Bishop Barron calls media Trump-Pope Leo XIV war narrative absurd

Bishop Robert Barron went to X on Monday to confront the media about President Donald Trump and Pope Benedict XIV. He warned that the “war” between Leo and Leo over disputes over Iran was further exacerbating the narrative, which he described as “absurd”.

“There is a way to get around the absurd and deeply divisive ‘war’ between the President and the Pope that is enthusiastically fomented by the press,” Barron said in his speech on Monday. he said. Publish on X. “And it is stated precisely in paragraph 2309 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. After setting out the various criteria for determining a just war (proportionality, last resort, declaration by a competent authority, reasonable hope of success, etc.), the Catechism states: ‘the assessment of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudent judgment of those responsible for the common good.'”

Barron added: “The assumption is that just war principles function, to use the technical term, as heuristics designed to guide the practical decision-making processes of civilian authorities who have to adjudicate matters of war and peace.”

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He then went on to say that it was not the Church’s place to decide whether a war was just or not.

“The role of the Church is therefore to call for peace and to encourage the strict containment of any conflict by the moral constraints of just war criteria,” Barron said. “But it is not the duty of the Church to assess whether a particular war was just or unjust. That assessment belongs to the civil authorities, who are presumed to have the necessary knowledge of the conditions on the ground.”

He went on to enumerate a series of questions for consideration: “Is the war in question really a last resort? Is there really a balance between the good to be achieved and the destruction wrought by war? Are combatants and non-combatants properly separated in the conduct of the conflict? Are the intentions of the combatants correct? Is there a reasonable hope for success? It rightly belongs to the Church to ask these questions – indeed to insist on their moral validity – but it also belongs to the Church to answer them. Some of them belong to the civil authorities.”

Last Sunday, Trump accused Pope Leo XIV of being “terrible” on foreign policy after the pope declared the US-Israeli war on Iran.

POPE LEO CALLS ‘Almighty Delusion’ AS HE DISCOVERS IRAN WAR AT PEACE VIgil in St. Peter’s Basilica

In a split photo, Pope Benedict XIV is seen amid public disagreement over immigration policy and the conflict involving Iran. Leo (left) and President Donald Trump (right) are seen. (Simone Risoluti – Vatican Pool/Vatican Media via Getty Images; Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“He talks about the ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but he doesn’t talk about FEAR.” catholic churchand every other Christian Organization experienced during Covid while arresting priests, ministers, and everyone else for holding Church Services even when going out and being ten or even twenty feet away from each other,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons.”

On Saturday, Pope Leo said his remarks about “the world being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” were not aimed at Trump.

POPE LEO SAYS HE IS NOT AFRAID OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATOR AFTER THE PRESIDENT CALLED HIM ‘TERRIBLE’ ON FOREIGN POLICY

President Donald Trump. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

He speaks on the plane heading to Angola for his 10-day flight africa tourPope Leo According to Reuters.

Last week, Barron said Trump owed Pope Leo an apology after Trump published his harsh message about Leo in a Truth Social post.

“President Trump’s comments about the Pope on Truth Social were completely inappropriate and disrespectful,” Barron said in the X post. “They contribute nothing to a constructive conversation. It is the Pope’s prerogative to articulate Catholic doctrine and the principles that govern the moral life. On the concrete application of these principles, people of good will may disagree.”

Barron concluded his Monday X post by emphasizing that popes are not politicians.

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Pope Leo XIV prays the Angelus prayer from the window of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican on March 1, 2026. The pope has warned that rising violence in the Middle East risks turning into an “irreparable abyss”. (Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters)

“The Pope has said many times that he is not a politician and that his role is not to determine the foreign policy of any country,” Barron said. he said. “But he has said equally clearly that he will continue to speak out for peace and moral restraint. On both of these arguments he operates perfectly within the framework of paragraph 2309 of the Catechism. If we understand that the Pope and the President have qualitatively different roles in determining moral action regarding war, I hope we can rid ourselves of the completely unhelpful ‘Pope vs. President’ narrative.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.