Cardinal McElroy asks people to pray, advocate for end to ‘immoral war’ with Iran
WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Decrying the U.S. war with Iran as “an immoral war,” Washington Cardinal Robert W. McElroy during a vigil Mass for peace at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle April 11 urged people to pray for peace and advocate with their government leaders and representatives for an end to that war.
“Pope Leo has made it totally clear that the only pathway which Catholic teaching allows at this moment is the permanent cessation of hostilities and vigorous steps to build up the conditions for a lasting peace,” the cardinal said in his homily.
Cardinal McElroy celebrated the Mass the same day Pope Leo XIV invited the world’s Catholics to join him in a Prayer Vigil for Peace that the pontiff announced on Easter. It was also celebrated on a day when peace talks aimed at ending the war opened in Pakistan, as part of a two-week ceasefire announced April 7.
But after 21 hours, those talks concluded without any agreement resolution, and President Donald Trump announced the U.S. will begin blockading the Strait of Hormuz.
On April 7, the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire. The U.S. and Israel began a massive bombing campaign against Iran Feb. 28, killing many of its leaders. In response, Iran launched missile and drone strikes against Israel and on neighboring Middle Eastern nations and cut off the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier this year, the Iranian regime reportedly slaughtered thousands of protesters.
Prayers for continued ceasefire amid threats
Before the ceasefire was reached, President Donald Trump had set a deadline for Iran to reopen the strait, warning that all the country’s power plants and bridges could be bombed, which some experts said could constitute war crimes because of the impact on civilian populations.
The president threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran didn’t comply, prompting Pope Leo, Cardinal McElroy and other faith leaders to denounce that language and once more urge all sides in the war to step back from the escalating violence.
In his homily at the vigil Mass for peace, Cardinal McElroy emphasized that, “Tonight we gather in prayer. We pray that the ceasefire holds and that it leads to a substantive foundation for the emergence of peace in the Middle East. We are aware of the barbaric nature of the Iranian regime and the enormous destruction U.S. and Israeli bombing has visited on Iran. And so we pray all the harder.”
“We desperately ask our God, the Prince of Peace, to open the minds and hearts of all those in positions of power to look beyond their own interests,” he continued, “and to see in its fullness the well-being of all those ensnared in this bitter and needless conflict.”
Building peace is part of the disciple’s call
He encouraged people as they left church that evening, not only to pray, but also to advocate for peace with their representatives and leaders.
“It is not enough to say we have prayed. We must also act. For it is very possible that the negotiations will fail because of recalcitrance on one or both sides, and our president will move to reenter this immoral war,” the cardinal said.
Concluding his homily, Cardinal McElroy issued an impassioned plea for an end to the war against Iran, saying, “At that critical juncture, as disciples of Jesus Christ called to be peacemakers in the world, we must answer vocally and in unison: No. Not in our name. Not at this moment. Not with our country.”
The congregation in the cathedral responded with applause for several minutes.
Peace is the ultimate gift of the Resurrection, he said, adding that this peace provides Jesus’ followers today with “the only essential compass that we need for our lives on this Earth. … For as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are called profoundly to be peacemakers in the world in which we live.”
Iran ‘immoral war’ fails Church’s ‘Just War’ test
Fostering that peace begins with the call “to be builders of peace within our own hearts and souls,” and to be “bridge builders and reconcilers in our family life,” the cardinal said, emphasizing that all Americans are called to be peacemakers in the nation as it prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary.
“We entered this war not out of necessity but rather choice. We failed to ardently pursue the pathway of negotiation to its end before turning to war,” he continued. “We had no clear intention, instead darting from unconditional surrender to regime change to the degradation of conventional weapons to the removal of nuclear materials.
“And we blinded ourselves to the cascade of global destructiveness that would flow from our attacks — the expansion of the war far beyond Iran, the disruption of the world economy, and the loss of life.”
He said, “Each of these policy failures is equally a moral failure which under Catholic just war principles renders both the initiation of this war and any continuation of it morally illegitimate.”
Worshippers urge peace
Concelebrants for the Mass with Cardinal McElroy included Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, retired archbishop of Washington, and Washington Auxiliary Bishops Roy Campbell Jr., Juan Esposito and Evelio Menjivar.
After the Mass, Nadia Zafari — a native of Iran who was baptized and received the sacraments of confirmation and the Eucharist during that Easter Vigil — said she appreciated that the cardinal also mentioned the violence that the Iranian regime has inflicted on its people, which she said has included young people being executed by hanging.
“I really hope there’s some peace. … I haven’t heard from my family in two weeks,” she told the Catholic Standard, the news outlet of the Washington Archdiocese.
“I don’t think bombs are the solution,” Zafari said, adding, “I really do hope for regime change without any more blood being shed, because so far, it has cost too many lives.”
Outgoing nuncio: Security cannot be ‘built on another’s terror’
Across town, earlier the same day, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, outgoing apostolic nuncio to the U.S., celebrated a noontime Mass and led a prayer vigil for peace in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
“We are here to pray as Christians, to stand before the risen Lord and to ask him for the gift the world cannot manufacture itself: peace,” said Cardinal Pierre, who noted that “we gather to unite ourselves with the prayer vigil for peace being celebrated this very hour by the Holy Father.”
He lamented that the world is “wounded by violence, (and) suspicious of hope.”
“We hear the language of force, and we hear destruction justified by necessity,” Cardinal Pierre said. “We may begin to believe that peace is naïve and war is inevitable and that prayer is powerless, but because Jesus is risen, we know that his way is not a beautiful illusion but the true way.”
Several hundred people attended the Mass in the Crypt Church and hundreds more followed via YouTube and other social media platforms.
Cardinal Pierre said that prayers for peace are necessary because such prayer “exposes the lies that dwell within us that my security can be built on another’s terror, that innocent suffering is acceptable.”
Cardinal Pierre: ‘Mercy is not weakness’
Followers of Jesus Christ know that “mercy is not weakness, prayer is not weakness, the refusal of hatred is not weakness,” he said. “Prayer for peace becomes real when it makes us more truthful, more merciful, more ready for sacrifice.”
Cardinal Pierre led the congregation in reciting a prayer for peace, imploring the intercession of Mary to “direct our hearts into the way of peace and justice.”
Calling on Our Lady as “glorious Queen of Peace,” the congregation prayed for her “guidance for our president and our leaders that they strive for world peace” and to “watch over us and protect us with your motherly love.”
Mark Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of Washington. Contributing to this story was Richard Szczepanowski, Catholic Standard’s managing editor. This story was originally published by the Catholic Standard and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.
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