Intelligence is being absolutized. Affection, will power, commitment, and relationships are being eclipsed. But let’s be clear: AI is a symptom and an accelerant, not the disease. Long before ChatGPT or any other chatbot, human beings were treating religious questions as information problems.

The practical consequence for the evangelizer is that, in our current milieu, the person you are talking to will likely have already consulted AI. It is altogether possible that the information they received was accurate, well-organized, and utterly impersonal. The AI bot is not hoping for conversion of the human user. So, what the evangelizer must be ready for is to preach the kerygma: “the life of the witness who has experienced salvation becomes that which touches and moves the hearer.” (Directory for Catechesis, 58) AI does not have such a life. It can reproduce the words of witnesses, but it cannot be an instance of witness in the same way that you and I can.

Does this mean that I see AI as a danger? Sure, but not in terms of giving false information about the faith. In my experience, a good prompt yields solid results in the exposition of the content of the Deposit of the Faith. Information about God is abundant and free, but witness is a pronounced scarcity. The faithful Catholic in the pew is not redundant or a content-delivery system. To evangelize is to share the Gospel: to give freely what you have been freely given. (see Matthew 10:8) Above all, this leads to initiation into the Mystery of Christ.

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You do not need to use AI, nor do you need to think it is a good thing. But it exists and most of the online world is using chatbots in some way. That’s my point. The people that are outside of the Church and need Jesus Christ are going to AI for answers. We need to anticipate this by leading with the things that AI cannot offer which are witness, hope, and charity.

In God’s remarkable plan, He has ordained that no one is saved alone and that you and I are part of the plan. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) The intellect must be ordered to the will; we were given both spiritual powers to be used together. What we learn should change how we live. Knowledge of God moves us to love of God. The intellect cannot be absolute because God desires us to integrate each part of us. He wants us to love as He loves.

Truth Before Territory

Truth is not the property of Catholics; it belongs to God, and in His love, He has extended it to everyone. It is for this reason that Pope Leo XIV in Magnifica Humanitas writes that “truth is not a territory to be defended, but a good to be shared.” (25) Reality – the way things truly are – is objective. Truth is one because God is one. To deny the objectivity of truth is to deny God Himself. Whether in nature or in morality, the way things are does not yield to preference. Some acts are objectively good and others are objectively evil. Error does not dissolve what is and misapprehension does not alter the thing that is misapprehended. The sharing of the gift of truth demands more than proclamation; it demands participation.

Every Hand on the Wall

In the Pope’s latest encyclical, he invokes the image of Nehemiah returning from captivity to a destroyed Jerusalem. He sets to rebuilding the walls of the city by tasking each family with a particular section of the wall. This is a powerful scriptural basis for viewing subsidiarity: where all are accountable to the Lord, but each is doing their own and not another’s work. The Pope’s reading of Nehemiah is not an organizational chart but a rich, sacramental vision of society. Through subsidiarity, society is taking part in divinely ordered reality.

This shared responsibility, the Pope notes, belongs to all: “men, women, priests, artisans, heads of households and young people all play a part.” (8) With God centered, the rebuilding of a society happens first not with stones but the rebuilding of relationships. The language of the Church, and a justly ordered society, is “not one of uniformity, but one of communion, namely the harmony that arises when all persons assume their own role and recognize that their strength comes from the Lord.” (8) Communion is far more important to the flourishing of the human person than efficiency or majestic constructions.

Living in the truth, which is a good to be shared, means building a city founded on the common good, which means “building on a firm relationship with God. It means recognizing that the truth of his love calls us to life ‘in all its fullness’ (Jn 10:10) and communion with him.” (11) Each person has a part to play, in and through Christ.

The work of each will be different, whether they are “scientists and researchers, entrepreneurs and workers, educators and legislators, civil society, [or] popular movements and faith communities.” (13) Through subsidiarity, different types of people, different ages and cultures, will work together to find the “best way for fostering stability, prosperity and peace.” (13) The Pope cautions that “we should not be intimidated by tensions or differences because they can become creative forces when guided by shared responsibility.” (13) In working together for the common good, our differences and tensions can produce tremendous fruit. If we view the truth as territory to be defended, then the city will be mistaken for the wall.

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What Politics Forgot

The view of the human person and society rooted in the Gospel and presented consistently in Catholic Social Doctrine from Pope Leo XIII until the present runs contrary to the political and anthropological sentiments espoused by most leaders today. Whether in government, transnational corporations, or local boards, polarization has taken hold and politics has lost the long view. Pope Leo remarks that when politics has been reduced “to short-term calculations or sterile polarizations, then the language of the common good loses credibility, and, at the same time, social inequalities and divisions grow.” (63) Thus, a faulty anthropology and a wrecked politics are not separate maladies but the same disease.

The situation is not caused by artificial intelligence. But in this new era, Pope Leo XIV warns that “when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human.” (15) It is not enough to point out where our politics and anthropologies go off track; instead, the “grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ” must be lovingly safeguarded. No machine can replace this reality because “true progress always stems from a heart open to others, an intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates.” (15)

The anthropological and political issues are both symptoms of the same disorder: a social life that is no longer oriented toward truth as a shared good. The Social Doctrine of the Church is not a static deposit, but a living corpus. As the Pope writes, “the Social Doctrine of the Church is a legacy of wisdom, where we find principles for thought, criteria for discernment, and judgment, and concrete guidelines for action.” (3) If we wish to act justly and pursue the common good which is the true good of each person, then we must heed the Church’s timeless tradition. The Church does not merely diagnose disorders but proposes a way of life that is lived directly and locally.

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The Church That Is Always Somewhere

The communion which the Church proposes is not uniformity. However, the evangelical call is singular. Every person is created in God’s image and likeness, a truth preserved in the first chapter of Genesis and attested by Judaism and Christianity alike. However, the imago Dei is the starting point, not the terminus of God’s desire for humanity. Jesus says unequivocally: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5) It is not enough for man to be made in God’s image; God desires eternal beatitude and shared life with humanity. But no one is saved in isolation. The logic of communion is entirely opposed to the logic of domination. The faith is always proposed, not imposed.

The Catholic Faith is in fruitful tension between the universality of the Church and the local context where Christ is encountered. As Pope Leo puts it: “The fruitful tension between the universality of the Church’s mission and her local roots is an intrinsic aspect of her life, for she encompasses the whole world, while addressing the specific issues of each context as the real setting in which the Gospel takes shape.” (26) The Church encompasses the whole world, as the Pope says, but is not bound there. The Church is cosmic, existing in God outside time and space, inclusive of Heaven. So, how does such a large, cosmic reality interact at the local level?

Where do people encounter the Gospel? Where do they meet Christ? The mission of the Church is universal because “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Faith comes from what is heard. (see Romans 10:17) No one becomes a Christian in a vacuum. Every Christian had the faith proposed by a friend, family member, leader, book, video, or some other instrument. This deep reality of the transmission of the faith will not change.

In the age of artificial intelligence, when humanity itself is under attack at an existential level, how do people experience the truth and come to a knowledge and love of Jesus Christ? The Pope is abundantly clear on the answer: Sacred Scripture and Tradition in engagement with the sciences “helps us clearly interpret the challenges of the present and identify appropriate ways for living out a clear Christian witness, with joy and in service to the world.” (3) God leads the way. He reveals humanity’s “vocation to a full and just life” and provides the means of attaining it.

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The Sacrament of the Common Good

Pope Leo makes it clear that solidarity is not a social program but emerges from the Eucharist. Evangelization is an extension of what the Church already is, what it was founded to be, what it has been sustained by God to be. The goal of evangelization is not recruitment. The name of the flourishing of the human person is Jesus. Sharing that name with every person is an act of love and the gift of truth to be shared:

“Solidarity emerges from communion in faith and the Sacraments: Baptism and Confirmation unite us in Christ, so that we may become one Body and one Spirit, one heart and one soul (cf. Eph 4:4; Acts 4:32). The Eucharist, which is the sacrament of unity, nurtures our belonging to the Body of Christ and teaches us how to share. The diverse sensibilities present in the Church and the strong convictions that animate each person are a source of richness if they remain anchored in the certainty that unity is a gift received and a responsibility to be fulfilled.” (88)

If you’d like to read my reflection for educators on Magnifica Humanitas, you can read that here:

Introduction: The Wrong Question

A few minutes before a meeting, I generated a best practices document for my peers. It was clearly AI-generated and an overload of ideas. My principal rightly admonished me for handing out something so un-human and impossible to carry out. This was the first time I passed out something that was AI-generated without reworking, and I was convicted that it would be the last time. I bring up this anecdote to draw attention to the convenience of AI and the human costs which are often discovered only later. Having a neat new toy is a real temptation.

My peers and I experiment with using AI. Sometimes, the outcome is beneficial, such as brainstorming a way to make a lesson more engaging. Other times, it comes off as sloppy: a worksheet generated without any adaptation signals to the students that they are not worth the educator’s time. As a Catholic educator, the conversation about AI comes up relatively often. The focus generally centers on students: detection, policy, and academic integrity. This is the wrong starting point.

In Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, released on May 25, 2026, the question is reframed: it is not about what the students are doing with AI, but what kind of humanity is being brought to it.

My contention, from the early days of AI, continues to be that AI is not neutral but a mirror. Large language models (LLMs) augment what the user brings to it. A vicious person will become more vicious. A virtuous person, on the other hand, may become more virtuous, but he or she might also just become more productive. He or she may even become more vicious over time without realizing it. The implication for Catholic education runs deeper than policy and reaches into the interior life of the educator.

The Problem: A Wrong Anthropology

Pope Leo sees technological progress as “valuable in itself” but he says that it requires “careful discernment of the anthropological vision that guides it and the ends it pursues.” (94) This is not just a warning about AI, but describes a pathology already present in education before the dawn of AI. If persons are evaluated according to the outcomes they produce, then the system is stuck in a functionalist temptation, only intensified by AI.

The functional view of the human person is a false one which does grave injury to dignity. In paragraph 52 of the latest encyclical, the Pope develops a fourfold distinction of dignity in which the word dignity refers to “the way in which a person directs his or her choices and actions” (moral dignity), “a person’s living conditions and the concrete respect received from society” (social dignity), “the way in which a person perceives his or her own worth and the value of life” (existential dignity), and “the dignity that belongs to every human being simply by virtue of existing, of having been willed, created and loved by God” (ontological dignity). None of these aspects of dignity allow for a schoolwide system which sees dignity as earned and persons as productive units, whether in curriculum, assessment, or teacher evaluation.

Schools, like all human communities, must be places where limits are seen as “a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship.” (118) The Pope sees the development of AI as a promise to eliminate limits, such as illness, suffering, and vulnerability. The educator who is formed by a wrong anthropology, by imbibing the poison of the world, will use AI to correct supposed defects and limits for themselves and for students.

The Mirror of Artificial Intelligence

If it is the case that AI reflects and amplifies what the user brings, then there are far-reaching consequences for education and the educator. The impatient teacher gets more efficiently impatient. The curious teacher gets a more generative curiosity. The intellectually lazy teacher gets more sophisticated in his or her laziness. The vicious use of AI is not primarily a problem for students; it follows the formation of the person using it. It is possible that the student should not use AI because they are not properly formed and developed. The prefrontal cortex of the student is not done growing. The formation is, by nature of adolescence, in flux.

Thus, it is for parents, educators, and administrators, to determine not how AI should be used, but as the Pope says, “Educating people about the use of Al, then, involves teaching them to decide when and for what purpose it ought not to be used.” (140)

Formation precedes the use of any tool, however. Pope Leo states beautifully that,

“In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendor of which no machine can ever replace. True progress always stems from a heart open to others, an intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates.” (15)

The burden of this claim does not fall to the student but to the educator who is called to embody what a machine cannot replace. The humanity of the student cannot be protected by the depleted humanity of the educator who has allowed his or her formation to be twisted and critical thinking and creative skills to atrophy.

In a surprising and utterly awesome turn of events, the Pope quotes Gandalf from the Return of the King as saying, “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” (213; Tolkien, Return of the King, Ch. Part III, book five, chapter IX) The responsibility for using AI ethically and safeguarding humanity is modest and personal. No one is called to master the tides. Each person is called to discern their own use of each tool at their disposal, including AI.

Subsidiarity Applied Institutionally

This document Magnifica Humanitas is a masterclass of Catholic Social Doctrine. The Pope spends a good deal of time walking through the main themes of the social teaching of the Church and its development over the past century and a half. One of those overarching themes is subsidiarity. In Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI explicates this “weighty principle”:

“Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do.” (Quadragesimo Anno, 79)

Pope Leo XIV does not seek to redefine subsidiarity but applies it to today’s concerns. He says that digital environments should be safeguarded by local communities, schools, and the like (see 72). The Pope does not see this participation as optional, rather it is an obligation of subsidiarity further demanding that “decisions regarding data, algorithms, platforms and artificial intelligence take into account not only the immediate benefit for a few, but also the impact on all peoples and on future generations.” (76) This is a tall order! The short term needs of educators and students tend to focus on quarters, semesters, or academic years. Often, even administrators are consumed by the ever-going actions of “putting out fires.” Yet, the Pope reminds of the importance of taking a closer look at digital systems to ensure that they have a positive effect on future generations.

As it concerns AI, schools should not be consumers of policy handed down from dioceses, vendors, or secular frameworks. Schools should be generators of AI policy, working within their own anthropological and theological commitments. Inaction does not mean that AI will be kept at bay; instead, the policies will gradually be dictated by secular transnational corporations like Google and Apple without the knowledge of educators and administrators. This is not because those individuals are unintelligent, but because AI is being implemented more quickly than is imaginable. Proactive policies which safeguard the humanity of students and educators is a timely concern.

Importantly, the Pope says, schools are not expected to “follow the pace of the digital world, but to offer that which the digital sphere by itself cannot provide, namely a shared time for learning and developing trustworthy relationships.” (147) Trustworthy relationships and shared time between students and educators, administrators, parents, and local community members are irreplaceable. The presence of a formed human being in a room with students is irreducible.

Forming the Educator First

The generality of Magnifica Humanitas is necessary because it is a universal encyclical. The Pope admits that there is much more to say. I would like to offer a couple of thoughts from the vantage point of education. The Christian anthropology which Pope Leo presents warrants a deeper examination of education.

The Pope does write that “the advance of information technologies and Al is rapidly rendering curricula obsolete that were designed for a different era.” (145) This is an intriguing thing to say. What about the curricula in use is obsolete? Certainly, the great books are still great. The Faith is still perennial. The objective truths of mathematics and grammar are still foundational.

What is changing is the world and with it the implicit formation of the educators and students interacting with the truth. This is why the Pope says in the next breath:

“It is necessary to support the ongoing formation of teachers throughout their professional lives, so that they can engage positively with new technologies, helping students to use them responsibly, critically and creatively, rather than passively succumbing to their influence.” (147)

The responsible, critical, and creative use of new technologies is worth examining rigorously at the institutional and personal level.

If it is true that AI mirrors the user, then the primary formation question for schools is not student digital literacy but educator human literacy. What does it mean to be a formed human being in the presence of a technology that reflects you back?

Teaching students to decide when and for what purpose AI ought not to be used only works if the educator has already made that judgement about their own practice. You cannot teach discernment that you have not exercised for yourself.

The well-formed educator is one who brings authentic humanity to AI which means intellectual curiosity, genuine care and concern for the subject and the student, moral seriousness and integrity, and the willingness to be present to human limitations and suffering. This kind of user engages the mirror of AI and the experience becomes the opportunity for a generative fruitfulness rather than an atrophying deformation.

Conclusion: Rebuilding the Wall

In the encyclical, the Pope uses the scriptural examples of the Tower of Babel and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem by Nehemiah to show the two paths set before each person. Babel is not just an institutional failure but is what happens when individuals sacrifice their humanity and faith in the one, true God to the false god of progress and homogenous unity. On the other hand, Jerusalem is not rebuilt by policy but by people who bring their whole selves, formed by God, to the section of the wall that they have been assigned.

The “wall” for the educator is the classroom. The work set before each of us is to build up the people in front of us, bringing the best of us to the task. As the Pope invites: “technological evolution does not follow a predetermined path but can be guided by personal and collective responsibility.” (239) It is incumbent upon you and me to do the work set before us with full vigor and full humanity, always rooted in Christ, to the glory of God.

My latest essay is out in the May issue of Adoremus Bulletin: “Recovering the Baptismal Priesthood: Foundation of Active Participation.”

Sixty years after Sacrosanctum Concilium, “active participation” remains one of the most misused phrases in Catholic liturgical discourse. It gets reduced to activism (external busyness), ritualism (mere rubrical compliance), or moralism (ethical performance unhooked from grace). All three miss the point. Authentic participation is sacramentally ordered, rooted in Baptism, and measured by who one becomes in Christ, not by what one does at Mass.

The essay traces the argument through the Fathers (Ignatius, Justin, Augustine), the conciliar texts (SC and LG), Aquinas on the synergy of grace and free will, and Benedict XVI on mystagogy and beauty. The thesis: liturgical renewal depends on recovering the baptismal priesthood as the foundation of everything else, including the laity’s co-offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice in union with the ministerial priest.

If you have ever wondered why decades of liturgical catechesis have produced so little fruit, the answer is probably here. We have catechized about participation without forming the priestly identity that makes participation possible.

Read it here: https://adoremus.org/2026/05/recovering-the-baptismal-priesthood-foundation-of-active-participation/

During the Mass, the gifts of bread and wine are offered. After the offerings have been presented and incensed, the priest steps to the side of the altar, the server pours water over his fingers, and the priest quietly says, “Lord, wash me from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Most Catholics have seen this thousands of times without asking what it is for. Today, we can generally assume that the priest’s hands are not dirty. The gifts are already on the altar. So, why this pause in the liturgy? Why is water used?

The Roman Rite as we know it took shape over centuries and was standardized at the Council of Trent. The standard explanation of the washing of the hands (lavabo) runs like this: in the early Church, the faithful brought loaves of bread, oil, and produce as offerings and the priest’s hands actually got dirty handling them. Washing was practical. This explanation is partially true and historically defensible, but it does not explain why the gesture survived after the offerings became standardized to simple bread and wine. Instead of letting the practice fall away, the Roman Rite ascribed a psalm verse to the action. A vestigial action—one that has become obsolete—would not acquire a prayer text. If the hygienic origin of the lavabo is real, it is not the whole story.

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The current text of the lavabo is Psalm 51:2: “Lord, wash me from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Before the post-conciliar reform, Psalm 25 from the Latin Vulgate was used: “I will wash my hands among the innocent; and will compass thy altar, O Lord” (Douay-Rheims translation; Psalm 25:6; Psalm 26 in modern numbering). Both psalms locate the gesture inside the sacrificial worship system of Israel. Psalm 25 explicitly says that the hand-washing is what the worshipper does before approaching the altar. The gesture is not about clean hands; it is an acknowledgement from the priest that he is not worthy, in and of himself, to do what he is about to do. The water is not itself sacramental, but within the rite it functions as a sign of interior cleansing. The priest is about to act in persona Christi, and the lavabo is the moment he confesses, with his body, that this is a grace, not some sort of entitlement.

So, what does that have to do with you and me? For the person in the pew, why does this unassuming, quiet action matter? The Liturgy of the Church forms us by what it does, not only what it says. The lavabo is one of dozens of small gestures which catechize the body before they catechize the mind. We genuflect or bow at the words “and He became flesh” in the Creed, we bow our head at the Holy Name of Jesus, we strike our breast during the Confiteor. The priest washes his hands in public as an act of unworthiness precisely as a man consecrated to handle the Body and Blood of Christ. This is not private piety because it is seen by the assembly. But the action is more nuanced than that: the prayer itself is specified in the rubrics as secreto, said under the priest’s breath. The gesture is public; the prayer is not. The assembly is taught that approaching the altar is never casual, nor should it be automatic or deserved. If the priest needs to confess his unworthiness with water and a psalm before touching the gifts, then what should the rest of us be doing as we approach to receive?

The lavabo seems vestigial because we have stopped reading the sign. In light of Psalm 25 and Psalm 51, this small, hidden act of priestly humility becomes a dense moment of the rite that the assembly is meant to overhear. His hands are not dirty. The priest is an unworthy servant, and so are we. That is the point.

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A friend of mine has been developing a project through Genesius Films, and it just hit a significant milestone: a producer is now attached and they’re actively seeking investors for Phase 1.

They will be making a graphic novel and an animatic, which hopefully will be picked up by Angel Studios as a feature film.

I’ve read the Episode 1 script. It’s good. I do not say that merely to be supportive of a friend; I say it because I was genuinely pleased by the quality and would not be writing this if I weren’t.

If you’re someone who invests in independent film, or you know someone who does, this is worth a look: genesiusfilms.com/invest.

When the Pope says something true, nobody seems to know what to do with it.

When Pope Leo XIV, during his eleven-day African pilgrimage, declared that “a handful of tyrants are ravaging the world” and warned that those who “manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain” are “dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” the American media responded as it always does: it converted theology into a personality conflict. The headlines read Leo vs. Trump, the Vatican vs. the White House — not an argument but a perosnal feud. President Trump felt personally slighted, called the Pope “weak on crime and terrible at foreign policy,” and briefly posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ. The spectacle was complete. The substance was buried.

What got buried was old and precise. The Catholic moral tradition has long identified three classical sources of temptation: the world, the flesh, and the devil. These are not decorative categories. They name three distinct modes by which the human person is drawn away from its proper end — disordered attachment to created goods, disordered desire within the body, and a personal malevolent intelligence that specializes above all in division. The press has been living in the third category without knowing it. The pope has been speaking against the first.

The mundus — the world in the sense of St. John and St. Augustine — does not mean creation as such. God created the world and it is good; by Christ it has become the theater of redemption. What the tradition means by “the world” as a source of temptation is a particular orientation of desire: the love of worldly power, prestige, and security treated as ultimate goods. It is the temptation to measure success by dominion, to read divine favor in military victory, to confuse the blessing of God with the approval of the strong. Augustine saw it at work in the ideology of Rome. Pope Leo XIV is seeing it at work now.

President Trump is not the devil, nor is he the world. He is a particularly vivid instance of a temptation that precedes him by millennia and will outlast his administration until Christ comes again. When a sitting president posts an image of himself as Christ, however briefly, he is not making a political statement. He is making a theological one, and a disordered one: he is identifying earthly power with divine authority, which is precisely what “the world” as a moral category describes. That Trump apparently believed the Pope was referring specifically to him when he spoke against tyrants is either revealing or darkly comic, depending on your patience.

Leo was quick to clarify that his Bamenda address had been prepared two weeks before Trump’s remarks about him. He was not responding to any man. He was discharging his office as Pope. The job of the Pope is not to debate presidents but to speak the Gospel into the actual conditions of human history, which have always included the temptation to sanctify power. Pope Leo XIV does not want a feud. He wants to insist that peacemakers are blessed and that those who exploit faith for military ends drag the sacred into darkness and filth. That is not foreign policy commentary. That is moral theology.

The tragedy of the current coverage is not that it gets the politics wrong, though it does. The tragedy is that it has no grammar for what the Pope is actually doing. A press corps fluent in approval ratings and diplomatic protocols is constitutionally unable to hear a claim made in the register of the eternal moral order. The result is translation into the only language available: Leo becomes a liberal critic, Trump a conservative target, and the exchange becomes another episode in the culture war where everyone goes home having understood nothing.

The three temptations are useful precisely because they refuse that translation. The devil causes division; the last two weeks have been diabolically effective at producing it, sorting Catholics along political lines and reducing a papal pilgrimage to a social media dispute. But underneath the noise, the Pope is doing something quieter and more serious: insisting that power is not providence, that strength is not sanctity, and that no flag has ever been a halo.

The Catholic tradition calls this fighting the mundus. It still does.

Pope Leo’s clarification that the speech predated Trump’s remarks: https://www.foxnews.com/world/pope-leo-says-remarks-world-ravaged-handful-tyrants-aimed-trump-report.amp

Vatican News (official transcript of the Bamenda address): https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-04/pope-bamenda-woe-to-those-who-manipulate-religion-military.html

Taking the Schism Out of Criticism

In the Letter to the Galatians, St. Paul recounts that he “opposed [St. Peter] to his face, because he stood condemned.” (Galatians 2:11ff). The theological issue was clear: St. Peter was wrong to require converted Gentiles to follow the Jewish law. St. Paul was right. St. Peter was wrong. Yet the dispute did not rupture communion. It was resolved within it.

This classical category of fraternal correction is largely forgotten. Strong opinions about authority abound, but without a shared framework for what legitimate criticism looks like. This episode presupposes a shared grammar of correction that is largely absent today.

Aquinas on Fraternal Correction

In the Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 33, St. Thomas Aquinas asks about the nature of fraternal correction. The first, and most important, reality about fraternal correction is that it is a “spiritual almsdeed… an act of charity.” (ST II-II, q.33, a.1, sc.) Therefore, correction is not a judgment; it is the fruit of a desire to remedy the sinner himself. In this way, it is to wish the good of the other. As an act of charity, St. Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine, treats correction as a precept: “You become worse than the sinner if you fail to correct him.” (Augustine, De Verb. Dom. xvi, 4; ST II-II, q.33, a.2, sc.) However, if someone is correcting another in order to satisfy themselves, this is not charitable and therefore is not fraternal correction.

St. Thomas distinguishes between correction rooted in charity, which belongs to all, and correction rooted in authority, which belongs to those charged with the common good and may include punishment (ST II-II, q.33, a.3, corp.). Even so, those in authority remain subject to correction when they err.

The subordinate has no competency to administer a correction or punishment to those in authority, but he is duty bound, out of respect and charity, to correct the person in error, ordinarily through private admonition before any public rebuke (see ST II-II, q.33, a.7). People have a right to a good reputation.

Fraternal correction does not imply that the critic thinks himself better than the one being corrected. Due respect must always be given to the office of those in authority, even as the one with authority is being corrected of their error or disorder.

St. Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius

This same grammar can be seen with particular clarity in the encounter between St. Ambrose of Milan and the Emperor Theodosius I after the massacre at Thessalonica in 390. In response to a riot in which a Roman official was killed, Theodosius ordered a brutal reprisal that led to the death of thousands of civilians. St. Ambrose, though a subject of the emperor, did not respond with public agitation, but with a direct and pastoral correction ordered to the good of the sinner. He wrote to Theodosius, naming the act for what it was, and refused him admission to the Eucharist until he had repented. This was not an act of defiance but of charity: St. Ambrose neither denied the emperor’s authority nor usurped it, but exercised his own office for the sake of the emperor’s salvation. Theodosius, for his part, did not treat the correction as a rupture, but submitted to public penance and was reconciled. Here, correction does not produce schism but communion, precisely because it is governed by truth, charity, and a shared recognition of the moral order to which both superior and subordinate are accountable.

What This Rules Out

There are two main obstacles to applying fraternal correction appropriately: the uncritical loyalist and the uncharitable critic.

The uncritical loyalist conflates the person with the office. To criticize the evil or erroneous act of a person in power, in this distortion, is to attack the authority itself. By definition, this would make fraternal correction impossible.

The uncharitable critic conflates correction with condemnation. Without the end of the sinner’s amendment, and without deference to the office, then criticism becomes a weapon rather than a remedy.

Fraternal correction in the classical sense is a discipline, not an instinct. True correction requires the courage to speak and the charity to speak well.

The past week handed Catholics a moment they likely weren’t prepared for. The sitting president of the United States attacked the Holy Roman Pontiff with political campaign rhetoric. Trump called Leo “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” and said he is “a very liberal person” who should “stop catering to the Radical Left.” He claimed Leo only became pope because the Church thought an American pontiff would be “the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump” — and went further: “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” Asked about it on the tarmac, he was unequivocal: “There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.”

The media are covering it as a political feud. Most Catholics likely consumed it in this same way. There are key clergy who are speaking out against Trump’s rhetoric in the American Church. One of those voices is my own local ordinary, Bishop John Dolan. He issued a statement which you can read below.

Bishop Dolan Letter

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April 13, 2026 Statement

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The real story here is not what Trump said. The real story is not what Pope Leo XIV said. The story is that Catholics in the United States largely lack the framework to process it as anything other than politics.

The Catholic Social Teaching of the Church has a 135-year tradition of thinking precisely about the relationship between political authority, the common good, and the Church’s prophetic role. Catholic Social Teaching exists exactly for this moment.

Pope Leo XIV is consciously invoking the legacy of Pope Leo XIII. His choice of name is not political branding, but is making a theological claim about the continuity of teaching and moral clarity. Rerum Novarum (1891) by Pope Leo XIII is one of the keys to unlocking the present age. All of the encyclicals which comprise the social doctrine of the Church flow from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, authentically guarded by the Magisterium of the Church.

The antidote to our present situation is not a better “take.” It is formation.

If you want to join me in diving into the Catholic Social Teaching of the Church afresh, I invite you to sign up for the three upcoming seminars I am leading. Rerum Novarum was not just about the proper ordering of the work and the worker, it showed us how the Church has something relevant and perennially applicable to say in every age. The Church has something to say to you, to me, to Donald Trump. What is it? The Church is Mother and Teacher; do we let Her speak to us today? These seminars are where that happens.

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The Pope vs. the Secretary of War: A Theological Collision

On March 25, 2026, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth prayed at the Pentagon a prayer previously given by a chaplain before the Venezuela covert ops mission:

Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation … Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.

Four days later on Palm Sunday, Pope Leo XIV (also an American) responded directly to ongoing conflicts and provided a foil to Hegseth, quoting Isaiah 1:15:

“[God] does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’”

These two positions embody incompatible theologies of war. One of them is right. The rest of this article is about which one. This collision demands resolution for Catholic Americans and natural-law conservatives. While I am writing these words from my own perspective, it is these two main groups that I am addressing: Christians and conservatives.

Trump’s Own Words Reveal the Absence of Just Cause

President Trump on April 1, 2026, in what I hoped was a disgusting April Fool’s Day joke said of the war with Iran:

“We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have. But we’re there to help our allies.”

I’m glad he’s finally being honest about the supposed “imminent threat” to the United States that was bandied about as a casus belli. As a History teacher, the argument did not hold any water from the beginning.

Just cause in war requires self-defense or protection of innocents, not regional power politics. To be clear, I think that Israel does have a good cause for a defensive war with Iran given decades of Iranian belligerence, state sponsorship of terrorism, and abject hatred for the nation of Israel. Alliance solidarity is not the same as self-defense. The tradition permits war to defend the innocent, but the United States is not defending Israeli civilians. Some will argue that preventing a nuclear Iran is itself protecting the innocent—not just Israelis, but the entire region—and that this constitutes a just cause. The argument has force, but it was the justification for “Operation Midnight Hammer” in June 2025. The nuclear sites were already struck. What we are doing now is something else.

As far as the United States is concerned, the President confirmed that this is a war of choice, not necessity. “Operation Epic Fury” is prosecuting an independent air campaign against Iranian infrastructure on its own strategic timeline. Trump’s own language confirms this: we are there “to help our allies,” not to protect the innocent. This violates the foundational just-war criterion. For more on Just War Theory, please reference this little article I put together last year:

Last Resort was Never Attempted

In his April 1 address, the President said:

“My first preference was always the path of diplomacy, yet the regime continued their relentless quest for nuclear weapons and rejected every attempt at an agreement.”

Then, in the same speech he said:

“In the meantime, discussions are ongoing.”

So, which is it? The stronger point is not the rhetorical contradiction — a president can claim diplomacy failed and still talk during a war. The stronger point is the timeline. Iranian negotiators reportedly presented a proposal favorable to U.S. interests the week before Operation Epic Fury launched, and talks were expected to continue. Trump attacked anyway. “Operation Midnight Hammer” struck nuclear sites in June 2025, then full-scale war came eight months later with no evidence of sustained diplomatic effort between the two operations. If last resort means anything, it means you do not launch a war while your adversary is still at the table.

Legitimate Authority Has Been Bypassed

There is another just-war criterion that conservatives especially cannot ignore: legitimate authority. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the authority to wage war belongs to the sovereign charged with the common good (ST II-II, q. 40, a. 1). In American constitutional order, that means Congress. Article I, Section 8 is unambiguous. The War Powers Resolution permits presidential action without a declaration only in response to an attack on the United States and requires congressional authorization within 60 days.

Trump launched “Operation Epic Fury” on February 28 without a declaration of war and without authorization under any existing authorized use of military force (AUMF). The 2001 AUMF covers September 11; the 2002 Iraq AUMF was repealed in 2023. Neither authorizes a full-scale campaign against Iran, and no new AUMF has been passed. The administration has invoked Article II authority and self-defense, but the President himself gutted the self-defense rationale when he told the nation “we don’t have to be there.”

This is not a technicality. The just-war tradition requires legitimate authority precisely because the decision to spend human lives must not rest with one man. The Framers of the U.S. Constitution understood this. St. Thomas Aquinas understood it centuries before them. Conservatives who claim to value constitutional order and the constraint of executive power cannot simply wave this away.

Proportionality Has Been Abandoned

The criteria above concern the decision to go to war. The criteria below concern how it is fought. This war fails both tests. Also in his speech, Trump said:

“We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”

When did this war become a war against the people of Iran? Trump’s own language answers the question. Unless we think the Stone Ages comment to be ambiguous, he also said:

“If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously...we could hit [their oil] and it would be gone.”

Destroying the civilian infrastructure of 88 million people is not proportionate to any military objective and is wrong. This is total war against a civilian population, not constrained military action. It is reprehensible and gravely evil.

Discrimination Between Combatants and Civilians Has Been Obliterated

President Trump is increasingly treating the entirety of Iran as a unified enemy, not distinguishing the regime from the people. And to be clear, the Iranian regime is evil. This attitude is further evidence of a mindset shared by Trump and Hegseth. Hegseth’s prayer at the Pentagon does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. It sees the Iranians as not deserving of mercy. The way this war is being carried out violates a fundamental principle that non-combatants may not be targeted in war and civilians should be protected. Israel’s ongoing campaign in Lebanon, which has killed over a thousand civilians in four weeks, raises the same questions of discrimination and proportionality.

The Inversion of Christian Teaching on War

Just-war tradition says war always involves grave harm and should only be undertaken reluctantly under strict conditions. St. Augustine teaches that war can be just, but only with the right circumstances and intentions. Namely, the focus must be justice and peace, not vengeance. Hegseth’s prayer inverts this order. He sanctifies violence, treating it as righteousness. His clear desire is to maximize destruction rather than minimize it.

The First and Third Crusades were defensible on just-war grounds: they were responses to aggression and conquest, authorized by legitimate Christian authority, fought to recover territory under military siege. But the justness of the cause did not justify the conduct. The massacres, the slaughter of civilians, the denial of mercy to prisoners were all grave moral evils, violations of the principles of discrimination and proportionality. The lesson is crucial: a war can be just in its cause and unjust in its execution. What matters is that the entire enterprise, both cause and conduct, must be governed by justice and mercy.

Hegseth’s prayer inverts this distinction. It does not separate just cause from just conduct. It sanctifies violence itself. This is a false theology. It is not merely wrong — it is an inversion of the Christian tradition on war. The just-war tradition exists precisely to prevent the sacralizing of violence, to insist that even when war is necessary, it remains a tragedy governed by moral limits. Hegseth’s prayer collapses that distinction entirely, treating overwhelming force as righteousness and enemies as undeserving of mercy. Whatever we call this, it is fundamentally at odds with Christian teaching. I’d prefer to call it “idolatrous,” since it substitutes the will of the state for the will of God.

And it is worse than the excesses of the Crusades because at least those wars (the First and the Third) had defensible initial causes. “Operation Epic Fury,” by Trump’s own admission, does not. We are waging a war we do not need to wage, in a manner explicitly designed to destroy civilian infrastructure and reduce a nation to the Stone Ages. We are committing the sins of the Crusades—indiscriminate violence, denial of mercy, collective punishment—but without even the pretense of a just cause to begin with.

Pope Leo XIV is correct. God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war in this way.

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Why This Should Matter to American Conservatives Specifically

As a conservative American who (reluctantly) voted for Trump three times, I understand how difficult it is to see the world clearly through an American exceptionalist lens. We want the U.S.A. to be the good guys, to be a force for justice and democracy throughout the world. So, it is difficult to face the reality that what is being done under American leadership is very, very bad.

Just-war tradition is a conservative intellectual inheritance, through figures such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Fr. Suárez S.J., and others. Just-war theory constrains power through reason and law, which is precisely what conservatives claim to value. This administration—which is populist, not conservative—has inverted that tradition, treating military dominance as moral license. Since 2001, questioning military action has been treated as weakness or insufficient patriotism. This has made it dangerous for conservatives to apply just-war reasoning to American wars.

The unconstrained executive power in military matters shown by this war is incredibly concerning to me as an American conservative. The just-war tradition demands more than application of abstract criteria. It demands witness. We can, and must, name this war for what it is: unjust in cause, unjust in conduct, and sanctified by a theology that is fundamentally at odds with Christian teaching. Silence is complicity.

The Proper Response: Examination of Conscience

Phil Lawler, in a March 13 Catholic Culture article writes:

“The just-war tradition is eminently practical, demanding, and thorough. Rather than providing quick yes-or-no questions, the tradition furnishes responsible government leaders with an examination of conscience.”

Lawler is exactly right, and he has practiced what he preaches. In his own Substack analysis of the President’s April 1 address, Lawler flagged the same passages I have cited here—Trump’s admission that “we don’t have to be there” and his threat to bring Iran “back to the Stone Ages”—and concluded that the first undermines just cause and the second threatens to constitute a war crime.

Pope Leo XIV’s call for examination of conscience is in precisely this spirit. The Pope is not telling Americans to be pacifists. He is telling us to be honest. Hegseth’s posture is the opposite: pray harder and don’t question what we are doing. The Pope, like Christ, invites us to examine our conscience.

We have to apply just-war criteria systematically: just cause? Last resort? Proportionality? Discrimination? Evidence suggests that the answers are all no. If a war fails the just-war criteria, it is not a just war.

This is not merely a foreign policy debate. And it is incredibly messy. The Iranian regime’s threat is real. That does not excuse waging war without just cause, without exhausting last resort, without proportionality, and without discrimination. The ends cannot justify the means.

The clash between the Trump administration vis-à-vis Hegseth and Pope Leo XIV is a question of whether or not the American people, and Catholics in particular, will allow leaders to wage war without moral constraint. Just-war tradition is a living inheritance rooted in Sacred Scripture. We neglect it at our own grave peril. Even war must be constrained by justice. The Pope’s call for an examination of conscience is a demand for moral seriousness, not weakness.

We can, and must, do better.

Dear readers and listeners,

I’m grateful to share that I have successfully defended my dissertation and have been awarded the Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) from Pontifex University. The board passed the dissertation with commendation.

The project, Participatio Actuosa and the Paschal Mystery: Active Participation as Sacramental Incorporation into Christ’s Self-Offering, argues that active participation is best understood as the sacramental incorporation into Christ’s paschal self-offering, grounded by baptismal ontology, fulfilled and actualized in the Eucharist, and ordered towards deification.

I am thankful to my director and readers for their careful engagement, and to my family, colleagues, and students for their steady support throughout this process.

I look forward to continuing the work in writing and teaching.

In Christ,

Dr. Will Wright

The Church issued forth from the open side of Christ on the Cross (John 19:34) and was borne forth into the world on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2). She is not first a human project that later acquires divine assistance, but a divine reality that continually invites human cooperation. If the Church were merely a human thing, it would have lasted a week at most.

It seems to me that both so-called “traditional Catholics” (whom I will refer to as “trads” for brevity) and progressives often deny this foundational reality, either implicitly or explicitly. In different ways, both adopt a hermeneutic of rupture with regard to the Second Vatican Council. Against this, I follow Pope Benedict XVI’s insistence on a hermeneutic of reform in continuity, which alone does justice to the Church’s divine constitution and historical life.

Progressives tend to err on doctrinal grounds by treating the Church as a vehicle for various activist causes. When this happens, doctrine is relativized, worship is instrumentalized, and the sacred is diminished. The result is a flattening of the Church’s liturgical and sacramental life, where transcendence gives way to utility and divine initiative is overshadowed by human agendas. These errors must be named clearly and resisted, and in many places they already are.

The traditionalist reaction, however, presents a more subtle danger. While professing belief in the divine constitution of the Church, many trads operate as though human initiative has successfully obscured the Lord’s presence in His Church for the past fifty years. The implicit claim is that the Church has become so confused, compromised, or malleable that ordinary Catholics can no longer trust her worship, her discipline, or even her teaching without qualification.

Yet if the Church is truly the Church of Jesus Christ, then such a prolonged and near-total eclipse of truth and sacramental life should not be possible. Christ’s kingship is not so fragile, nor is the Holy Spirit so easily thwarted. To suggest otherwise is not a defense of tradition but a quiet denial of ecclesial indefectibility.

The Catholic Church is one Church, expressed through a legitimate diversity of rites, theological accents, and disciplinary forms. In both East and West, the Church has always allowed for plural expressions of the same faith, provided they remain in communion with the successor of St. Peter and the bishops in union with him.

The increasingly common claim that the Roman Rite has been divided into two opposing realities, the so-called “Latin Mass” on the one hand and the “Novus Ordo” on the other, is therefore theologically incoherent. It implies not organic development but rupture, not reform but replacement. Some within traditionalist circles, including certain priests and bishops associated with groups like the SSPX, go so far as to suggest that the Church after Vatican II is distinct from the true, preconciliar Church. Such claims are historically unsustainable and doctrinally indefensible.

At the same time, it must be said clearly that not all attachment to the usus antiquior reflects this mentality. Ecclesia Dei communities such as the ICKSP and the FSSP offer legitimate and beautiful pastoral care to stable communities, exercising the Roman Rite in its older form with full permission and oversight from the Holy See. There is nothing inherently suspect about reverence for older liturgical forms when that reverence remains ecclesial rather than ideological.

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The real danger lies not in Latin or chant or traditional vesture, but in a schismatic spirit that treats suspicion as fidelity and rupture as guardianship. That spirit, whether explicit as in sedevacantism or implicit in certain corners of traditionalist culture, cannot be allowed to take root among the faithful. Communion with the Church cannot be selectively affirmed. One cannot claim to defend Christ while quietly withdrawing trust from the Body He promised to sustain until the end of the age.

Both progressivism and traditionalist rupture stem from a loss of confidence in Christ’s active governance of His Church. There is a fear of disorder or a fear of irrelevance which becomes the rally cry for dissent from the reality of the continuity of the Church, safeguarded by the Holy Spirit. By either innovation or retreat, a desire to seize control is understandable psychologically, but not theologically. Human certainty cannot become a substitute for theological trust in the promise of Christ of a prevailing Church.

Authentic reform must presuppose continuity because it presupposes fidelity to Christ. Reform is not a replacement; in every legitimate, historical instance of reform in Church History it is a purification. Any ideological baggage associated with the Second Vatican Council will die with its adherents. Growth in the Church has always been organic. Any attempt to graft on something that is not of God results in correction, pruning, and stability over time. Authority, centered in the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in union with him, serves communion rather than the suppression of legitimate and healthy diversity.

There has been real confusion in recent decades. That is undeniable. But times and instances of poor leadership do not negate the divine life of the Church. Crises have arisen in every age of the Church and we are still here. Sin in the Church and the failure of the Church are the result of human weakness, not the action of the Lord. Ecclesial endurance is not measured in triumphalism or human achievement, but in the Cross of Christ.

The credibility of the Church rests not in aesthetic purity but in sacramental reality. The valid sacraments are acts of Christ, regardless of which Missal is being used. Grace is not dependent on the ideological alignment of the minister or recipients but on the desire to do as the Church intends. Participation is far more about reception of grace and cooperation with that grace than any notion of control.

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Catholic fidelity means remaining inside the Church even when those within the Church wound, disappoint, or confuse us. Obedience in trust is not passivity. There is no issue with charitable correction, calling out issues, or admonishing sin. In fact, these are spiritual works of mercy. But tradition is a living inheritance which must be received from Holy Mother Church in every age, authentically interpreted by the Magisterium, and guarded and guided by the Holy Spirit. Christ’s promise to remain with His Church is perennial. Any ideology which suggests otherwise, even implicitly, should be firmly rejected: on either side of the ideological spectrum.

Hi everyone,

Take a moment to head over to YouTube to subscribe to Reasonably Rational, a podcast from my friend Steve Greene. Steve and I sat down a few months ago to record this episode and we cover a wide range of topics, including:

• History

• Philosophy

• Theology

• The Catholic liturgy wars

• Sacred Music

• the power of Catholic orthodoxy

• and more!

Give it a listen and give their channel some love!
- Will

One of the central confusions of modern Christian life is not a lack of sincerity, but a lack of order.

We are encouraged to “follow our hearts,” to equate freedom with self-expression, and to treat moral limits as arbitrary restrictions. Yet Scripture and the Church’s Tradition present a very different account: the moral life is about learning to love rightly. Not suppressing desire, but ordering it. Not choosing whatever we want, but wanting what is truly good.

This conviction lies at the heart of a new lecture series I will be teaching with the Institute of Catholic Theology called Ordered by Love: From Leo XIII to Leo XIV.

We will be looking at the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching and the great writings of Pope Leo XIII, the Popes of the 20th Century, up through our current Holy Father Pope Leo XIV.

This is not a self-help course, and it is not a set of moral shortcuts. It is an attempt to think clearly about the structure of the Christian moral life and to recover a vision of discipleship that is coherent, demanding, and hopeful.

You can find details and registration information here:

https://www.ictphx.org/courses/ordered-by-love

If this is a question you have wrestled with, I hope you will consider joining us.

In Christ,

Will

This episode is my first after a year off from recording. The podcast is OFF Airplane Mode! I will not be posting often, to be honest. I’m only seeking out interviews that really, truly interest me. I’ve loved speaking with every guest I’ve had on the show, but the pace was a bit breakneck, to be honest. So, I’ll be curating the conversations a bit more.

It was a real pleasure having a conversation with T.J. Burdick on technology, AI, human nature, parenting, and more. I hope you’ll give it a listen.

Here is the article on Catholic Exchange that we discussed: https://catholicexchange.com/are-you-smarter-than-ai/

And here is a link to T.J.’s book Detached: Put Your Phone in Its Place (OSV, 2018): https://www.tjburdick.com/detached/

Who is T.J.? (From his Substack)

I’m a writer of both fiction and nonfiction whose primary lens is through the Catholic faith. I’m not a radtrad, nor a liberal lefty– I strive for the middle path… which doesn’t sell many books 😂

Here’s a quick “list of me:”

• Married to my wife, Maribel (since 2007)_

• Father of 5 children

• Work as a public school teacher

• Published books through OSV, En Route Books and Media, Gracewatch Media, and Self-Published

• Contributor for Catholic Exchange

• Owner of EpicPew.com and SignumDei.com

• Former missionary

• Finally professed Third Order Dominican (since 2013)

• I run 5 and 10ks (but very slowly)

What is the Johnson Amendment?

The Johnson Amendment took a crippling blow today as far as churches go. A win for freedom of speech and religion in the United States! The Johnson Amendment is a part of the U.S. tax code named after President Lyndon Johnson who when he was a Senator in 1954 proposed the preliminary draft of the law. Basically, it prohibits 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. Where the issue resided, prior to today, was with churches.

There are many news stories that can be found on the decision handed down today. Here is one.

If you want to read the actual JOINT MOTION FOR ENTRY OF CONSENT JUDGMENT, then please download the 7 page document below.

JOINT MOTION FOR ENTRY OF CONSENT JUDGMENT

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"Plaintiffs National Religious Broadcasters and Intercessors for America, and Plaintiff Churches (Sand Springs Church and First Baptist Church Waskom), and Defendants Billy Long,1 in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), (collectively “the Parties”), stipulate and jointly move this Court to approve and enter the attached proposed consent judgment as a final resolution of all of the claims presented in the Amended Complaint, ECF 20...."

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What I want to look at briefly is two things.

First, I want to provide a brief commentary.

Second, I want to make the argument that it is good that churches are exempt but universities and other charitable organizations are not, and, hopefully, I will draw some good distinctions.

My Commentary on the Johnson Amendment not extending to Churches

Just because a church CAN endorse or oppose specific political candidates does not mean they SHOULD.

I will give a practical example and then give some principles about why this is the case. To be clear, I am focusing on the Catholic Church in this short commentary.

Using the example of the last presidential election in 2024: no sane person can make an argument for a faithful Catholic endorsing Kamala Harris (if I need to explain this, I’m afraid I can’t help you). But a rational argument can be made for a faithful Catholic opposing Donald Trump (if I need to explain this, I’m afraid I can’t help you). In our, unfortunately, two party system, an endorsement of one candidate amounts to an opposition of the other or vice versa. By saying from the pulpit that a Catholic ought to vote for one candidate or not vote for one candidate simply becomes a catch 22. By pointing out serious faults in one candidate, the other candidate will be passively brought forward as the candidate to choose, whether intentionally or not.

The practical example I just gave should highlight some of the pitfalls of endorsing candidates from the pulpit. But, in general, it is also more prudent and respectful to stick to the policies and goals of a candidate or platform. By shifting the focus away from candidate and towards what they stand for, the priest would be truly preaching and teaching. Considering the pulpit is the place where the pastor addresses his flock most powerfully, we can assume a liturgical context. The liturgy should not be the time or place for a priest to share his political views, but it is absolutely the time for a pastor to preach and teach on Catholic principles of faith and morals!! When a pastor “threads the needle” and speaks on principles, he is being respectful of the lay person he is forming. The laity are called to sanctify the world which means engaging in the public square and the political arena.

So, I think it is phenomenal that the Johnson Amendment no longer extends to churches! In our modern world, the average leftist American cannot discern the different between principles of faith and morals and actual “political speech.” And, frankly, those on the right do not do much better in finding the golden mean of speaking to ideas and principles without overstepping. Again, my issue with the priest getting into politics is not about separation of Church and state—which I think is a farce—but about him not staying in his lane and allowing the laity to step up and do the job that to which they are properly called.

To see more about why the separation of Church and state has been stretched past the breaking point, please read:

At any rate, the document released today said this, and it is a beautiful description of what the Church is: a family.

“Bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services, do neither of those things, any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates. Thus, communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted…”

A family discussion concerning candidates. The Church is a family, the Family of God, and we ought to be able to discuss internally whatever we desire. It is good, right, and just.

In external communications, there is no fear of reprisal from the government because the Catholic Church, as such, does not speak to the world through its “usual channels of communication on matters of faith;” rather, if everything is well ordered, it is the laity and various apostolates that do and ought to speak to the world!

Why Are Churches Different?

While all 501(c)(3) organizations share tax-exempt status, not all stand in the same constitutional or theological position.

Churches Stand on Dual Constitutional Ground

Each Catholic Parish is a part of the Diocese in which it is located, and each diocese is a microcosm of the universal Church. Our hierarchical structure is like a body. Certainly, the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, but even here on earth, with the bishops in union with the pope, it is a metaphorical body. Churches are not just speech-making institutions; they are worshiping bodies. Their communication—especially within the context of religious services—is protected not only by the Free Speech Clause, but also by the Free Exercise Clause. That constitutional protection means that preaching, teaching, and exhortation about public matters are part of religious practice, not political participation in the ordinary sense. Political participation belongs to the laity.

Churches Are Not Voluntary Nonprofits in the Same Sense

Most 501(c)(3) entities apply for status and accept certain conditions. Churches do not. They are presumed tax-exempt under federal law; they do not have to specially apply for this status. If a university chooses to receive federal funding or tax benefits, it knowingly enters into a regulatory framework (someone should remind Harvard, it seems). But churches are not contracting parties with the IRS in the same way which gives them a distinct legal character.

The State Has No Competence in the Pulpit

To enforce the Johnson Amendment against churches would require the federal government to scrutinize the content of sermons! That is precisely the kind of entanglement the Establishment Clause was meant to prevent. Again, read my article on Religious Freedom. The court rightly recognized in the joint motion that a broad reading of the Johnson Amendment would favor religious traditions that avoid political themes over those that do not. The Constitution makes it clear that the government cannot be in the business of determining which religion is superior to which.

The Law Already Makes Room for This Distinction

The text of the Johnson Amendment prohibits political “participation or intervention.” But the ordinary meaning of those words does not extend to internal religious teaching or preaching during public worship, like the Holy Mass. A pastor urging his congregation to think biblically about public decisions, ideas, goals, and means is not campaigning—he is being a pastor.

The Constitution rightly treats churches differently from other charitable organizations and universities. The State cannot police the conscience of a person, nor should it be infiltrating the sanctuary to vet the words of a homily. For better or worse, we live in a pluralistic society (which brings with it all manner of difficulties for a faithful Catholic), and good boundaries must be maintained for the good of the Church and the country. And healthy boundary does not mean separation.

War is Hell

From the outset, I want to make it clear: I am not attempting to comment on the ongoing conflicts in the world (Iran and Israel, Iran and the U.S., Israel and Hamas, Russia and Ukraine, etc.). Everyone has an opinion and no one has the full picture. However, I am sure that all of you reading this have ideas about those conflicts. You have predictions about what might happen. And you are likely discussing these matters with your friends, coworkers, and families. What I do not hear a lot about is just the stark reality: war is hell. We think about war as if it is a video game or a game of chess between politicians. Even the nature of warfare seems to be obscured; often we hear of drone strikes and missiles flying, but the idea of boots on the ground is simply not as visceral as reality when read about in the news reports.

The Catholic Church, as always, has something to say. In a moment, I will be outlining the main movements of just war theory, formulated and popularized by St. Thomas Aquinas. Pope Leo and Pope Francis both spoke of the current regional conflicts as a “piece meal Third World War” and condemned it. Pope Francis, speaking of modern contexts in 2022, dramatically said—and he was not making a doctrinal point here but rather a rhetorical one—that “there is no such thing as just war: They do not exist!” Pope Leo, in May 2025, spoke in his First Sunday Address calling for “no more war” and that there be a ceasefire in Ukraine and a “just, authentic, and lasting peace.” Echoing the words of Pope Pius XII in 1939 at the outset of WWII, Pope Leo said that “nothing is lost with peace; everything can be lost with war.” Why did he say this? Are there not examples in the past of wars which needed to be fought? In 1939, was it not evident that the Nazi threat needed to be met with like-force and put down permanently? Why does the voice of the peacemaker reiterate the universal need for peace, stability, and tranquility? Because War is Hell. Man is not made to yearn for Hell but for Heaven.

Before speaking of Just War Theory, I want to make it clear that I am speaking about war as organized, violent geopolitical conflict between nations or factions within a state with the objectives that are often political, economic, territorial, or ideological. The war in heaven, shown us in Revelation 12, between the angels and demons is fundamentally different. It is a spiritual, metaphysical conflict that is rooted in a fundamental rebellion against God Himself. Such a “war” is unlike any human war. I bring this up only to further clarify what the Church means by “war” in Just War Theory. Certainly, the fight between Satan and St. Michael was a just fight. The rebellion of the demons required a forceful and sustained response by the angels loyal to the Lord. Likewise, this spiritual warfare is one in which all the faithful are called to engage. You and I are called to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil as it pertains to sin. Spiritual warfare is requisite for the lover of Christ precisely because the goal is Heaven and the means along the way is opposed to Hell.

Just War Theory

Just War Theory is a framework for evaluating the ethical and moral permissibility of conducting warfare or entering into war. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas are the primary thinkers in this arena that expound Christian theology on the topic, but later secular thought continues to reflect on it—think, for example, of the Geneva Conventions of war. The theory looks at criteria to determine when a war is justified and how it should be carried out. There are three main categories of Just War Theory: the Justice of War, in War, and after War.

Jus ad Bellum (Justice of War)

First, the war must address a serious wrong, such as aggression or grave injustice. In other words, there must be a just cause. For example, self-defense would be a just cause if a nation was invaded. The war against the Nazi forces following the blitzkrieg is an easy to see example of this.

Individual factions in a nation cannot declare war. Only duly constituted authorities and governments have the legitimate authority to declare war.

The aim of the war must itself be peace and justice. The right intention would preclude ulterior motives such as conquest, revenge, and strategic capture of resources.

War must always be the last resort. All other reasonable nonviolent options must be exhausted.

The anticipated and foreseen benefits of a war must outweigh the expected harms. This is the principle of proportionality in moral theology.

Finally, there must be a reasonable chance of success. In order to have a just cause, there must be a realistic prospect of achieving that goal.

Jus in Bello (Justice for War)

Non-combatants must not be targeted—this is the principle of discrimination in which the forces distinguish between legitimate military targets and civilians, medical personnel, and chaplains. Non-combatants must be spared. Of course, in war, there will be unexpected and unintended collateral damage, but this must be reasonably mitigated.

The principle of proportionality during a war refers to the harm caused by military actions. Simply put, the harm must not outweigh the military advantage to be gained. To take this a step further, an evil action cannot be done to later achieve a good end. We could think here of the use of nuclear weapons or carpet (indiscriminate) bombing of civilian centers—these would violate discrimination and proportionality.

The actions taken must be of necessity to achieve legitimate military objectives. Gratuitous destruction should be avoided.

Jus post Bellum (Justice after War)

This third category is not part of St. Thomas’s Just War Theory, and is what might be considered “emerging” in terms of the modern notion of Just War Theory, but it is worth mentioning. The fair treatment of defeated parties, including reconstruction and reconciliation, must be considered. There must also be just accountability for war crimes and real effort to restore justice.

Just War Theory: Out of Date?

Some argue that Just War Theory is out of date in modern warfare for two reasons. First, it can be manipulate to justify aggression, and, second, it does not explicitly take into account things like drones and cyberattacks. Generally, I hold that Just War Theory has its place as a way to restrain violence. Human beings have been trying to justify sin since the Fall. Therefore, solid unflappable principles gives us a language to share as we condemn injustice.

It is also odd to speak of Just War Theory as outdated when modern international law was shaped by it. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 include the principles of discrimination and proportionality specifically. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is unfortunately manipulated by various powers unjustly, but in principle can investigate conflicts and assess accountability based on Just War principles. The 1945 UN Charter restricts war to self-defense or actions authorized by the Security Council (self-defense and legitimate authority).

There are certainly issues with Just War Theory that cannot be ignored. For example, the principles are far less clear in asymmetric warfare where non-state actors like terrorist groups or insurgencies are active. In modern urban warfare, combatants blend in with civilians making discrimination nearly impossible. In the event of nuclear or total war where the entire society is engaged or targeted is simply not envisioned in Just War Theory which is based on conventional warfare on the field of battle. There are also modern means like economic sanctions, propaganda, and proxy wars which add complexity to an already complex situation.

Moral theologians have the task to update Just War Theory for modern times, and are hard at work doing so. This will prove fruitful if it gives us the necessary restraint and common language to avoid warfare. Just War Theory has been manipulated to justify the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Neither conflict actually meets the standards for going to war. In an era of advanced technology and non-conventional threats, I think Just War Theory becomes more important, not less. It simply needs to be adapted and updated, which happens often with the application of principles to specific circumstances. The principles themselves do not change, but the applications can be vastly different over the centuries.

What should be clear to all is that war is Hell. Peace and justice must be our goal. There is no room for war in a modern, civilized society. How, then, can we convince those who would seek war for their own gain that they are doing the work of Satan? The only answer with any real staying power is: Jesus Christ. You and I must step up our evangelistic efforts. Sharing the Gospel is the only way to lead the world towards the peace that only He can give.

In this time of uncertainty and widespread regional conflicts, we are on the precipice of world war. Pray for those who are already fighting, especially the troops who are fighting for peace and justice. Pray for conversion for those who fight for their own selfish interest detached from what is good and true. Pray for those living in affected areas who have lost homes, family, livelihood, and a means of reliable food and clean water. War is Hell and our brothers and sisters throughout the world need our support. This begins with prayer and doing the work of evangelization with those nearest you.

Especially given the providence of this class being scheduled as Pope Leo XIV begins his reign as Supreme Pontiff, come join me. The entire course can be done from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection.

Learn more here: https://www.ictphx.org/pages/summer-symposium

Register today! Class begins on June 2 and most of the course is asynchronous. Again, you can participate via Zoom in the lectures or watch them at a later time, if your schedule does not allow you to be there when class is in session.

Please email me if you have any questions!

Course Outline

Module 1: THE HUMAN PERSON IN GOD’S PLAN

Understanding Dignity, Creation, and the Foundations of Society

• The Trinity, Creation, and Human Dignity

• Original Sin, Providence, and the Right to Life

• Marriage and Family: The Cornerstone of Society

• Overview of the Seven Themes of Catholic Social Teaching

Module 2: BUILDING A JUST SOCIETY

Rights, Responsibilities, and the Common Good

• Foundations of Justice: Rights and Responsibilities

• The Church’s Vision for the Common Good

• Solidarity, Subsidiarity, and Overcoming Unjust Discrimination

• The Family’s Role in Education and Human Flourishing

• The Catholic Understanding of Religious Liberty

Module 3: WORK, ECONOMY, AND THE CALL TO STEWARDSHIP

Labor, Justice, and Our Responsibility for Creation

• The Dignity of Work: Labor, Business, and the Economy

• Economic Justice and the Path to True Development

• Stewardship of Creation: A Moral and Social Responsibility

• Instantiating the Kingship of Christ in a Pluralistic Society

A Few Thoughts on Pope Leo XIV

I am thrilled to have an American Pope. What an amazing thing! Hearing the Holy Father yesterday morning speak in English with an American accent during his first papal homily was a joy. But, beyond that novelty, WHAT he said was exceptional.

You can access the full transcript HERE—including a video—from Catholic News Agency.

Among the many wonderful things the Holy Father said in his homily, this is by far my favorite quote:

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). In these words, Peter, asked by the Master, together with the other disciples, about his faith in him, expressed the patrimony that the Church, through the apostolic succession, has preserved, deepened, and handed on for 2,000 years.

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God: the one Savior who alone reveals the face of the Father. (Pope Leo XIV’s First Homily)

It is my favorite quote because it clearly and unequivocally says that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is the one Savior who alone reveals the face of the Father. I have defended and critiqued Pope Francis on this channel multiple times and I do not mean to cast aspersions on him. But during his pontificate he said the following—with no clarification from the Holy See Press Office:

“All religions are paths to God… There is only one God, and religions are like languages, paths to reach God. Some Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian.” (Commonweal Magazine)

For the Vicar of Christ to say such things is an outrage and an objective heresy. I am not saying that Pope Francis was a heretic; that is far above my pay grade. But what he said here—again, without clarification offered—is horribly untrue, erroneous, and contrary to the one Gospel.

To hear Pope Leo XIV in his first homily joyfully uphold the truth of the Gospel and flatly contradict the ill-advised words of Pope Francis on this subject was marvelous indeed. He also entered the Mass with the ferula (papal cross staff) of Blessed Pope Pius IX, said the Mass in impeccably pronounced Latin, used the thurible adeptly, and celebrated the liturgy with a noble simplicity and humble regality.

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His first address to the world as pope on Thursday was also excellent. He spoke of peace, unity, and the joy of the Risen Christ. He invoked the prayers of the Blessed Mother and led the world in the recitation of the Hail Mary. He gave a beautiful blessing in Latin to the world, invoking again the Blessed Mother, as well as the Apostles Peter and Paul. He smiled warmly, shed tears, and his confreres were ecstatic.

It appears that the Holy Father had the backing of Cardinals Dolan, Burke, Tobin, and Cupich. Such a thing would have seemed impossible. Yet, here is the man. Pope Leo XIV.

What a name! Pope Leo XIII is by far one of my favorite popes. He was stern in teaching and should have been hated by the reigning monarchs in Europe in the late 1800s, and, still, he was beloved by all. He was a pastor at heart. He began a resurgence of scholastic scholarship and study of St. Thomas Aquinas. Rerum Novarum, which I referenced in my episode on the dignity of work, was written by Pope Leo XIII. For the modern world, the pope reframed and relaunched the Social Doctrine of the Church (Catholic Social Teaching - CST).

For Pope Leo XIV to choose the name Leo was intentional. As soon as I heard the name, I thought of CST. Today we received confirmation in his address to the cardinals that this was his exact intention.

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In his first address to the College of Cardinals, Pope Leo XIV expressed gratitude for the support of the cardinals following the death of Pope Francis and the challenges of the recent conclave. He emphasized that the Church’s mission continues as a “paschal event,” drawing strength from the Risen Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit. He invoked the legacy of his predecessors, especially Pope Francis’ call to evangelization, and reaffirmed the Church’s commitment to the path set by the Second Vatican Council, highlighting themes from Evangelii Gaudium like synodality, missionary conversion, and care for the marginalized.

Of his namesake, he said this:

“Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.” (10 May 2025)

WOW! My goodness… I am so excited about this pontificate. There are thousands of articles on the background and formation of Pope Leo XIV. What I offer here is my own commentary on the last couple of days. I cannot wait to see what Pope Leo offers us.

Often, I have found that the post-conciliar hearken back to the Second Vatican Council and their immediate predecessors. Pope Leo XIV has done both so far. But he has also chosen the name Leo and, thus, rooted himself in the full tradition of the Church. As an Augustinian, he called himself a son of St. Augustine and he quoted St. Ignatius of Antioch in his first homily—establishing himself as a pope rooted in the Church Fathers.

Pope Leo XIV could transcend political divisions, root the Church back fully in the Gospel of Christ, and lead Catholics of all stripes back firmly to the heart of the Father, docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. For too long have we dealt with division within the Church. Progressives in Germany and radical traditionalists around the world have openly expressed optimism with the new pope. This can only be described as a miracle.

But he is a Eucharistic and Marian pope, rooted in the patristic age, attentive to Canon Law, and with a temperament well suited to the Petrine Office. And, wonder of wonders… he is an American. Wow.

Let us pray for Pope Leo. He has work cut out for him.

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Study Catholic Social Teaching this June

Understanding the direction of this papacy will mean understanding the Catholic Social Teaching of the Church. Providentially, I will be teaching a full college-level course on CST this June with the Institute of Catholic Theology. It is accessible entirely online. I highly recommend that you sign up! And if you are currently in college, there is an option to get credit for this course at most universities!

More information HERE.

My wife suggested that I write something about the conclave. I insisted that no one cares what I have to say about it; everyone and their mother has a thought about the conclave and who is papible for not. What does it matter what I have to say? The answer: it doesn’t. However, that does not stop people from wondering, voicing their desires and concerns, and opining about one of the most important events of a person’s lifetime.

In that spirit, I will offer my own observations.

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Cardinal Sarah would be an amazing pope. Cardinal Pizzaballa would be an amazing pope. Cardinal Erdo would be an amazing pope. And I am sure there are many other good, holy cardinals that I do not know.

Cardinal Sarah has proven himself to be a thoughtful and holy priest. He and Benedict XVI converge theologically and liturgically. As the former head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, Card. Sarah gave the world great reflections on the nature of the Sacred Liturgy, the posture of the priest (in favor of ad orientem), and had a clear understanding of authentic inculturation.

Cardinal Pizzaballa is relatively unknown to me. But after October 7 in Israel, he told Hamas to give back the hostages and take him in their place. That incident alone speaks volumes about the man. He has the heart of St. Maximillian Kolbe. Card. Pizzaballa, in the sermons I have heard from him, speaks well of the truths of the Faith and has a heart for Christ and His Church.

Cardinal Erdo is Hungarian. I know nothing about him, other than the media paints him as a doctrinal conservative. What I was impressed by was his ability to stay his tongue, unless necessity calls for something to be said. He is also on the record as defending Pope Francis on more than one occasion. So, he seems like the type of papal candidate who could adeptly navigate Vatican politics and international conversations.

There are other relatively unknown cardinals—at least in the English speaking world—that would probably be fantastic popes. I trust the Holy Spirit to move in the Sistine Chapel with great dynamism. My prayer is that the cardinal electors heed His promptings and are docile to divine desire.

The whole world has their eyes fixed on the chimney installed above the conclave. Every news outlet in the world tunes in for this momentous event. Each lay person, clergyman, and religious cares deeply about the outcome of the conclave if they care deeply about the Church. The world sees the conclave as a political event and, of course, it is in many respects. Beyond the politics, though, is a mystical reality that supersedes the mundane. The Vicar of Christ is the Pontifex: the bridge-builder. We have but one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. But Jesus founded His Church upon the Rock of St. Peter that we might have a pastor here on Earth to be a visible symbol of unity and point us to the invisible reality of our unity, our Lord Jesus Christ.

For my part, I will keep praying and hoping for a pope who brings stability, discipline, doctrinal clarity, unity, and who is on fire for love of Christ and His Church.

Veni Sancte Spiritus!

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