Religion and public life
The U.S. Cardinals call for a diplomacy able to promote dialogue and seek consensus at a time when Trump hints the invasion of Greenland.
The Cardinals of Chicago, Newark, and Washington, DC, aligned their plea with Pope Leo XIV’s most recent message to the Diplomatic Corps.
Cardinals Cupich, Tobin, and McElroy have made repeated calls to the U.S. government to respect human lives and avoid policies that risk unnecessary wars.
Cardinals Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, Illinois, Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, D.C. and Joseph W. Tobin, archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, issued this Monday January 19, 2026, a statement regarding U.S. foreign policy.
They measure the recent threats issued by the White House against principles reasserted by Pope Leo XIV in his January 9, 2026, address to members of the diplomatic corps accredited the Holy See (available here).
Breaking protocol that day, Pope Leo XIV used English as the language to deliver the most-clear warning against the potential use of military force since the 1930 when Pius XI and XII warned repeatedly against similar policy choices.
When asked to comment on the joint statement, Cardinal Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, talked about the risk of condemning millions “to lives trapped permanently at the edge of existence. Pope Leo has given us clear direction and we must apply his teachings to the conduct of our nation and its leaders.”
Newark archbishop, Cardinal Tobin stressed the need to pursue just and peaceful relations among nations, warning about “escalating threats and armed conflict risk destroying international relations and plunging the world into incalculable suffering.”
The current head of the Catholic Church in Washington, DC, Cardinal McElroy criticized a narrow understanding of the “national interest” aimed at excluding “the moral imperative of solidarity among nations and the dignity of the human person.”
As he did repeatedly as bishop of San Diego, California, McElroy warned about the potential implications of a “catastrophic assault on peace” for the benefit of a single nation.
Further he noted, “In our current national debate about the fundamental contours of American foreign policy, we ignore this reality at the cost of our country’s truest interests and the best traditions of this land that we love.”
The joint of statement of Cardinals Cupich, Tobin, and McElroy follows:
Charting a moral vision of U.S. Foreign Policy
In 2026, the United States has entered into the most profound and searing debate about the moral foundation for America’s actions in the world since the end of the Cold War. The events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland have raised basic questions about the use of military force and the meaning of peace. The sovereign rights of nations to self-determination appear all too fragile in a world of ever greater conflagrations. The balancing of national interest with the common good is being framed within starkly polarized terms. Our country’s moral role in confronting evil around the world, sustaining the right to life and human dignity, and supporting religious liberty are all under examination. And the building of just and sustainable peace, so crucial to humanity’s well-being now and in the future, is being reduced to partisan categories that encourage polarization and destructive policies.
For all of these reasons, the contribution of Pope Leo in outlining a truly moral foundation for international relations to the Vatican diplomatic corps this month has provided us an enduring ethical compass for establishing the pathway for American foreign policy in the coming years. He stated:
- In our time, the weakness of multilateralism is a particular cause for concern at the international level. A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies. War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading. The principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined. Peace is no longer sought as a gift and desirable good in itself, or in pursuit of ‘the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God with a more perfect form of justice among men and women.’ Instead, peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one’s own dominion.
Pope Leo also reiterates Catholic teaching that “the protection of the right to life constitutes the indispensable foundation for every other human right” and that abortion and euthanasia are destructive of that right. He points to the need for international aid to safeguard the most central elements of human dignity, which are under assault because of the movement by wealthy nations to reduce or eliminate their contributions to humanitarian foreign assistance programs. Finally, the Holy Father points to the increasing violations of conscience and religious freedom in the name of an ideological or religious purity that crushes freedom itself.
As pastors and citizens, we embrace this vision for the establishment of a genuinely moral foreign policy for our nation. We seek to build a truly just and lasting peace, that peace which Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel. We renounce war as an instrument for narrow national interests and proclaim that military action must be seen only as a last resort in extreme situations, not a normal instrument of national policy. We seek a foreign policy that respects and advances the right to human life, religious liberty, and the enhancement of human dignity throughout the world, especially through economic assistance.
Our nation’s debate on the moral foundation for American policy is beset by polarization, partisanship, and narrow economic and social interests. Pope Leo has given us the prism through which to raise it to a much higher level. We will preach, teach, and advocate in the coming months to make that higher level possible.
Signed,
- Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago
- Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, Archbishop of Washington
- Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R., Archbishop of Newark
