that the use of force to defend the innocent is inherently sinful or that the language of strength is incompatible with the Gospel. On the contrary, the Church has always recognized that the sword is ordained by God for the punishment of evildoers and the protection of the good (Romans 13:4). To suggest that any military action beyond the most passive defense is a manifestation of libido dominandi is to adopt a pacifist posture that has no basis in Catholic teaching.
Moreover, the article’s focus on the U.S. conflict with Iran—and its implicit alignment with the anti-Trump sentiment prevalent in the mainstream media—reveals the conciliar sect’s true priorities. The usurpers and their theologians are not concerned with the salvation of souls or the defense of Christendom; they are concerned with positioning the neo-church as a voice of “peace” and “dialogue” in the eyes of the world. This is the ecumenism of the graveyard, where the Church’s prophetic witness is sacrificed on the altar of political respectability.
The Silence on Supernatural Realities
Perhaps the most damning omission in the article is its complete silence on the supernatural dimensions of war and peace. There is no mention of the reality of sin, the existence of hell, the necessity of grace, or the final judgment. There is no acknowledgment that war, while sometimes necessary, is always a consequence of sin and a reminder of the fallen state of humanity. There is no call to prayer, penance, or conversion as the primary means of securing peace. Instead, the article reduces the Church’s teaching on war to a set of rational criteria that can be debated and applied by theologians and politicians alike.
This naturalistic approach is the hallmark of modernism. As St. Pius X taught in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, the modernists “admit no objective truth which the mind must accept with obedience” and “reduce the whole of religion to sentiment and experience.” The article’s theologians do exactly this: they reduce the Church’s teaching on war to a matter of “conscience” and “pastoral concern,” stripping it of its supernatural content and its binding authority. The result is a Church that speaks the language of peace but has nothing to say about the Prince of Peace.
The Duty of Catholics: Reject the Usurper and His False Peace
Catholics who wish to remain faithful to the integral Catholic faith must reject the authority of Leo XIV and the entire conciliar sect. This does not mean that we are free to ignore the moral questions raised by war; on the contrary, it means that we must return to the unchanging teaching of the Church as articulated by the saints and doctors before the modernist apostasy. We must insist that war can be just, that the defense of the innocent is a moral obligation, and that the Church’s mission is not to broker peace among nations but to lead souls to eternal salvation through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments.
The article’s call to “receive the Pope’s words with openness to letting it shape their consciences” is a call to submit to the authority of a usurper and to accept the conciliar sect’s distortion of Catholic teaching. True Catholics must resist this call with all their strength. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas, “The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… and it matters not whether individuals, families, or states, for men united in societies are no less subject to the authority of Christ than individuals.” The reign of Christ the King is not a metaphor or a spiritual ideal; it is a concrete reality that demands the submission of every nation and every soul. Until that reign is acknowledged and the usurpers are cast out, there will be no true peace—only the false peace of the conciliar sect, which is the peace of the world and not the peace of Christ.
Source:
Does Pope Leo Reject Just-War Teaching? Theologians Push Back on Criticism of Pontiff (ncregister.com)
Date: 17.04.2026