Three U.S. Catholic Cardinals Rebuke Trump Foreign Policy as Morally Adrift

Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of Washington and Joseph Tobin of Newark issued a joint statement from Rome on Jan. 19 urging the Trump administration to apply a clear moral compass to U.S. foreign policy, warning that recent military action in Venezuela, threats to seize Greenland and cuts to foreign aid risk causing 'vast suffering' rather than peace. Drawing directly on a January 9 address by Pope Leo XIV — the first U.S.-born pope — that condemned nations’ growing reliance on force and erosion of the post–World War II legal order, the cardinals said the U.S. and much of the world are 'adrift morally in terms of foreign policy.' They explicitly renounced war as an instrument for 'narrow national interests,' argued military force must be a true last resort, and called instead for policies that prioritize human life, religious liberty and human dignity, especially through economic assistance. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was consulted and its president, Archbishop Paul Coakley, backed the emphasis on Leo’s message, signaling institutional support behind the critique. Their statement follows a November bishops’ denunciation of mass deportations and migrant 'vilification,' underscoring an escalating confrontation between the U.S. Catholic hierarchy and Trump’s second‑term agenda on both immigration enforcement and the use of American power abroad.