Pope Leo’s words on Palm Sunday were pointed. “Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war”, he said during an address at the Vatican.

A few days later in early April, when Timothy Broglio, the archbishop for US military services, was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation if the Iran war is a “just war” in the tradition of the Catholic church, he said: “It is not. While there was a threat with nuclear arms, it’s compensating for a threat before the threat is actually realised.”

US Vice President JD Vance – a recent convert to Catholicism – and Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, pushed back, arguing that the conflict does........

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