Religion and Politics: On the Roman Catholic Church’s Just War Theory

In the Gospels, Jesus is portrayed as an idealist, even other-worldly, from the standpoint of the political domain. To be sure, he knows how to alienate the Temple hierarchy enough to be put to death, but he stays clear of the Zealots in their militaristic rebelliousness against the Roman occupation. Give what it Caesar’s unto Caesar. The just-war theory developed by Augustine and Aquinas seeks to bring that gap—to make the idealist of the Gospels more relevant practically to the politics of international relations. To be sure, Jesus’s refusal to join the Zealots—symbolized by Jesus including Romans among those whom he heals—could be used to argue convincingly that attention to compassion for one’s enemy makes impossible even any just war. Jesus is just as idealistic in the story of the rich man who will not give up his wealth to follow Jesus—it is harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man (who will not give up his wealth to follow God) to enter the Kingdom of God, whose very substance spiritually is epitomized by compassion to one’s enemies, according to the American theologian, Samuel Hopkins. So, Pope Leo was on solid ground in April, 2026 in the midst of the U.S.-Iran War when he emphatically insisted that Jesus would oppose any war—not just any unjust one—but where does that leave the Catholic Church’s just war theory as promulgated by two theological giants, Augustine and Aquinas?

The just war theory “sets out strict conditions for the moral use of military force. The threat must be lasting, grave and certain, and success must be realistically achievable. Most importantly, all other means of resolution must be genuinely exhausted, and the harm caused must not exceed the harm it seeks to prevent.”[1] World War II against Nazi Germany would certainly qualify, given the severity of the Nazi threat in Europe both within and outside of that empire, and the force of the Allies combined as against that of Germany. Nevertheless, the Catholic doctrine can be viewed in relation to Gandhi’s prescription of moral rather than military force set against the Nazis should they have invaded India. Jesus in the Gospels furnishes yet another alternative: reaching out to be compassionate even to Nazi soldiers in response to the humane needs even while voicing opposition to the Nazi regime. In these terms, the Catholic just war theory looks rather militaristic, although clearly not in terms of “anything goes.” Israel’s holocaustic genocide of the people of Gaza would obviously fly in the face of even just war, given the extreme disproportionality in Israel’s over-reaction to the earlier attack by Hamas in which only about 1,200 Israelis had died. Even in bombing Iran and Lebanon, Israel did not even attempt all other means of resolution, and in fact dismissed even the American brief cease-fire during in the spring of 2026. So too, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could not be counted as just according to the Catholic theory, as the invasion was unprovoked and President Putin had not attempted other means of resolution; his goal, after all, was to restore the Russian Empire of Catherine the Great. Such a naked power-grab cannot be reckoned as just, and in fact manifests Hobbes’ state of nature rather than anything normative.

It was in the context of Russia’s invasion, Israel’s genocide, and America’s bombing of Iran that Pope Leo became speaking in strong words against what was becoming a world order characterized by Hobbes’ state of nature in which life can be expected to be short and brutish. The pope’s criticism of the American bombings thus had larger implications than merely to pressure the Trump administration to resort exclusively to negotiation rather than deadly force. Three bullies on the world stage were literally getting away with murder on a mass scale, while the UN and the International Criminal Court by in large could only stand by and proffer impotent verbal rebukes. As could be expected, the Pope’s opposition to the new status quo was like a lightening rod for the bullies.

Even though U.S. Vice President Vance was schooled in politics rather than in theology, and had only years before even converted to Catholicism, he warned the pope to “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”[2] I’m sure that rebuke from a recent convert went down well at the Vatican. Abstractly, the over-reaching epistemologically and in terms of praxis of the political domain onto the religious one, supervening the innate criteria and knowledge exclusive to the latter domain, implies a category mistake and even a conflation of the two distinct domains as if they were a seamless whole. President Trump’s comments that the pope was “weak on crime” and “terrible on foreign policy” even covered over the theological domain entirely with political pavement. The pope had used distinctly theological, rather than just moral, not to mention political, language to criticize the American use of military force as stemming from the delusion of omnipotence and self-idolatry. Trump’s earlier threat to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” was thus “truly unacceptable” from a distinctly theological standpoint (as well as moral one).[3]

In short, even though there was arguably some daylight between the Catholic just war theory and Pope Leo’s assertion that Jesus of the Gospels opposes war itself, it is not as if that theory permits any and all wars. To be sure, especially up against the Hobbesian state of nature, a normative constraint without powerful enforcement can safely be ignored by bullies on the world stage. Theology is distinct from the political realm, and this point is clear in the Gospels as Jesus distances himself from even the Zealots. Hence compassion even (and especially) to enemies and detractors can take place under Christian auspices even against enemies during a war. Vance’s warning to the pope about the latter’s attempt to do theology is thus ludicrous. Moreover, the pope’s alleged pacifism, which is arguably in line with Jesus of the Gospels, implies that the Church’s just war theory may need to be thought with more attention to the Gospels and less to trying to be relevant in the political domain. The world was arguably careening away from the message of peace through forgiveness and compassion that is in the Gospels in break-neck speed, and Pope Leo’s decision to use stronger, more direct theological language reflects just how potentially dangerous the collapse of the post-World War II world order was, as government officials around the world merely looked as at least three bullies were setting up a very different kind of world “order,” one of “(military)might makes right” in which even the legal fiction of international law is wantonly ignored with utter impunity. Antipodally, just because Jesus’s preachments on how the Kingdom of God can be realized here and now could have a significant impact on international relations does not mean the theological domain is the same as, or reduces to, the political domain. Ironically, were the Catholic Church to replace its just war theory with Pope Leo’s statement that Jesus can not be used to justify war itself, this more idealistic move could have a more significant impact on the world both interpersonally and between governments because the ideal of compassion even to enemies would be highlighted from the theological vantage point.

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1. Aleksandar Brezar, “White House vs the Pope: What Is Behind the Clash and Catholic Just War Doctrine?” Euronews.com, 17 April, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Religiosity among Young Republican Men: An Escape from Homosexuality to White Privilege?

Idealism may exist especially in young adults because they have not experienced decade upon decade of the intractability of a deeply flawed social, political, and economic world’s status quo, which typically permits only incremental change. Zealous optimism can be expressed in a variety of domains, including religion, social issues, and politics. For example, political group-affiliation can stimulate a more intense devotion to religion, and vice versa. Even a passion on social agendas can translate into increased religiosity, and the latter can overreach onto the former. It can be asked of such instances whether the religiosity is genuine, or merely transferred energetic enthusiasm from another domain. The upsurge in religiosity among young Republican men polled by Gallup in the mid-2020s may be more political than religious. Relative to the growing numbers of non-religious-affiliated people in the U.S. as well as the E.U., the uptick among young Republicans should be put into perspective.

In 1979, Ronald Reagan ran a presidential campaign that brought in the “evangelical right” as well as blue-collar democrats. Accordingly, the Republican group went from pro-choice on Abortion to being against the procedure from a distinctly religious standpoint. The election of Pope John Paul II in the same year furthered the turn to the right on social issues as they took hold in the Roman Catholic Church and even went on to displace attention to soteriological matters especially in the American Catholic clerical hierarchy such that Pope Francis felt the need to suggest to his fellow bishops that the moral/social issues be de-prioritized relative to preaching on the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus Christ and his subsequent resurrection. In the mid-2020s, as shown by Gallup polling, an upsurge in religiosity among young Republican (American) men—the political context being explicit—may have begun, resonating with Reagan’s incorporation of the Moral Majority in Republican politics. What was behind the upsurge, and why weren’t young women enjoying an upsurge in religiosity too?

Gallup’s data in 2024-2025 “shows that 42% of men in the U.S. ages 18-29 said religion is very important to them, a notable increase from 28% in 2022-2023. Over the same time, young women’s attachment to religion . . . stayed low, at about 30%.”[1] The percentages of men and women who claimed to be very religious had gradually declined since the polling had begun in 2000, with the exception of the 42% in 2025-2025 going up from the 28% in 2022-2023 for young men.[2] Moreover, the majority of young men and a supermajority of young women in the U.S. indicated that religion was not important to them. Put another way, the uptick in the religiosity of young men of 14% is dwarfed by the 70% of young women who were not actively religious on a weekly basis. The uptick in Republican-related religiosity among young American men should be viewed in the context of an increasingly secular West.

In fact, the “very religious” self-identification could stem from having the Republican political group-identity, given the strong positive correlation. The question, in other words, involves which domain was primary for the “very religious” respondents in terms of their group-identifications. Each person has several such identifications, one of which is usually primary.

For myself, my primary group identification is cultural; I view myself chiefly as a native Midwesterner. For me to allow this group identification to monopolize my self-identity, hence excluding my political, religious, racial, gender, sexual, etc., group-identities would be highly artificial because in actuality all of them pertain to me. I am conscious of my decision to make one primary. As an aside, a racist could be defined as a person who has decided to allow racial group-identity to monopolize the group-identities that are possible in all other domains, not only pertaining to oneself, but to other people too, even if their primary group-identities are otherwise. Imposing racial group-identities on a person whose primary group-identity is in another domain produces tension, given the dogmatic overreaching, and such imposing may be termed racist.  

Overreaching is evinced in the analysis of the poll by Ryan Burge, a political scientist and Baptist preacher, whose claim that the uptick in religiosity of young Republican men “represents a seismic change in society and the future of the church” is likely overblown, given the fact that majorities of both young men and women were still refusing to say that they were very religious.[3] Burge also overreaches in bringing in race in claiming that young men were more drawn to religion “because it is a space where they feel more accepted in a world where other institutions are ‘less interested in white men compared to women and people of color.”[4] Given the salience of Caucasians still in corporations and Congress, it would be interesting to learn of which “other institutions” Burge had in mind in making his statement. His claim that the domain of religion is “the only place where you don’t have to apologize for being a white man” demonstrates just how artificial (and ludicrous) imposing race in a fundamentally non-racial phenomenon can be.[5]

Completely aside from race, it is possible that the “very religious” respondents in the Gallop poll tended to self-identity as Republicans primarily and as Christians in the religious domain only secondarily even though they viewed themselves as very religious because the latter was infused with political energy and idealism. The salience of religion in the Republican party since Reagan incorporated the social-issue-oriented Moral Majority could explain the paradox. In fact, to the extent that “religion” in the Republican party has actually been more about social issues such as abortion and homosexuality than theology, the respondents may have actually been “very social-issue-oriented” rather than theological. Pew Research Center surveys in 2025 “found about 4 in 10 men under 30 say divorce is morally wrong, compared to only 2 in 10 young women. Even more men under 30, about half, say abortion is morally wrong, compared to only about one-third of women the same age. Young men are also likelier than young women to say homosexuality is morally wrong, although both groups are substantially less likely than older men and women to hold this view.”[6] Higher numbers regardless of age would be more critical of homosexuality were more people aware of the profligate norm that gays in the Castro district of San Francisco were imposing on each other in insisting on rampant sex outside of relationships, including separate emotional/romantic attachments rather than just separate anonymous sex, which boyfriends and husbands are expected to accept. Monogamy and commitment, as well as fidelity, became dirty words in that sub-culture when the “woke” ideology took over sexual “ethics.” It is interesting that that sub-culture went in that direction even as the Republican group was becoming more socially conservative. Seeking meaning, whether in a political or a religious group, can be distinguished antithetically from the lack of emotional connection and the related loneliness that go with a refusal to channel momentary urges in ways that do not eclipse emotional intimacy and trust. It is indeed a tale of two cities.

Regarding the “very religious” young Republican men, I suspect that both social issues and theology were in the mix because of the overtly Christian-leanings, to say the least, that entered the Republican group in 1979. Pope John Paul II’s stance against the U.S.S.R., especially pertaining to his home state of Poland, combined with the pre-existent firm anti-Communist stance of the Republican party, contributed to the tight link between Christianity and the Republican group. In fact, the ideal of a “Christian nation” has not been uncommon in the Republican group since Reagan, who interestingly referred to America as a “city on a hill,” an expression that Augustine used to denote the Heavenly City as against the Earthly City. With the very earthly city of the Castro well-entrenched in San Francisco becoming increasingly primitive instinctually, it is no wonder that civilized Americans would envision a city on a hill above the degenerate, utterly selfish filth of unrestrained instinctual urges. Such an envisioning would not be exclusively religious.

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1, Deepa Bharath, “What a New Gallup Poll Shows about Young Men’s Religious Revival,” Apnews.com, April 16, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

Distinguishing Theology from Ethics: A Critique of Waging War

Whereas an ethical critique of war appeals to an ethical principle, typically that is against humans being harmed, especially the innocent, a theological critique can be based on a divine degree or on the nature of the divine in contradistinction to human nature as anything but. That is, a distinctly theological critique of war itself or people who wage war is typically based on some obfuscation of the divine and human wherein the latter has sought to appropriate divine nature or attributes to what is in Nietzsche’s famous phrase, human, all too human. Although Kant’s “kingdom of ends” formulation of his categorial imperative looks a lot like Jesus’s Golden Rule, for example, offending rational beings by treating them only as means to one’s own goals is distinct from offending God by violating the divine command of universal benevolence, or “neighbor love,” which is Jesus’s second commandment, which is like unto the first (i.e., to love God). Having probably just now lost, or “blown away,” just about every normal reader, I want to illustrate my point of distinguishing the ethical from the theological by analyzing pertinent comments made by Pope Leo, the first Midwestern (Illinois) pope, in April, 2026.

Referring to the war inflicted on Iran by the U.S. and the state of Israel, the pope referred to the “delusion of omnipotence.”[1] The pope could have been referring to the hubris of power that had fueled Israel’s Netanyahu into the delusion that committing a holocaustic genocide against the people of Gaza was a just and proportional reaction to the attack by Hama in which only about 1,200 Israelis died. The prime minister even said that Israel’s deity had been good in helping Israel in being able to inflict a Nazi-level of atrocity on the Gazans. The ease with which a human is willing to hurt other humans is indeed troubling; to bring a deity into the equation in a favorable light, as the U.S. Secretary of Defense did on the U.S. attacks on Iran and Netanyahu did on Gaza surely must boggle the mind of any rational or genuinely religious person.

The pope’s deliberate use of the word, omnipotence, was no accident, for that word denotes a uniquely divine attribute that human beings do not have because none of us is all-powerful. Relative to a Creator, any creature is of relative power. It is not as though the vast majority of us are under the delusion; some people with low self-esteem even become sexually aroused by having their limited power showcased by a dominating sex-partner as if being intentionally harmed and even humiliated were deserved. People who set aside a room as a dungeon may even crave powerlessness relative to the power of another person, which is just as problematic in its own way because we are all made in the image of God and thus are worthy of some self-love. Even though we are far from omnipotent, we creatures are nonetheless worthy of being loved. It is out of love for the self-deprived dungeon-lovers that efforts can be made to help them out of their plight so they feel comfortable in their own limited, justified power and thus come to love themselves. Guiding a person into the light of healthy self-love and away from the darkness of selfishness and self-inflicted pain without any benefit to oneself evinces genuine love consistent with Christian agape. Our species is indeed capable of other-regarding, selfless love, which is antipodal and thus antithetical to self-centered love, which is actually selfish greed.  

Whereas the Jansenist Pierre Nicole wrote scathingly of self-love, Augustine had maintained that self-love of the image of God within is salubrious theologically. Such self-love is not that to which Pope Leo referred when he said of the warmongers waging war against Iran, “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”[2] The pope was trying to guide President Trump away from selfish self-love to love as benevolentia universalis. The idolatry of self is the placing of oneself above love directed to God. Such misordered concupiscence enables monetary and political greed and even war as a way of obtaining more, the love of which is the definition of greed.

Both “omnipotence” and “idolatry” are distinctively theological, or religious, words; they are not in the lexicon of ethics because the words are sourced or related back to the divine, which transcends the created realm, whereas ethical principles do not unless they are part of a divine command. This is precisely the decisive way in which the theological is distinct from the ethical. Put another way, God’s omnipotence (i.e., being all-powerful) means that God cannot be limited to one of our ethical theories or principles unless God itself has commanded them. As sure as we may be that our ethical principles are solid, they are not eternal in themselves. Rather, they are manmade. As such, they are of the created realm unless they are commanded by God. To insist nonetheless that religion reduces to ethical principles, as Unitarian Universalists typically have done since the 1970s, is thus to engage in self-idolatry.

In his remarks, the Roman Catholic pope was proffering a snapshot of the idolatry and the related delusion that distinguish warmongers far from the divine. A Nietzschean pathos of distance separates the bullies from a deity of compassion and self-giving, agape love. I’m sure the pope would appreciate being backed up by Nietzsche, the author of The Anti-Christian whose father and grandfather were Lutheran ministers, but the pope and I are fellow native Midwesterners from Northern Illinois so I’m sure he would forgive me in the very unlikely event that he reads this essay—though whereas he is a White Sox fan, I am an avid Cubs fan, but no one—not even a pope—is perfect.  Hence the distinction between the creature and the Creator! To obfuscate the two, or, even worse, to put ourselves above the condition of being and reality, is superbia writ large—nothing less than arrogance on stilts during a sell-deserved flood—in the bloated self-love of self-idolatry in contradistinction to selfless love even and especially for those who reject us, for even children of lesser gods share in being (God being perfect being) and thus, according to Leibniz, deserve to be loved in spite of themselves. If the pope was placing Trump and Netanyahu in their place, as situated relative to God rather than to their own hyper-egos, out of love rather than just anger (which would be justified), then the pope could get a sense of God’s perspective, albeit limited as per the perspective of a mere creature. I hope I have demonstrated why this is qualitatively different than the adoption of a distinctly ethical perspective, which in turn is human, all too human.

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1. Nicole Winfield, “Pope Leo XIV Denounces the ‘Delusion of Omnipotence’ He Says Fuels the US-Israeli War in Iran,” APnews.com, April 11, 2026.
2.Ibid.

Pope Leo Denounces Warmongers

With Easter, 2026, taking place amid the holocaustic genocide in Gaza, Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and the U.S./Israel attacks against Israel, Pope Leo used the occasion to speak out against war, and those who benefit politically and by profiting from war. The pope’s absolute rejection of war included excoriating Christians who had been using theological rationales to justify war. Although not in the pope’s field of vision at the time, such Christians have included the popes who had perpetuated four crusades—the last of which was waged against Constantinople (i.e., eastern Christians)—in Medieval European Christendom. The implication is that Jesus did not hear the prayers of those militarized Christians who thought they were defending Jesus and his Church.

The pope’s Easter message against war was unequivocal: “This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war.”[1] Compassion towards detractors and even enemies is antipodal to war, and thus the pope’s condemnation was indeed on solid ground. What are we to make, therefore, of the Catholic just war rationales? If Jesus rejects war, then even a war that is just is included in the rejection. Besides being a problem for Catholic social-ethics theory, should Jesus’s preachment of compassion for the Nazis as they committed genocide against Slavs, Jews, Communists, and other societal undesirables stand up against the just-war rationale to invade Germany to stop the wholesale slaughter? Asked about how India should have reacted to a Nazi invasion, Gandhi answered in line with the pope’s condemnation by saying that people should stand in non-violent resistance on India’s borders. Would Jesus agree? His distancing of himself from the Zealots in the Gospels may suggest that he would not join the armed resistance to the Nazis. His kindness to the Roman soldiers suggests that he would have compassion for individual Nazis in spite of their atrocities.

So in the wake of the pope’s condemnation of war, Catholic just-war theory may need to be revised. The pope also claimed that Jesus ignores the prayers of Christians who support or wage war. This would include even the prayers of Christians who were supporting Israel because of its role as a precondition for Jesus’s Second Coming even as Israel was committing crimes against humanity against the people of Gaza with impunity. Whether taking back Jerusalem for Jesus in the Middle Ages or enabling a genocidal government in the twenty-first century so Jesus could return, such rationales are ignored by the Christian deity.

The presumption that even positions that are antithetical to Jesus’s preachments in the Gospels are in some way Christian nonetheless reveals the susceptibility of the human mind to going too far without any self-check mechanism in the domain of religion. Faced with Christians who were looking the other way as Israel was committing a genocide, Jesus would probably retort that his second coming is in the righteous suffering of the Gazan people who were not guilty of having attacked Israel in 2023. He would no doubt apply his condemnation of the Jewish religious leaders in the Gospels to Netanyahu and his government, with something like, They still don’t get it, but even such a guttural condemnation does not go far enough, for the principle of selfless love even and especially against people we don’t like (and even hate) is in need of loudspeakers in being pronounced to be the way into the Kingdom of God in this life. Defending Jesus and protecting the way for the Second Coming, especially if by violence, pale in comparison to that principle, which can stand on its own without any anthropomorphism.

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[1] Joshua McElwee, “Pope Leo Says God Rejects Prayers of Leaders Who Wage Wars,” Reuters.com, March 29, 2026.

Religion Overreaching: Euthanasia

The Nazi program of inflicting euthanasia on the severely mentally ill in the twentieth century can be distinguished from cases in which suffering people with incurable diseases desire to die voluntarily sooner rather than later. In cases in which such people are mentally ill, the question is more complex, especially if the cause of the suffering is mental. In 2026, the Roman Catholic Church castigated a court ruling allowing the euthanasia of a mentally-ill person whose suffering stemmed in part from severe bodily pain and an incurable diagnosis other than that of the mental illness. Ironically, the Church discounted the element of compassion in putting someone out of one’s misery that would only get worse, and instead focused on “the culture of death” even though Jesus is silent on that issue, as well as homosexuality and abortion, in the Gospels. This is a case, I contend, of religion overstepping onto another domains—ethics and medicine in particular—while shirking its native fauna.  

On March 27, 2026, 25-year-old Noelia Castillo died by euthanasia in the E.U. city of Barcelona. A court had sided with her decision to end her life voluntarily “because she suffered from a serious and incurable condition, with severe and chronic suffering.”[1] By this description, I assume that the condition was not that of mental illness even though the latter played a role in how she came to have the condition of such physical pain. So even though Noelia had “struggled with psychiatric illness since she was a teenager, and tried taking her life twice,” the second time (after she had been sexually assaulted) leaving her unable to use her legs, the severe and chronic suffering can be distinguished from her psychiatric suffering.[2] So even though her judgment may have been clouded by her psychiatric illness, the court could use a reasonable-person basis to assess whether the suffering from the non-psychiatric condition was enough to justify euthanasia. To be sure, if the incurable aspect refers to not being able to use her legs rather than a mortal illness, the court’s ruling could be criticized because future advances in medical science could potentially relieve her suffering and even restore the use of her legs, especially given her young age and the advances that would be possible in her lifetime. On the other hand, the combination of psychiatric and physical pain and suffering could be sufficient to justify Noelia’s early death out of sheer compassion. In this respect, the Church’s reaction can be criticized by drawing on the salient of compassion associated with Jesus in the Gospels.

Luis Arguello, president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, said, “A doctor cannot act as the executioner for a death sentence, however legal, empowering or compassionate it may appear.”[3] The hyperbolic language of executioner and death sentence aside, the bishop’s claim that the compassion motivating euthanasia is merely apparent rather than actual can be countered by the fact that compassion does apply to relieving especially severe, unrelenting physical pain that is expected to continue for the rest of a person’s life. That advances in medical science could mean that the continuance-assumption can be questioned does not nullify my claim that compassion to relieve suffering, whether one’s own or that of another person, is authentic rather than merely apparent.

Also problematic, the organization Christian Lawyers put out the following statement: “If deliberately caused death is the solution to problems, then anything goes.”[4] It does not follow, however, that if euthanasia is the solution to some but not any problem, then anything goes ethically. In other words, euthanasia, which follows prescribed guidelines, does not imply nor lead to ethical relativism. The latter holds that if a cultural norm exists in a society, then that is enough to validate the norm ethically.

The reference to relativism, moreover, exemplifies the tendency of religion to overreach into another domain, in this case ethics. At the very least, relating euthanasia to relativism requires some study of ethical theory, which is an academic field distinct from theology. Nor does theology include societal analysis (which in turn is distinct from the field of ethics because norms are not ethical principles). So in making the claim, “we have all failed as a society,” regarding the euthanasia case, Bishop Perez was overreaching from the domain of religion and thus can be reckoned as a dilatant.[5]

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1. Jesus Maturana and Cristian Caraballo, “Catholic Church Criticises Noelia Castillo’s Death by Euthanasia, Saying Society Failed,” Euronews.com, 27 March, 2026.
2 Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Sexual Abuse in Churches: A Turn to Healing

When Sarah Mullally was formally installed in a historic ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral on March 25, 2026, a former nurse became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her vocational background highlights the importance of healing, which was appropriate because her predecessor, Justin Welby, had stepped down because he had failed to address a serial sexual-abuse scandal. It had been important most of all to the victims—boys at a church camp who were sexually molested by a gay man volunteering at the camp—that Welby go. Close to the day of the ceremony, Mullally promised explicitly to attend to such victims, as is fitting and proper for a Christian cleric to do. It is what Jesus Christ would do, whereas he would not recognize the sexual predators or their enablers in the hierarchies of Christian denominations. The contrast itself bears witness to just how far some denominations had fallen from being justified in claiming to follow the principles preached by Jesus in the Gospels. That those sects had been able to do so even while representing themselves as distinctly Christian institutions shows just how power clerics have in beguiling laity.

Mullally emphasized her commitment to “do all I can to ensure that the Church becomes safer and also responds well to victims and survivors of abuse.”[1] Being safer refers to the Church proactively policing its own, whereas responding to victims is a reaction to past abuse. Regarding the latter, she said the Church was “seeking to become more trauma informed, listening to survivors and victims of abuse.”[2] As a former nurse, she could have gone further by saying that she would make her Church into a facilitator of victims getting connected to therapists so the healing process could really begin, for being listened to is just a first step in the help that victims of sexual abuse need in order to heal.

Psychology not being my field, I can only surmise that victims of sexual abuse avoid commitment and instead may engage in anti-commitment behavior, such as having sex with friends and anonymous men or women. Of course, this is not to say that every man or woman who is sexually promiscuous has been sexually abused. Using rampant sex to push commitment away is a defense mechanism that only needs a fear of emotional intimacy to be able to control a person’s life and serially thwart genuine (i.e., intimate) romantic relationships. For some victims, sex itself may just be too painful.

It is precisely because sexual abuse can scar its victims so deeply that Welby’s abject failure to properly handle the case of John Smyth, “who sexually and physically abused young men at Christian camps in the UK, Zimbabwe and South Africa over five decades,” is so damning, especially as Welby was a Christian priest (and Archbishop).[3] This is not to say that such enabling and lack of accountability on such a crime only occurs in religious institutions. Penn State University’s athletic director and football coach looked the other way as an older men molested student football-players in the showers for decades. Even so, it is more shocking when older men molest younger men under a Christian flag.

Sexual abuse by an older man can be tacit, or subtly legitimated because it is camouflaged by a relationship arrangement that gives the younger man the go-ahead to be sexually promiscuity that keeps emotional intimacy away. There is, in other words, a cost to the younger man in being what is known as a trophy. An older man having such a “trophy” younger man bears no cost, as the older man can even be living with another man romantically. That the trophy is being kept from having an emotionally intimate partner of his own is of no concern to the older man who gets to have his cake and eat it too. The trophy may even be deluded into thinking that the older man is his partner. In short, this is sadly very unfair to the younger man, and thus I contend that the arrangement is a subtle form of abuse.

A fear of emotional intimacy, such as motivates a person to push people away when they get too close (such as by using sexual promiscuity), fits well with being in a trophy role. It can be caused by sexual abuse or from having witnessed abusive relationships, or even simply a low self-esteem. Such fear is, I suspect, very difficult for therapists to heal because people who don’t think they are worthy of emotional intimacy will lash out to thwart it in its tracks. This is precisely why Christian institutions could play such an important role in connecting victims of sexual abuse with psychological clinics, rather than merely be good at listening. The damage done mentally is surely very deep. That a former nurse became the Archbishop of Canterbury is a good indication of where Christian Churches could go in emphasizing healing in such cases. After all, Jesus heals in the Gospels.  

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Sarah Mullally Makes History as First Woman Enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury,” Euronews.com, 25 March, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Oman Al Yahyai, “Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby Resigns amid Sexual Abuse Scandal,” Euronews.com, 12 November, 2024.

Transcending Caritas in Romantic Love

During the High Middle Ages, Troubadour poetry composed primarily in southern Europe included themes including of courtly love, which became associated with marriage. Before then, that institution was associated mostly with property and progeny rather than with romantic love. Interestingly, it was just as love was becoming associated with marriage when the Roman Catholic Church ended its centuries-old gay-marriage liturgy, which, sans property and progeny, was uniquely associated with love (for why else would gays marry?). The irony is that “modern” gay marriage in the West in the twenty-first century may have more to do with sex than love in the sex-centric gay culture, though obviously gays are fully capable of genuine love that transcends such superficialities as lust, especially squalid lust that is distended in “open” relationships sans commitment. Indeed, married gays in loving, committed relationships even raise children in loving homes. Although utterly obscene to more conservative folks, such “mixed families” grounded in love warrant respect and even admiration for being based in genuine love, whereas the sex-centric approach to “relationships” in the gay “culture” justly warrants condemnation for being superficial, short-sighted, and utterly self-centered. Yet, whether gay or heterosexual, romantic love need not be selfish. The distinction in Christian theology between caritas and agape is relevant in making this point.

The full essay is at "Transcending Caritas in Romantic Love."