Former US Attorney General Bill Barr described America’s war with Iran as meeting Catholic criteria for a just war.
Barr, a Catholic, said that because Iran’s potential use of nuclear weapons poses a legitimate threat to the US, Europe and the Middle East, war does not violate the just war principle.
During an April 23 panel discussion hosted by the NAPA Institute, Barr said the Iran war does not violate the just war doctrine.
Barr said, “The traditional position of the church was to encourage leaders to take all factors into account, but not to say ‘this is wrong’ unless it clearly violates the just war doctrine, which it clearly does not.”
‘If we let this window run’
Barr, who also currently serves as Senior Fellow Catholic Information CenterSaid that the US faced “difficult questions in dealing with nuclear weapons” and argued that allowing the opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities would have serious consequences.
“If something is clearly off limits, you can say the Nazis, you know, shouldn’t have invaded this, or, you know, Saddam Hussein shouldn’t have invaded Kuwait. But that’s not the situation we’re facing,” he said.
“We are facing these very difficult questions about how to deal with nuclear weapons,” Barr said. “We have tried to deal with this for a long time, and if we let this window run, the costs in the future will be very high, and the chances are that people will not be willing to pay it, and nuclear weapons will be deployed by Iran.”
“You’re basically evaluating these impossibilities and risks,” he said. “If the cost of dealing with it later and the cost of giving them more time to get up to a certain level of conventional force will make it almost impossible to deal with it without massive losses, including in Europe, certainly in the Middle East and certainly among the Americans, then one has to take those future costs into account and say there is a window now.”
“When you face some of these difficult issues, it’s very easy to stand back and say, turn the other cheek, or take an autocratic stance (that) ‘you shouldn’t be violent,'” Barr said. “But that raises the question that it doesn’t really solve the problem, and deals with the real issue that other people have to deal with.”
Barr also said he believes “the primary temptation of religious people is self-righteousness,” adding that Pope Francis was “very good at getting attention.” He said he has seen Catholics on both ends of the political spectrum falling into “virtue signaling” which, he said, “is not coming to grips with real moral choices and real practical reality.”
Reflecting on his upbringing, Barr said his father got him interested in St. Augustine, a fourth- to fifth-century theologian who developed morally limited criteria for justifying war.
“My parents always said, ‘Think about things, don’t treat your faith like it’s a suit off the rack in a store and say, “Well, I’m wearing this coat, this is what I believe.” Understand why you believe it,'” he said.
Barr’s comments come as Leo has called for peace and church officials question the propriety of war based on just war doctrine. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Cardinal Robert McElroy of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, have said they believe the war does not fit just war criteria.
Leo has said that the Iran war fails to conform to war theory, citing the failure to exhaust all diplomatic resources, disproportionate civilian damage, and lack of clear moral objectives. US bishops have publicly supported Leo, saying it is a teaching of war. Do not morally authorize uncontrolled military violence.
Popes rarely issue sweeping decisions but Pope Benedict XV made clear that World War I lacked moral legitimacy given its scale, civilian toll, and lack of a proportionate end. Pope John Paul II warned that the Gulf War does not meet just war criteria. And the Vatican also formally stated in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq failed by the standards of war.
Pope Leo XIV urges peace
The Holy Father has said “God does not bless any struggle” and added that “Whoever is a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, will never be on the side of those who once wielded swords and today drop bombs.”
On Palm Sunday, Leo said that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who desire war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even if you pray much, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.'”
Leo has sharply criticized the Trump administration after speaking out several times against using God to justify military action in public speeches, sermons and social media posts.
