{"id":26609,"date":"2026-04-16T13:53:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=26609"},"modified":"2026-04-16T13:53:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:53:54","slug":"on-j-d-vance-just-war-doctrine-and-the-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2026\/04\/on-j-d-vance-just-war-doctrine-and-the-pope\/","title":{"rendered":"On J. D. Vance, Just War Doctrine, and the Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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I want to address a few misconceptions about Catholicism that I\u2019ve seen all around social media lately, in response to President Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance and their current feud with Pope Leo XIV.<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve been writing about this feud<\/a> as it\u2019s progressed and gotten sillier and sillier. I\u2019ve heard both pro-MAGA and anti-MAGA talking points on this issue that are driving me mad, because the facts they presume about Catholicism are objectively mistaken. Some people trying to defend the Pope are mistaken, just as people maligning him are mistaken. Same with some of the things that are being said about J. D. Vance after his shocking rant about the Pope. I\u2019ve even heard quite a few Catholics misstate Catholic doctrine. So I need to jump in and clarify a couple of things.<\/p>\n

First of all: yes, J. D. Vance is a real Catholic.<\/h3>\n

People calling him a \u201cfake Catholic\u201d because of his and Trump\u2019s feud with the Pope don\u2019t understand how Catholicism works. Everyone who receives the sacraments of initiation is a real Catholic. The Catholic Church isn\u2019t like some other religions, where people are only considered to be a member if they follow the rules and assent to the teaching of the religion. We consider Catholicism to be more like a permanent change to the nature of that person\u2019s soul, and that change can\u2019t be reversed. A person who is baptized in the Catholic Church, or converts to Catholicism and receives Catholic confirmation, is a Catholic. If you were baptized at Saint Patrick\u2019s Church to please your Irish granny when you were a week old and then never went to church again in your life, you\u2019re Catholic. If you were raised Catholic and then decided to become a Methodist, the Church still considers you a Catholic. If you received the sacraments of initiation for some kind of cynical reason so that you could be a showoff and not because you had a real change of heart, you\u2019re still Catholic. If you commit a mortal sin and go to hell, you\u2019ll still be Catholic in hell. Vance and all the MAGA Catholics are Catholic, just as a liberal weirdo like me is a Catholic. We\u2019re stuck with each other.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying you have to like that teaching (though I do).\u00a0 But J. D. Vance is Catholic.<\/p>\n

Secondly: yes, a Catholic is allowed to disagree with a Pope, and we don\u2019t even have to like the Pope either.<\/h3>\n

\u201cPapal infallibility\u201d is a dogma of Catholicism, but the Pope is considered to be speaking infallibly quite rarely. Most of the time, when he\u2019s preaching a sermon or speaking off the cuff, it doesn\u2019t carry that kind of weight. All kinds of disagreement and debate about our doctrines and how we evolve and apply them are normal, and quite frankly I think there ought to be MORE lively debate. And nobody is required to have happy feelings about a Pope or think of him as part of the family. A Catholic who doesn\u2019t really think about the Pope very much or who feels like they wouldn\u2019t be friends if they knew the Pope personally,\u00a0 isn\u2019t doing anything wrong. It\u2019s a religion, not a fan club or a personality cult. The Pope\u2019s role is very important and his office is something we ought to respect. I don\u2019t think you should mock, calumniate or threaten a Pope. And we do assent to the dogma of infallibility. But our God is Jesus, not the Pope.<\/p>\n

Now, about Just War Doctrine: it exists, it\u2019s very important, and the Pope is right and Vance and his cronies are wrong.<\/h3>\n

Doctrine, in the Catholic Church, is a thing that evolves. That just means that we\u2019re constantly refining and evolving the way we express a truth and apply it to what we learn about the world around us. The truths of our faith and the things God expects of us don\u2019t actually change; we change when we realize we\u2019ve been expressing the truth or acting in accordance with it in the wrong way. One of the truths that always applies, is that killing is wrong. I realize that the Church has rarely lived up to that simple truth, but it\u2019s still the truth. We\u2019re never supposed to directly kill anyone. The Church also acknowledges that sometimes, you\u2019re trapped in a no-win situation where you have to defend yourself and others with deadly force. For all the centuries there has been a Catholic\u00a0 Church, we\u2019ve been trying to articulate how a person can do that without directly killing. Some of the ways we\u2019ve tried to do it are terrible ways. One of the ways we\u2019ve come up with, is Just War Doctrine. You\u2019re allowed to say that Just War Doctrine as it\u2019s currently articulated isn\u2019t the very best way of talking about our law against killing and propose a better one. But it\u2019s definitely wrong to announce \u201ckilling is good, actually.\u201d Killing is bad.<\/p>\n

War is hell. War is always a defeat for humanity. When war is being waged, it is always because somebody somewhere is committing a mortal sin. But in this sinful world, it\u2019s often the case that people find themselves in a war whether they like it or not. Those people aren\u2019t required to lie down and die. They can put up their dukes and defend their country and themselves, always with the goal of ending the war as quickly as possible with as little violence as is absolutely necessary. Just War Doctrine provides a list of criteria, not only for whether you can participate in a war in the first place, but which must be applied to every single action you take in the war. If you manage to meet all of those criteria, then you\u2019re acting in defense of yourself and your country instead of committing the mortal sin of killing. But Just War Doctrine is NOT a way of saying that some wars are good. It\u2019s a way of saying that sometimes, fighting in a war you didn\u2019t start and want to end as quickly as possible, can be justified.<\/p>\n

The Pope was correct when he said, in rather flowery language, that God \u201crejects<\/a>\u201d the prayers of those who wage war, because war is a mortal sin and if you are in mortal sin, God expects you to get your house in order rather than treating Him like a vending machine. That doesn\u2019t mean that Just War Doctrine doesn\u2019t apply. It presumes the first premise of Just War Doctrine: war is a sin.<\/p>\n

It is the consensus, not just of the Pope but of just about every bishop I\u2019ve seen as well, that the war Trump is waging on and off again in Iran does NOT meet the criteria for a just war. You can say that this is a free country and tell them to butt out, but they are articulating the Catholic position on that issue. You can say that Just War Doctrine is silly, but you can\u2019t announce \u201cthere\u2019s a thing called Just War Doctrine,\u201d as if that disproves what the Pope said. The reason the Pope is against the war, is that it doesn\u2019t meet the criteria of a just war in the first place. J. D. Vance doesn\u2019t know his catechism better than the Pope.<\/p>\n

J. D. Vance is a Catholic. He\u2019s acting like a horrible Catholic right now, but he\u2019s Catholic.<\/p>\n

Catholics don\u2019t have to be lovey dovey about the Pope or agree with him on absolutely every point, though they should respect him.<\/p>\n

There is a thing called \u201cJust War Doctrine.\u201d That\u2019s not a loophole which makes \u201cThou Shalt Not Kill\u201d no longer a rule. It\u2019s a way of helping us to follow the rule.<\/p>\n

From the Catholic viewpoint, the war in Iran is unjust.<\/p>\n

And now you can all go back to squabbling.<\/p>\n

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Mary Pezzulo is the author of\u00a0Meditations on the Way of the Cross,\u00a0<\/a>The Sorrows an<\/a>d Joys of Mary<\/a>, and\u00a0Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to \u201cThe Little Portion\u201d on\u00a0paypal<\/a>\u00a0or Mary Pezzulo on\u00a0venmo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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