Response to U.S. President Trump’s polemic regarding Pope Leo XIV.

By Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller

The cardinals, acting with complete freedom and mindful only of their responsibility before God, elected as Pope that one among their brothers whom God Himself had chosen and willed as the successor of St. Peter. And we cardinals have promised obedience to Pope Leo XIV and declared our readiness to stand up for him and the Church of Christ even at the cost of our own lives. There will be no new Avignon, as was menacingly suggested, and whoever is set up by any ruler as an antipope or allows himself to be made into one is a damned traitor to the work of Christ.

No one can expect anything other from the Holy Father than his commitment to earthly peace among the peoples, which is a foretaste of the peace of all people in God, who has reconciled us to Himself and the peoples to one another in Christ.

As a political, economic, technological, and military superpower, the United States bears a special historical responsibility for peace, freedom, and the well-being of humanity in our global world.

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It is a democracy founded on fundamental human rights. Its special role, including in curbing dangerous regimes and dictatorships that have been and remain life-threatening to the entire world, cannot be denied. International law, developed by the School of Salamanca in the spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas on the basis of the natural moral law, serves not to protect tyrants and conquerors, but the peoples.

Under the given circumstances, brutal crimes against one’s own people and other peoples must also be combated with economic sanctions and military means. The policy of appeasement toward Hitler proved to be a catastrophe and came back to haunt us bitterly in World War II. Pope Francis has warned of a Third World War that is coming in stages and would end in an explosion affecting the entire world.

The Iranian regime must be condemned worldwide as an abuse of religion—which is the worship of God—and which must never, under any circumstances, be misused to justify the murder of innocent people. It is worth reading Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Address (2006) and also Gaudium et Spes 77–90. The destruction of the war material of dictatorial states and, above all, their ability to deploy nuclear weapons is not morally illegitimate and may be historically necessary.

Cardinal Müller (Edward Pentin)

Here lies the constant dilemma: those acting politically and militarily also become guilty, because by nature there are no “clean” wars, especially when all peaceful means of negotiation have been exhausted. Who would deny the Ukrainians the right to defend themselves, even if they must resort to the same means as their mortal enemies? A moral dilemma that is almost impossible to resolve!

In this specific case, however, it must be clearly stated that no one has the right to criticize the Pope when he faithfully follows the mission he received from Christ to bear witness to the Gospel of peace. Christ’s message transcends political interests, and God is our judge. And no mortal may presume to exploit God’s name for his own interests. Even a good cause does not justify bad means.

We can only work and pray for peace, but not at any price; rather, for a just peace—including for the Iranian people, that they may be freed from a reign of terror. And Israel’s right to exist must never be called into question. But we hope that military means will no longer be necessary, because all neighbors in the Middle East wish to live together in peace. Pope Leo XIV began his apostolic ministry with the biblical greeting to all people of good will, saying: “Peace be with you!”