Cardinal McElroy: US entry into war with Iran ‘not morally legitimate’
March 10, 2026
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CWN Editor's Note: Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington said in an interview with his archdiocesan newspaper that “at this present moment, the US decision to go to war against Iran fails to meet the just war threshold for a morally legitimate war in at least three requirements.”
“The criterion of just cause is not met because our country was not responding to an existing or imminent and objectively verifiable attack by Iran,” Cardinal McElroy said on March 9. In addition, “the criterion of right intention is not met in our country’s decision to attack Iran.”
He explained:
One of the most worrying elements of these first days of the war in Iran is that our goals and intentions are absolutely unclear, ranging from the destruction of Iran’s conventional and nuclear weapons potential to the overthrow of its regime to the establishment of a democratic government to unconditional surrender. You cannot satisfy the just war tradition’s criterion of right intention if you do not have a clear intention.
“Finally, our current war effort does not meet Catholic just war teaching because it is far from clear that the benefits of this war will outweigh the harm which will be done,” he said.
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