Extract from Eureka Street
- Home
- Vol 36 No 8
- Why Pope Leo rejects the logic of modern war
- Andrew Hamilton
- 07 May 2026
In recent weeks, Pope Leo XIV has spoken out strongly in favour of peace and has deplored war in the context of the Middle East and other conflicts. In doing so he has also spoken on behalf of the Catholic Church against attempts to justify going to war on Christian grounds. The press and liberal critics of President Trump have seen these remarks as an attack on the President. So has President Trump himself. As a result, the Pope and the Catholic Church more generally have become the flavour of the month for critics of the President, much to the delight of those Catholics who prize such favour. The Pope, however, has denied that he was targeting individuals.
His denial deserves reflection because it discloses the three groups whom Pope Leo represents and the different audiences with whom he engages.
Pope Leo speaks first as a Christian believer. At the heart of his faith is trust in a God who loves each human being dearly and joins humanity in Jesus to free people from the chains of sin. Christ embodies God’s love as he reaches out to the poorest and most ostracised members of society, gathers a small community committed to radical trust and love, is rejected by religious authorities and their Roman overlords, is tortured and killed, and then rises to deliver the promise of life beyond death, of God’s mercy over human sin, and of a community committed to living out his radical way in gratitude.
Central to this faith is recognition of the high value of every human being, a commitment to love and non-violence, a realistic assessment of the lethal consequences of fear, selfishness and anger, and hope in God’s accompaniment. It advocates a preference for peacemaking. When addressing both fellow Christians and other audiences on the subject of war, Pope Leo speaks out of this faith and focuses on the suffering of war’s victims.
Second, Pope Leo also addresses Catholic Christians as Bishop of Rome. In the Catholic Church, he and his fellow bishops are responsible for encouraging a lived and authentic faith among Catholics in their communal life and in their engagement with the world outside the Church. In these interactions they believe that God’s Spirit is at work. In his speeches Pope Leo addresses the Catholic Church, comforts people who suffer, pleads for peace and negotiation, deplores war, and refutes any claim made for its religious justification.
Third, Pope Leo speaks to people of all religions and of none as a fellow sinful human being who is also a Christian and the Catholic Pope. To this general audience he insists that each human life is precious and that persons are not to be treated as a means to a strategic end. This conviction lies at the heart of the Christian Gospel. He addresses both people who share this high view of human life but ground it differently, and those who regard some human lives as expendable.
This public conversation naturally focuses on just war theory, whose initiation is attributed to St Augustine but which has been refined both in Catholic teaching and in international law to respond to the changing shapes of war. It describes the conditions that both the decision to go to war and the actions involved in it must meet if they are to be considered just. To be justified, a war must satisfy each of these conditions.
“Respect for the human dignity of each person leads him to mourn for, and plead the cause of, those who are victims of war and to insist on diplomacy instead of warfare.”
It must be legitimately declared, it must be a last resort after diplomacy has failed, it must be fought for a just cause, it must pursue an attainable objective, and ensure that the harm and destruction caused by the war are proportionate to the good sought in it. Similar conditions also govern the actions taken in pursuit of its goals. They exclude the killing of non-combatants or prisoners and require that the damage caused to persons and society by any action be proportionate.
In his recent remarks on war, Pope Leo does not appeal directly to just war theory. But it is central to the development of Catholic reflection on war and underlies his constant insistence on negotiation, conversation and mediation as alternatives to war. Catholic reflection on war, as enunciated by recent Popes, has come close to concluding that modern war is always unjustifiable because of the destructive power of modern weapons, which destroy human lives and relationships far beyond the sites of conflict. War also breeds the hatred that seeds further wars. Only the case of armed resistance to an unjust invasion holds back a total condemnation of war.
This analysis suggests why Pope Leo speaks so uncompromisingly against modern wars, focuses so closely on the persons who are the direct and indirect victims of war, and has denied that he is condemning President Trump and other leaders in his remarks about war. Respect for the human dignity of each person leads him to mourn for, and plead the cause of, those who are victims of war and to insist on diplomacy instead of warfare. The same respect for human dignity calls Pope Leo to engage respectfully even with those responsible for war. Even when, in their own conduct, they may fail to show that same respect.
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