Disciples of Christ never side with warmakers, says Pope Leo
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Pope Leo XIV appeared to take aim at religious language used by U.S. officials to justify the war in Iran, in the latest salvo between the pontiff and the Trump administration over the conflict.
“God does not bless any conflict,” the American pontiff said on X on Friday. “Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
The pope didn’t name Trump or U.S. officials in the post, but the American pontiff has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of the war. He called Trump’s recent threat to wipe out Iran’s civilization “truly unacceptable” and appealed to Catholic faithful to press their political representatives to end the war.
The pope’s comments Friday appeared to reference religious language that members of the Trump administration have used recently.
President Trump earlier this week said he believed God is on his side in the war “because God is good.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, an evangelical Christian, has used religious rhetoric throughout the war, saying on Wednesday that the war effort was “carried out under the protection of divine providence.” He drew parallels between the resurrection of Christ and the survival and rescue of a U.S. pilot from Iranian territory on Easter Sunday. [Continue reading…]
On Monday, at a news conference touting the rescue of a crew member from a downed F-15 fighter jet in southern Iran, Hegseth once again invoked his religious beliefs to justify events as they transpired. “Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday, hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday and rescued on Sunday,” he said. “Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn.”
It’s not exactly the son of God dying for humanity’s sins, but it at least provided a positive spin to some inconvenient facts: a fighter jet felled weeks after Hegseth claimed that the US had achieved “total air dominance”; a rescue mission that resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of military aircraft; and all within the context of a war in which the US appears headed for a straightforward strategic defeat.
“Deus Vult,” reads the tattoo inked across Hegseth’s right biceps. It’s a Latin phrase meaning “God wills it” that is believed to have been chanted by the Christian warriors who responded to Pope Urban II’s call in 1095 to march to the Holy Land and reconquer it for Christendom. As the American and Iranian people remain trapped in this deeply unpopular war, it’s vital to understand what “God wills it” means to Hegseth, and what that might mean for the rest of us.
Hegseth has described his early life as having a “a Christian veneer but a secular core”. Born and raised in Minnesota, he pursued officer training while at Princeton and served multiple tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. (A longtime reservist, he left the service after being reported by fellow service members in 2021 for his Crusader tattoos, which have been associated with white supremacist and extremist groups.)
He was elevated to leadership roles at two different advocacy groups for veterans only to be forced out over what the New Yorker called “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct”. Twice divorced due to reported infidelity, he is now raising seven children with his third wife, whom he married in 2019. He paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of rape in 2017, though he denies the allegation. [Continue reading…]