As I write, Pope Leo has just completed the fifth of his weekly (Wednesday) General Audience addresses at Saint Peter’s Square. The theme of these addresses has been “Jesus Christ Our Hope.” Depending on how one reads the texts of these messages, they might well be described as commentaries on the evils of war.

In his June 25 address, the pontiff addressed conflicts involving Israel, Iran, Palestine, and Syria. His call, directed toward the war-torn Middle East, is to reject “arrogance and revenge” and choose “dialogue, diplomacy and peace.” Following his appeal, Leo concluded his address by citing Isaiah 2:4: “Nation will not lift up the sword against nation, neither learn war anymore.” Leo’s use of the eschatological promise of Isaiah, coupled with his exhortations to reject “arrogance and revenge” and choose “dialogue, diplomacy and peace,” require severe qualification and some comment.

At the bare minimum, we might argue that the pontiff is swabbing symptoms and not getting to the root of the socio-political (and moral) problem of war, at least in the Middle East. For the challenge facing Israel is the reality of a decades-long campaign of hate and destruction. What is Israel to do amid a decades-long proxy war waged against it by Iran? And when Iran’s end goal is the destruction of Israel as a nation? Moreover, do relatively free nations have any responsibility in responding to this evil?

Alas, Leo’s admonition to choose “dialogue, diplomacy and peace” is not within the purview of either Iran’s theocratic vision or its military mafia. At the international level, “arrogance and revenge,” on sad occasion, must be countered by coercive force when diplomacy inevitably fails. How, we might ask, should nations engage in diplomacy with socio-political evil at the international level? And at what point do dialogue and diplomacy become appeasement? Since its inception, Iran’s theocratic regime has demonstrated that it will not be content until Israel exists no more. For this very reason, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in 2017 described the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “the new Hitler” of the Middle East region. Despite the pontiff’s calls for negotiation, the truth is that the Iranian regime cannot perpetuate itself without the outward threat of Israel and the West to justify itself.

But our analysis must go deeper, if in fact we affirm in the context of wider Judeo-Christian faith the moral realities that attend justice among the nations. I refer here to the venerable tradition of “just war”—perhaps best described as the tradition of “justified war.” Pope Leo XIV needs to become acquainted—if not reacquainted—with that tradition, which is something his predecessor was unable (or unwilling) to do.

Some of the essential elements of that rich tradition are delineated, albeit briefly, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (nos. 2304-2312). While it is true that Leo’s predecessor did not “alter” the Catechism, it is no secret that he failed to affirm the Catechism’s—and thus the historic Christian tradition’s—acknowledgement of particular moral conditions that must guide the use of coercive force by nations. Among those conditions mentioned by the Catechism are the following:

• “Peace is not merely the absence of war . . . Peace cannot be attained on earth without safeguarding the goods of persons [and] . . .  respect for the dignity of persons and peoples . . . Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity.”
• “. . . as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed . . .”
• “Public authorities . . . have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligation necessary for national defense.”
• “The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict.”

While the Catholic Catechism neither outlines the primary moral conditions underpinning the just war tradition—i.e., legitimate authority, just cause, right intention, non-combatant immunity, and proportionality—nor offers in any detail the moral-theological basis of the tradition, it does acknowledge that not every “peace” is justified. Indeed, peace can be illegitimate; the Mafia, terrorists, and drug cartels illustrate this sad reality. Thus, peace must be justly ordered. In the words of Augustine, we go to war to establish peace.

That war and peace confront the current pontiff should not be any surprise. And that Leo, at this early point in his pontificate, would seem to continue the line of thinking of his predecessor, might not be all that surprising either. But it should raise questions.

In his fourth General Audience address (June 18) Leo issued a strong call for “peace,” exhorting his listeners not to “get used” to war, calling them to “reject as a temptation the allure of powerful and sophisticated weapons,” and to consider that “war is always a defeat.” Citing Pope Pius XII, whose pontificate was framed by the Second World War, he insisted, “nothing is lost with peace,” while “everything can be lost with war.”

These at best are, of course, half-truths. Much, if not all, can be lost with peace, that is, a “peace” that is illicit and therefore unjust, while human dignity, human freedom, and justice can be gained by a war that is waged justly, which is the very aim of just war moral reasoning.

But we must take issue with Leo’s closing citation of Isaiah 2:4. The promise that “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” and “Nation will not take up sword against nation, neither will they train for war anymore” is a promise of the coming age, the eschaton. It is not to be realized in the present life, nor should we pray for it (as Leo has done) short of the Kingdom come. As someone has quipped, if we insist that the lion and the lamb lie down together now, we shall continually need to replace the lamb. The Isaianic promise is future reality, and to expect—or assume theologically—that its fulfillment should be present is a distortion of biblical theology and an ethical distortion of Christian involvement in political life.

Let us not only pray for nations in conflict but for Christian leadership as well, in the hopes that the Church will be guided wisely rather than foolishly as she attempts to exercise responsible engagement with a fallen world.