Saint Joseph Catholic Church

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A Maronite priest was killed in an Israeli attack on a Christian village in southern Lebanon.

Father Pierre al-Rahi, along with other priests, defied an Israeli order to leave Qlayaa and chose instead to remain with his parishioners.

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.

The bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego pleaded not guilty on March 9 to charges of embezzlement and money laundering.

Bishop Emmanuel Shaleta was arrested on March 5 at San Diego International Airport while attempting to leave the country.

The Holy See Press Office released the schedule for Pope Leo’s apostolic journey to Monaco, the first of six nations outside Italy that he will visit this spring.

The visit to Monaco will take place on Saturday, March 28, the day before Palm Sunday. The Pontiff will spend just under nine hours there.

“The Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion is the religion of the State,” Monaco’s Constitution declares (Article 9), with religious freedom granted to all (Article 23). Located in Western Europe, the principality of 32,000 (map) is 86% Christian (83% Catholic) and 1% Jewish.

Pope Leo XIV appointed Vera Songwe, a former United Nations Undesecretary General and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Established by Pope St. John Paul II in 1994, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences has the “aim of promoting the study and progress of the social sciences, primarily economics, sociology, law and political science,” according to its statutes. “The Academy, through an appropriate dialogue, thus offers the Church the elements which she can use in the development of her social doctrine, and reflects on the application of that doctrine in contemporary society.”

Members, according to the statutes, are chosen “on the basis of their competencies in the social sciences and of their moral integrity”; they need not be Catholic.

The apostolic vicar of Southern Arabia said in an interview that “our churches remain open and the celebration of the Eucharist continues regularly” in the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Bishop Paolo Martinelli, OFM Cap, told the National Catholic Reporter that “there have been several attacks, especially targeting the main cities such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai. However, we must acknowledge that the Emirati defense system has responded effectively, intercepting almost all of them.”

“For this reason, although people are understandably shaken by what is happening in the region, they also feel reassured by the protection provided by the local authorities,” he added. “In general, the life of our communities continues in a regular way, even though some pastoral activities have been adapted to the current circumstances.”

Cardinal Domenico Battaglia of Naples, Italy, penned a scathing denunciation of the “merchants of death” who manufacture and sell weapons.

“To you who do business with the blood of men, to you who count profits while mothers count their children, to you who call ‘strategy’ what the Gospel calls scandal, I address words that are born not from diplomacy, but from the wound,” he wrote in his open letter, published on March 9.

The prelate spoke of a land that “trembles under the steps of the poor, under the cries of children, under the silence of the innocent, under the ferocious noise of the weapons you have built, sold, blessed by your cynicism.”