Three U.S. Catholic archbishops on Monday decried the direction of American foreign policy, saying the country’s “moral role in confronting evil all over the world” was in query and that military motion must only be used as an extreme last resort.
“In 2026, the USA has entered into essentially the most profound and searing debate concerning the moral foundation for America’s actions on this planet because the end of the Cold War,” the three highest rating U.S. Catholic archbishops said in a rare joint statement.
The statement by Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of Washington and Joseph Tobin of Newark, echoes Pope Leo’s fiery Vatican speech earlier this month denouncing the world’s “zeal for war.”
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Leo, the primary U.S. pope, has previously criticized a few of U.S. President Donald Trump‘s policies, specifically on immigration.
Citing recent developments in Venezuela, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the threats against Greenland by the Trump administration, the archbishops said rights of countries to self-determination appeared “fragile.”
“The events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland have raised basic questions on using military force and the meaning of peace,” the clerics said.
The joint statement did circuitously name Trump. The White House didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Saying that the U.S. needs a “genuinely moral foreign policy,” the archbishops renounced “war as an instrument for narrow national interests” and said that “military motion have to be seen only as a final resort in extreme situations, not a standard instrument of national policy.”