Tabbin’, I’m a goin’ home, whoa, whoa, baby, back where I belong …
TRUMP VS. THE VATICAN?@AlexMarlow says President Trump’s recent attacks on the Pope and Catholic leaders aren’t landing well—even among supporters.
While criticizing the Church’s stance on issues like immigration and global conflicts, Trump’s messaging—and especially his… pic.twitter.com/yTuJ5I3075
— Salem News Channel (@WatchSalemNews) April 15, 2026
Ed: Neither Trump nor Vance (see below) are handling this well, despite having a better argument on this issue, as I covered in my earlier post. Pope Leo XIV is in error on this war, but Trump isn’t going to make his case effectively by attacking the Pope on a personal level. I think Alex is trying too hard to explain away Trump’s Jesus meme too. Let’s stick to the good arguments that can actually improve political support here at home. We’re not asking the Vatican for a division of Swiss Guards or a destroyer for missile defense, after all.
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Gerald Murray at The Free Press: Is the United States war against Iran morally justifiable? There is a strong argument that it is, because the American and Israeli attack on Iran’s leadership and military meets the centuries-old conditions for a just war under the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
The Church is not pacifist in her doctrine. Waging just war is a last resort to protect the innocent by defeating the enemy. It is a virtuous act to take up arms in defense of the nation against an unjust aggressor.
Does this mean that one must wait for the enemy to attack before a nation can commence morally legitimate military action to neutralize the threat? No, that would be a dereliction of duty if the intent and capabilities of the prospective aggressor were known with certainty. The Iranian regime is a relentless enemy, using proxies to kill Americans and America’s allies. There is no doubt that Iran has been and presently is a grave threat.
The United States and Israel undertook the attack on Iran principally to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.
Ed: Originally, I wanted to include this in my earlier post, but it ran too long. This essay relates to the second question of that post as to whether this war specifically could qualify as a Thomist “just war.” Murray begs the first question in his declaration that “the Church is not pacifist in her doctrine,” though, because Pope Francis all but declared it to be pacifist in Fratelli Tutti. It’s an excellent essay and a good inclusion for the overall debate about this war, particularly.
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Vice President JD Vance said Pope Leo should be careful when talking about theology, days after the pontiff emerged as a growing critic of the US-Israeli war on Iran pic.twitter.com/oNS7MIehFn
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 15, 2026
Ed: I don’t think it’s Vance’s place to tell the Pope how to handle theology any more than it is Pope Leo’s place to tell Vance how to handle campaign speeches more carefully. The problem with the Holy Father’s position is that it lacks theology; it is an embrace of a hippie-fied pacifism at all costs approach. That may work on an individual basis, but nation-states have a much larger set of responsibilities, including the protection of their own citizens and those of their allies.
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NY Post: Iran’s barbaric regime is set to execute its first female protester over recent protests, one of an estimated 1,600 sentenced to death by the Islamic Republic in the past year.
Bita Hemmati is the first woman due to be hanged in relation to the demonstrations that broke out in January across the country and were viciously stamped out by government forces.
The regime accused her of numerous crimes, including using explosives and weapons, throwing objects such as concrete blocks, participating in protest gatherings, and disrupting national security, according to a Tuesday press release from the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Ed: Not to mention the massacre of approximately 32,000 unarmed protesters in the streets of Iran in early January. These are all evil acts committed by an evil regime bent on mass murder, genocide, and a global conflict to fulfill an apocalyptic cult fantasy. It raises a question of perspective …
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Where is @Pontifex? Where is the @UN? Where is @Harvard,@DNC, @amnesty, @UN_Women, @TheView, @MarkRuffalo,@TheAcademy, @U2,@springsteen,@AOC, @EUCouncil, @EmmanuelMacron,@Keir_Starmer,@NOW, @BarackObama,@ABC,@NBCNews,@tomfriedman, @60Minutes?
Where are you? 🇺🇸🇮🇷 https://t.co/vOJYCy39ne
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) April 15, 2026
Ed: Indeed. It’s not that Trump is above criticism, but why are all of these people so obsessed with Trump in this matter rather than the regime in Tehran?
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US Conference of Catholic Bishops: “For over a thousand years, the Catholic Church has taught just war theory and it is that long tradition the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war. A constant tenet of that thousand-year tradition is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword ‘in self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2308). That is, to be a just war it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: ‘He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.’
“When Pope Leo XIV speaks as supreme pastor of the universal Church, he is not merely offering opinions on theology, he is preaching the Gospel and exercising his ministry as the Vicar of Christ. The consistent teaching of the Church is insistent that all people of good will must pray and work toward lasting peace while avoiding the evils and injustices that accompany all wars.”
Ed: Interesting walkback, but it’s still deficient. The scriptures make clear that the Lord not only listens to the prayers of those who wage war, He also directs them to conduct war. Exodus 17:8-16 shows how Moses had to keep his hands raised to the Lord for the Israelites to prevail against the Amalekites, whom God ordered to be destroyed. Pope Leo was wrong, and it would be better for the Vatican and the USCCB to admit it.
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I genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or lose my mind anymore at this European hypocritical double standards.
When it comes to Vladimir Putin, suddenly it’s Churchillian resolve. No compromise. No dialogue. Arm Ukraine to the teeth, sanction everything that moves, wreck your…
— Aimen Dean (@AimenDean) April 15, 2026
… wreck your own energy security if necessary – because tyranny must be confronted.
Fine. I actually respect the consistency of that … in isolation.
But then you turn around and lecture us – us – the Gulf monarchies, Jordan and Israel, about showing restraint with Tehran? About dialogue? About coexistence?
Are you serious?
For forty years – forty bloody years – this regime has been waging a shadow war across the region. Militias, proxies, sleeper cells, terror networks, destabilizing entire countries – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen – and threatening the Gulf monarchies, Jordan, and Israel nonstop.
This isn’t theoretical. This isn’t abstract. This is lived reality.
Ed: There’s more at the link, so feel free to click through, but this is the essence of the point. Europe cares about Europe, and even at that, only in the most short-sighted way possible. They want the US yoked to their choices, and Ukraine is in the US interest too, I’d argue, but Iran is even more in Europe’s interest. And yet they can’t be bothered. This is pusillanimity dressed up as a principled position.
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WSJ: Ships such as the Rich Starry, which has changed names twice in its 11-year history, according to shipping database Equasis, are part of a netherworld of shipping that enables Iran to evade sanctions, including those on its oil industry. Early signs are that after years of dodging restrictions, the Iranian shadow fleet may have met its match in the U.S. naval blockade—its ships now appear unable to leave the Persian Gulf.
Assembled by Iran, Russia and Venezuela, such ships employ various methods to avoid detection—including going “dark” by switching off their transponder systems that broadcast a ship’s identity and location or spoofing their signals by broadcasting false information about their positions. Iranian ships also transfer oil from one ship to another at sea to conceal the origin of their cargo.
“They are experts at evading detection,” said Bridget Diakun, a senior risk and compliance analyst at Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a shipping analysis firm. “It’s not just one or two of them that are doing this, it’s a lot of them.”
Ed: Trump is putting an end to the black market sales that benefit the world’s worst regimes. He’s already succeeded in Venezuela, and he’s been chasing this shadow fleet for months since then. Now he’s got them bottled up, without the need for more intense bombing or invading Kharg Island. That looks like a win, and it’s notable that this may be the first positive WSJ analysis I’ve read in at least a couple of weeks, too.
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BEASTMODE: Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. addresses France’s exclusion from peace talks with Lebanon.
“We’d like to keep the French as far away as possible from pretty much everything, but particularly when it comes to peace negotiations. They’re not needed.” pic.twitter.com/KapFbhZAY4
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) April 15, 2026
Ed: Besides, they’re currently busy planning on securing the Strait of Hormuz after the US secures the Strait of Hormuz as long as Iran lets the French secure the Strait of Hormuz. That alone explains why Israel’s ambassador would like to keep France as far from the talks with Lebanon as possible.
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Fox News: “I don’t know how else to put it, the American empire is fading fast, regardless of what we resolve here today,” Piker said. “The American empire is going to inevitably fall.”
Piker, who is fiercely anti-Israel and has said he prefers Hamas, also said Israel was going through a “fascist death spiral” that was “not dissimilar to what the Nazis went through.”
Many Yale students stomped their feet with approval throughout the speech. The Yale Daily News interviewed students who called Piker’s remarks “electric” and praised the university for allowing “a modern media presence” to speak.
“He reaches to our demographic exactly, people that are our age,” student Cemre Keles told the Yale Daily News of Piker, who has millions of followers online.
Ed: Keles is likely correct, which is why we need to decolonize Academia now and take federal funding entirely out of higher education.
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Senator Fetterman slams members of the Democrat party for associating with Hasan Piker.
“I mean, my God, you have many in my party, they’re proud to do events with Hasan Piker. This is the individual that said that America deserved 9/11.” pic.twitter.com/DBpXQyAt6S
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) April 15, 2026
Ed: Exactly. The Ivy Leagues especially, but Academia generally, is doing nothing to educate young men and women. They are marinating students in radical, anti-Western ideology and churning out terrorist sympathizers.
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But here’s the difference: You don’t see Fuentes invited to speak at Yale. The fact that so many of the left are willing to mainstream Piker is disgraceful https://t.co/HGcM3We4p6
— Marc Thiessen 🇺🇸❤️🇺🇦🇹🇼🇮🇱 (@marcthiessen) April 15, 2026
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