From Newsgroup: talk.politics.misc

On 3/8/2026 2:28 PM, Bradley K. Sherman wrote:

Iraqi oil production collapses

No. Really?

Just as liberal elites are currently attempting to drive a wedge between Catholics and Evangelicals, they are also attempting to open up a rift
between Catholics and the Republican Party – specifically President
Donald Trump.

The ongoing public spat between Trump and Pope Leo XIV over U.S.
immigration policy and the war in Iran has provided the perfect
opportunity for the Left to sow anti-GOP sentiment among the
all-important Catholic voting bloc ahead of the midterm elections. But
what conservatives – and Catholic conservatives especially – must
realize is that the Left does not suddenly care about defending the Pope
or Catholic teaching. Rather, they hope that by pretending to be on
“Team Pope” they can manipulate Catholics into voting against their own interests – and undermine President Trump in the process.

This hypocritical attempt to get Catholics to move left, however,
presents both hilarious dark humor and a dangerous situation.

That there is – or can be – a real tension between religion and politics is not unusual. No Catholic (or any other Christian) thinks that earthly politicians do all things well or even correctly. Thus the disagreement
over the Iran War, with Vice President Vance and Secretary of State
Rubio (both Catholic) supporting American military strikes and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and various individual bishops supporting Pope Leo’s comments that are critical of the conflict.

The debate over the wisdom and justice of American military action in
Iran is natural and indeed a good thing. The canons of just war theory,
which have long been accepted in Catholic, Protestant, and even some
secular circles, are not simple, connect-the-dots rules. They require interpretation.

The USCCB posted a summarized version of those canons taken from The
Catechism of the Catholic Church. While many simply take the papal
opposition to the Iran strikes as dispositive, that is not the end of
the question. Catholics believe (a hard claim, to be sure, for other Christians) that popes can speak infallibly, meaning without error, on
certain occasions. But those occasions are rare and carefully defined.
They rarely include prudential decisions about complicated applications
of moral reasoning that might be decided in different ways.

In fact, even among Catholics, there are different applications of just
war theory. The eminent Catholic philosopher Edward Feser has argued,
for reasons he spells out, that the Iran War is unjust. The eminent
Catholic philosopher J. Budziszewski’s argument, on the other hand, concludes that “it seems to me that this war is just.”

It is worth noting here that the Catechism states: “The evaluation of
these conditions for moral legitimacy [of war] belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.”

Of course, even that is part of the debate. Professor Feser thinks the
Iran War requires a Congressional declaration to be just, while
Professor Budziszewski argues that, “Despite claims to the contrary, the administration has followed the provisions of America’s War Powers Act.”

Some believe (and this writer is among them) that the Iran debate among Catholics is not the real issue. For Pope Leo and the American
anti-Trump bishops, the real dispute is over questions of immigration, welfare, and globalization more generally.

https://amac.us/newsline/politics/democrats-pretend-to-be-on-team-pope/

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