Saint Joseph Catholic Church

cna

commentary

cna

cna

cna

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 expressed his “profound sorrow for all the victims of the bombings in these days in the Middle East, for the many innocents, including many children, and for those who were helping them, such as Father Pierre El-Rahi,” according to a statement from the Holy See Press Office.

“He is following what is happening with concern and prays that every hostility may cease as soon as possible,” the statement added.

Father El-Rahi, a Maronite priest, was killed by Israeli tank fire on March 9.