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Bishop Robert Barron took to X on Monday to call out the media for exacerbating what he described as an “absurd” narrative of a “war” between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV over disagreements related to Iran.
“There is a way past the absurd and deeply divisive ‘war’ between the President and the Pope, which has been enthusiastically ginned up by the press,” Barron said in a Monday post on X. “And it is indicated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2309 to be precise. After laying out the various criteria for determining a just war—proportionality, last resort, declaration by a competent authority, reasonable hope of success, etc.—the Catechism points out that ‘the evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.’”
Barron added, “The assumption is that the just war principles function, to use the technical term, as heuristic devices, designed to guide the practical decision-making of those civil authorities who have to adjudicate matters of war and peace.”
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A split image of Bishop Robert Barron, President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV. (Getty Images)
He then continued, saying that it is not the role of the Church to determine whether a war is just.
“The role of the Church, therefore, is to call for peace and to urge that any conflict be strictly circumscribed by the moral constraints of the just war criteria,” Barron said. “But it is not the role of the Church to evaluate whether a particular war is just or unjust. That appraisal belongs to the civil authorities, who, one presumes, have requisite knowledge of conditions on the ground.”
He continued by laying out a series of questions to be considered, including, “Is the war in question truly the last resort? Is there really a balance between the good to be attained and the destruction caused by the war? Are combatants and non-combatants 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.”
Last Sunday, Trump accused Pope Leo XIV of being “terrible” on foreign policy after the pope called out the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
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A split image shows Pope Leo XIV, left, and President Donald Trump, right, amid a public dispute over immigration policy and the conflict involving Iran. (Simone Risoluti – Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images; Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“He talks about ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
On Saturday, Pope Leo said remarks he gave stating that the “world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” were not targeted toward Trump.
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President Donald Trump. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
Speaking on a flight to Angola for his 10-day tour of Africa, Pope Leo XIV said media coverage of remarks “has not been accurate in all its aspects” and that his speech “was prepared two weeks ago, well before the president ever commented on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting,” according to Reuters.
Last week, Barron said that Trump owes Pope Leo an apology after Trump posted his scathing message about Leo in a Truth Social post.
“The statements made by President Trump on Truth Social regarding the Pope were entirely inappropriate and disrespectful,” Barron said in an X post. “They don’t contribute at all to a constructive conversation. It is the Pope’s prerogative to articulate Catholic doctrine and the principles that govern the moral life. In regard to the concrete application of those principles, people of good will can and do disagree.”
Barron concluded his Monday X post by emphasizing that popes are not politicians.
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Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from the window of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican on March 1, 2026. The pontiff warned that escalating violence in the Middle East risks becoming an “irreparable abyss.” (Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters)
“The Pope has said, on numerous occasions, that he is not a politician and that his role is not the determination of any nation’s foreign policy,” Barron said. “But he has just as clearly said that he will continue to speak for peace and for moral constraint. In making both of these claims, he is operating perfectly within the framework of paragraph 2309 of the Catechism. If we understand that the Pope and the President have qualitatively different roles to play in the determination of moral action in regard to war, we can, I hope, extricate ourselves from the completely unhelpful narrative of ‘Pope vs. President.’”
Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
