The National Register portal commentary by Alberto M. Fernandez (June 16, 2026) analyzes the aftermath of the recent US-Iran war, framing it entirely through the lens of geopolitical strategy, national interests, and secular power politics. The author asks whether America “won” or “lost,” whether Israel is “weaker” or “dominant,” and whether Iran’s regime will stabilize or fracture. The commentary mentions the suffering of Lebanese Christians and the displacement of civilians only as secondary factors in a calculus of statecraft. Most gravely, it cites with apparent neutrality the antipope Leo XIV’s dismissal of just war theory as “outdated,” thereby treating the Church’s immutable moral teaching as a matter of opinion rather than divine law. The entire article proceeds from the assumption that wars between nations are judged by their political outcomes, not by their conformity to the moral law of God and the social reign of Christ the King.
The Absence of the Only True Criterion of Judgment
The commentary opens with a question that reveals the spiritual blindness of the modern world: “Did America just lose a war to Iran in the Middle East? Or was it a great American victory whose full import will only be seen over time?” These are the only two alternatives the author can conceive — victory or defeat as measured by temporal power, economic advantage, and geopolitical positioning. Nowhere does the article so much as hint at the only question that matters before God: Was this war just according to the law of God, and did it serve the true peace that comes only from the reign of Christ the King?
Pius XI taught with absolute clarity in Quas Primas (1925) that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” The modern world, including those who style themselves Catholic commentators, has erected an entire edifice of analysis upon the deliberate exclusion of this principle. Fernandez asks whether gas prices will decline, whether inflation fears will ease, whether America will be “at peace” for its 250th anniversary. These are the idols of the modern mind: economic comfort, national celebration, and the absence of open conflict — not the presence of justice, truth, and the order willed by God.
The Dismissal of Just War Theory: An Antipope Speaks
Perhaps the most damning element in the entire commentary is the casual citation of the antipope Leo XIV’s assertion that just war theory is “outdated.” The author presents this not as the grave error and apostasy it is, but as a neutral observation: “Pope Leo XIV recently noted that just war theory was ‘outdated,’ and that may certainly be the case.”
Let the faithful understand what this means. The just war doctrine is not a human invention subject to revision with the times. It is the application of the natural law and divine law to the grave question of when a nation may take up arms. It was articulated by St. Augustine, refined by St. Thomas Aquinas, and confirmed by the ordinary Magisterium of the Church throughout the centuries. To declare it “outdated” is to declare that the moral law itself is outdated — that God’s commandments are subject to the evolution of human opinion. This is precisely the error condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), which rejected the proposition that “moral laws do not stand in need of the divine sanction” (proposition 56 of the Syllabus of Errors) and that “the science of philosophical things and morals and also civil laws may and ought to keep aloof from divine and ecclesiastical authority” (proposition 57).
The antipope Leo XIV, as a manifest heretic and usurper of the Chair of Peter, possesses no authority whatsoever to teach on faith or morals. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in De Romano Pontifice, 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.” His dismissal of just war theory is not a development of doctrine but a further confirmation of the apostasy that has consumed the conciliar sect since the death of the last valid pontiff.
The Suffering of Christians: A Footnote to Geopolitics
The article acknowledges the plight of Lebanese Christians in a single sentence: “For some Lebanese Christians, the breaking of Hezbollah’s hold on power is a matter of life and death, of whether or not Christians in Lebanon persist and remain in their ancient lands.” This is the only mention of the suffering of the faithful in an article otherwise consumed with the strategic calculations of statesmen and the economic forecasts of analysts.
The image accompanying the article — residents picking through the “heavily damaged historic market of Nabatieh” — testifies to the reality that the commentary’s abstract language conceals: human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, reduced to rubble and displacement by the wars of nations that have rejected their King. The ancient Christian communities of the Middle East, which have endured centuries of persecution, are now caught between the machinations of Iran, Israel, and the United States — none of which recognize the sovereignty of Christ over their actions.
Pius XI declared in Quas Primas that Christ’s reign “extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” The nations waging war in the Middle East — and the commentators analyzing their actions — operate as though this truth does not exist. They treat the Middle East as a chessboard of competing national interests, not as a land where the blood of martyrs cries out for justice under the kingship of Christ.
The Illusion of “Peace” Without Christ
Vice President JD Vance is quoted as celebrating the agreement because it “ensures that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, while simultaneously opening the Strait of Hormuz” to oil transport. The author adds that “gas prices will decline and inflation fears will ease” and that “the United States will be at peace for the 250th anniversary celebration of its founding.”
This is the peace of the world — the peace of full gas tanks, stable markets, and national celebrations. It is the peace that Christ explicitly rejected: “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27). The peace of the world is built on the exclusion of God from public life, on the reduction of human flourishing to material comfort, and on the silencing of the moral law in the name of pragmatism.
Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemned 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 entire framework of the Fernandez commentary — its celebration of diplomatic deals, its focus on economic indicators, its dismissal of moral theology — is precisely the reconciliation of Catholic thought with the spirit of modern liberalism that Pius IX anathematized.
The True Question: Will This War Produce More Wars?
The author concludes by asking “whether or not it will engender more wars or whether anything better or different can come out of it, especially for the peoples of the Middle East.” This is the right question asked for the wrong reasons. The author seeks a pragmatic answer — will the deal hold, will the region stabilize, will the suffering end? But the only true answer is the one the author cannot bring himself to utter: as long as nations refuse to submit to the kingship of Christ, there will be no peace, only an endless succession of wars punctuated by temporary and illusory truces.
The Syllabus of Errors condemned the proposition that “the injustice of an act when successful inflicts no injury on the sanctity of right” (proposition 61). Every war waged outside the bounds of justice, every diplomatic agreement built on the exclusion of God’s law, every “peace” purchased at the price of moral truth — all of these accumulate as debts that will be paid in the currency of future conflicts. The Middle East has known nothing but war for over a century precisely because the nations that have shaped its destiny — Britain, France, the United States, Israel, Iran — have all rejected the social reign of Christ the King.
Conclusion: The World Judges by Appearances; God Judges by Truth
The Fernandez commentary is a perfect specimen of modern Catholic journalism: outwardly Catholic in its references, inwardly secular in its assumptions; acknowledging the existence of Christian suffering while subordinating it to geopolitical analysis; citing the words of an antipope with the same deference once reserved for the Vicar of Christ. It asks every question except the one that matters: Does this war, and the peace that follows it, conform to the law of God and the kingship of Christ?
The answer is self-evident. A war launched and concluded without reference to divine law, analyzed by commentators who treat moral theology as “outdated,” and celebrated for its economic benefits rather than its justice — such a war is not a victory for anyone, however much the partisans of this or that nation may claim otherwise. It is one more link in the chain of apostasy that binds the modern world, one more confirmation that “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed” (Pius XI, Ubi Arcano).
The peoples of the Middle East — Christian, Muslim, and all — deserve better than the calculations of statesmen who have forgotten God. They deserve the peace of Christ, which can only come when His kingship is recognized in the laws and institutions of nations. Until that day, every “victory” will be bitter, and every “peace” will be a prelude to the next war.
Source:
Bitter Victory or Sweet Defeat in the Middle East, But Whose? (ncregister.com)
Date: 16.06.2026