Three high-ranking US cardinals criticize the Trump administration's foreign policy. “Military action should only be seen as a last resort”
Donald Trump. Photo: Enrique Shore / Alamy / Profimedia
Three U.S. Catholic archbishops criticized the direction of U.S. foreign policy on Monday, saying the country's “moral role in confronting evil around the world” is being called into question and that military action should only be used as a last resort, Reuters writes.
“In 2026, the United States has entered the deepest and most heated debate about the moral foundation of America's actions in the world since the end of the Cold War,” the three U.S. Catholic archbishops said Monday in a joint statement.
The statement by Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of Washington and Joseph Tobin of Newark echoes Pope Leo's fiery speech this month in which he denounced the world's “zeal for war.”
Leon, the first American pope, had previously criticized some of US President Donald Trump's policies, particularly those on immigration.
Citing recent developments in Venezuela, Russia's war in Ukraine and the Trump administration's threats against Greenland, the archbishops said the nations' rights to self-determination appear “fragile.”
“Events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland have raised fundamental questions about the use of military force and the meaning of peace,” the clerics said.
President Donald Trump is not mentioned in the joint statement by the three archbishops.
They also said the US needed a “truly moral foreign policy” and denounced “war as a tool for narrow national interests”, warning that “military action should only be seen as a last resort in extreme situations, not as a normal tool of national policy”.
