Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has joined President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in telling Pope Leo to stay out of U.S. politics.
Johnson, a Southern Baptist who is a Christian nationalist — believing America is a “Christian nation” founded with special favor from God and should be run by evangelical Christians — criticized the pope for saying Trump’s war in Iran and treatment of immigrants do not line up with the teachings of Jesus.
Mike Johnson
Johnson told reporters at the Capitol April 15: “I’m not one to criticize clerics and religious leaders. We defend free speech, and we certainly defend the right, the free exercise of religion. A pontiff or any religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously, if you wade into political waters, I think you should expect some political response, and I think the pope’s received some of that.”
Johnson said he was “taken a little bit aback” when Pope Leo claimed the war in Iran started by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not in line with Christian values taught by Jesus.
“He replied: You know it is a very well-settled matter of Christian theology; there’s something called the Just War Doctrine.”
In a classic understanding of Just War Doctrine, going to war requires six criteria: a just cause (such as self-defense), authorization by a legitimate authority, a good intention (such as peace), be a last resort, have a reasonable chance of success, and be proportional to the injury.
Christian critics of the Iran war have said it meets none of these criteria.
Further, Just War Theory requires distinction between civilians and combatants during conflict and proportionality, meaning the force used must not exceed the goal.
Again, Christian critics of the Iran war point out the large numbers of civilian deaths by U.S. and Israeli attacks in Iran, including bombing a girls’ school.
Johnson and his fellow evangelicals are alone among Christian leaders seeing the assault on Iran as a Just War.
However, Johnson said the pope should leave room for disagreement in Christian conversations about such matters: “I don’t want to engage in a theological debate with the pope. I certainly respect the pope. I would just say that these are matters that people of good faith and good sense can debate and think through, and I think that’s what that reflects.”
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