Three cardinals of the US Catholic Church issued a joint statement on Monday rejecting wars and calling for US foreign policy to be based on peace and respect for human dignity and religious freedom. This was reported by the news website Vatican News, writes TASR.
- Three American cardinals have rejected war and are calling for peace.
- They declared the need for a foreign policy based on dignity.
- They warned against the abuse of military force in international relations.
- They emphasized the importance of protecting life and religious freedom.
- They called on the US for a just peace and humanitarian aid.
Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich, Washington Archbishop Cardinal Robert McElroy and Newark Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin said in a statement that in 2026, the United States entered the deepest and most painful debate about the moral foundations of American action in the world since the end of the Cold War.
The meaning of peace
According to the three cardinals, the recent events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland raise “fundamental questions about the use of military force and the meaning of peace”. At the same time, they drew attention to the sovereign right of states to self-determination, which, according to them, appears to be increasingly fragile in the current conflicting geopolitical situation.
According to the cardinals, the pursuit of a just and sustainable peace is subject to partisanship, polarization and destructive policies, despite the fact that peace is crucial for the well-being of humanity.
“The moral role of our country – confronting evil in the world, protecting the right to life and human dignity, as well as supporting religious freedom – is questionable today,” they stated.
Leo XIV: War is coming back into fashion
In this context, the cardinals pointed to the speech of Pope Leo XIV. on the state of the world, which he delivered on January 9, which offers “a truly moral foundation” for both international relations and the direction of American foreign policy.
In his speech to the diplomats, Pope Leo drew attention to the weakening of multilateralism and the failure of diplomacy in the search for dialogue and consensus between hostile parties.
“War is coming back into fashion and the passion for war is spreading,” declared the Pope. According to Lev, the principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited states from using force to violate the borders of other countries, was completely violated. Peace is no longer sought as a value in itself, but through weapons as a tool to assert one’s own domination.
Call for humanitarian aid
The cardinals also recalled the Pope’s reference to Catholic teaching, according to which the right to life must be protected as the “necessary basis of all other human rights.”
Together with the Pope, they called on rich countries to provide humanitarian aid to protect the human dignity of those suffering, and warned against the growing violation of freedom of conscience and religious freedom in the name of ideological or religious purity.
The American cardinals appealed to the need for a “truly moral foreign policy” of the United States and emphasized the effort to build the “just and lasting peace” preached by Jesus in the Gospel.
Cardinals: Military action should not be a common tool of national politics
“We renounce war as an instrument of narrowly understood national interests and declare that military action should only be a last resort in extreme situations, not a common instrument of national policy,” the cardinals said. The goal is to have a foreign policy that respects and supports the right to life, religious freedom and the strengthening of human dignity throughout the world, especially through economic aid.
Concluding their statement, the cardinals said Pope Leo offered the United States a framework that can help it overcome the “polarization, partisanship, and narrow economic and social interests” that today hold back debate about the country’s moral foundations.
