Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, issued a strong statement against invoking God’s name to justify military conflict amid the United States and Israel’s ongoing war against Iran.

“The abuse and manipulation of God’s name to justify this and any other war is the gravest sin we can commit at this time,” he declared in a March 15 webinar hosted by the International Oasis Foundation.

Pizzaballa criticized that “those who wish to bring religion into it exploit the name of God. As believers, we must do everything possible not to leave the discourse to them. We need to say that no, there are no new crusades. If God is present in this war, He is among those who are dying, who are suffering, who are in pain, who are oppressed in various ways, throughout the Middle East.”

These remarks directly countered U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s March 10 Pentagon briefing, in which he quoted Psalm 144 (“Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle”; New King James Version), one of his many such invocations of divine strength and protection for the U.S. and its forces.

Separately, Pope Leo xiv has repeatedly addressed the conflict, describing the war as “atrocious” and calling for an immediate ceasefire.

• In various statements since the U.S. and Israel commenced strikes on Iran on February 28, he has urged all parties to halt the “spiral of violence,” prioritize diplomacy, and recognize that peace cannot be achieved through weapons or threats.

Prominent cardinals in the U.S. have also voiced opposition.

• Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, D.C., has stated that the U.S. involvement in the war against Iran fails to meet the Catholic Church’s criteria for a just war, including an imminent, verifiable Iranian threat, and is therefore morally illegitimate.

Claims of ignorance of an “imminent threat” from Iran, however, often tie to historical Vatican positions on Zionism. The International Oasis Foundation has warned about the threat of “Shia messianism” in the past and, therefore, is aware of the danger Iran poses to the world. Yet the Roman Catholic Church also opposes Jewish control over Catholic holy sites in the Promised Land.

• During Pope Pius X’s 1904 meeting with Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, he said: “The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people. … We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it.”

This attitude still influences Vatican foreign policy.

• The Vatican refused to recognize the State of Israel until 1993, and to this day it is one of the primary forces weakening it, principally by pushing for a two-state solution.
• If the U.S. and Israel enact regime change in Tehran, Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas would lose their primary sponsor. This would make a two-state solution less likely and is one reason why the Vatican condemns the war and argues for dialogue.

The Vatican in prophecy: In the October 1951 issue of the Plain Truth, the late Herbert W. Armstrong highlighted a prophecy in Daniel 11:45 that the Vatican will move its headquarters to Jerusalem. Regarding the leader of a revived Holy Roman Empire, this verse says: “And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”

Expect the Catholic Church to continue to oppose U.S. and Israeli efforts to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran, not because the Vatican is anti-war, but because it has its own designs for Jerusalem, which will eventually include military conflict.