[Homily. Main chapel, San Jose Seminary, August 15, 2026.]
On this day of the Assumption of Our Lady body and soul into heaven, we hear in our Gospel how she magnifies God: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. For he has looked upon his servant’s lowliness. From this day on, all generations will call me blessed!” (Lk: 46b-48). Today, these are sentiments that I have: sentiments of praise, awe, and profound thanksgiving, as he has certainly looked on this servant with favor—and blessed me beyond expectation!
Today, I celebrate two important events in my life: first, my ordination to the priesthood by His Eminence Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York in the Chapel of Fordham University fifty years ago on June 12, 1976; and second, my final vows as a Jesuit pronounced here in this Chapel of San Jose 37 years ago in 1989—just as I began to serve San Jose as its rector in place of Fr. Julian Pastor, S.J..
With all of you, I celebrate being “God’s Jesuit Priest Forever” as the concert after this Mass adopts this as its theme, and glorifies God with heavenly strains. With this celebration come fond personal memories of priestly service of the relocated urban poor in the Resettlement Area of San Pedro, Laguna, special studies in philosophy in Austria and Germany, parish work in the Bavarian Parish of Sankt Ulrich in Unterschleissheim, work with the urban poor of the Sambayanan Kristyano ng Kristong Hari in Commonwealth, QC, the struggle for social justice and the housing rights of the urban poor, which became an integral dimension of my service of San Jose Seminary, then of Loyola School of Theology, then of the Ateneo de Naga University, and finally of the Ateneo de Davao University.
They also come with memories of struggling as a Jesuit to appropriate the treasures of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatus of Loyola, of coping with interior motions of consolation and desolation, of countless conversations looking into the heart of the Crucified Lord when I asked, “If you have done this for me in love, Lord, what have I done for you? what am I doing for you? what ought I do for you?”
Today in my twilight years as a “senior Jesuit” here at San Jose Seminary and as a research fellow of the Institute on Church and Social Issues, I am still praying for a more profound configuration to the person of Jesus Christ—who in the service of his Father was a preacher, healer, shepherd, spiritual counselor, disruptor, reconciler, redeemer, brother and friend.
We pray in the hope that Mary, assumed today into heaven, give us the hope ourselves also to arrive there, where “the Lord has prepared a banquet for us in the sight of our foes … where, as we revel in his goodness and kindness, our cups overflow.”
Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas (MH)[1] is a 65,000-word “reflection on safeguarding the human person.” Considering that Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum was about 15,000 words, Magnifica Humanitas, if anything, is a long document. I will not attempt a summary, since others have done this[2] and a helpful outline is provided at the outset of the encyclical. What I would like to do in this commentary is simply formulate some “points for reflection” from my own study of the text, as a contribution to the discussion of some of the significant issues it raises.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Not Defined in MH
First, AIin MH is emblematic, but only emblematic, of digital technology enhanced by self-learning technology. Leo XIV does not formally define it. In fact, he disclaims any intention to give a comprehensive treatment of it and its relevant literature. Instead, he confines himself to “elements for discernment”: “a few essential elements for a moral and social discernment that safeguards the primacy of the human person, in order to ensure that it will always be human intelligence.” (97).
But we surmise from the manner AI is used in MH that it includes: Information Technology (the use of computers, software and networks to create, process, store, secure and exchange electronic data); Assistive Technology (helps people with disabilities or age-related impairments perform daily tasks); Artificial Intelligence(a branch of computer science focused on creating systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence [includes: learning {machine and deep learning}, reasoning, problem-solving, understanding language, and recognition patterns]); Health Technology(software-driven solutions that connect them to providers, e.g., fitness trackers, health monitors); Medical Technology (thermometers to Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanners, pacemakers, robotic surgery]; Robotics Technology (hardware and mechanics, actuators and motors, sensory systems, control systems and processing, software and AI]; QuantumTechnology (harnesses the sub-atomic laws of quantum mechanics to process, transmit and measure information in fundamentally new ways, vastly exceeding the capabilities of traditional classical technology; AI helps build and manage quantum computing; quantum computing is applied to make AI faster and more efficient); Entertainment Technology, Operational Technology (all the systems and layers used to manage industrial operations—the sensors, controllers, networks and control software that work alongside valves, motors, pumps, robotic arms and other equipment), and Military Technology (all the technology used, today often substantially enhanced by AI, to manufacture precision weapons even of mass destruction including advanced stealth bombers, jet fighters, hypersonic missiles, bunker-busting bombs, drones, in cycles of ongoing improvement).[3]
One may note that because of the breadth and depth, colors and hues of all that is included in “digital technology” it is a challenging subject to manage. For Leo XIV it is a source of blinding light or of foreboding darkness. In itself, it is “not a force antagonistic to humanity” (4) nor is it “Inherently evil” (9). But when is this ever just “in itself”? It has no “in itself” unless already beyond itself. Leo XIV is aware of this: “technology is never neutral because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it” (9). In these areas, and in the bodies that regulate yet propagate this new technology, there is no neutrality: driving the development of AI is the profit motive on personal, communal, national and global levels: self-interest, the strenuous effort towards human and social utility, prediction, power, control and dominance in order to succeed.
The countereffort exemplified in MH to tame these interests in order to accommodate a vision of a humanely harmonious society seems distant, abrupt and misplaced—like pious platitudes thrown against daemonic negative forces posing as neutral. Yet this is what Magnifica Humanitas is about: a hero’s effort to stand to power. To stand to ensure that in the face of technology unbounded, technology remains bound to the human. Even at the risk of martyrdom. From an impossible dream trained against an imperviously impious milieu?
The Grandeur of Humanity
Second, Magnifica Humanitas: The Grandeur of humanity. The Mystery of humanity.
MH works with an unmediated gratisintuition about humanity: that it is not evil, not base, not hopeless, not irreparably flawed, but good, noble, wrought with dignity. The key descriptor of the document is magnifica, magnificent—magnificent humanity. Or the Grandeur of Humanity. But considering the ambivalence of human history which has wrought such as Michaelangelo’s Pieta on the one hand, but also Pablo Picasso’s Guernica on the other, is humanity’s grandeur positivity imposed on the reader of MH—with all negativity suppressed a priori?
Karl Marx’s species being[4] is in itself ultimately imposed positivity against human degradation due to capitalism. It is the human worker alienated from the object of his labor which he no longer controls, alienated from his creative act of production over which he has no genuine agency, alienation from his or her species-being through which the individual increasingly realizes his- or herself concretely by relating to all in society as a species—as concrete universal, or as individual individualized in humanity, or as humanity humanized in individuality, and finally, alienation from other people since capitalism turns human beings against each other in competition, self-interest and often cruelty and hatred. This fourfold alienation must be overcome through a revolution which necessarily overcomes the workers’ alienations (there is a subtle but crucial play on words in the German expression for “necessary revolution”: Not-wendige Aufhebung, whose outcome is the historical realization of species being: communism. My intention in describing Marx’s species-being in its historical context is not to advocate its adoption but its consideration, simply to show that the philosophy of the human person in MH is but one among a plurality of possible philosophical anthropologies capable of magnificence and grandeur. Historically, this type of Marxism, or better, Marxianism, is presented as humanity liberating humanity from its callousness to social injustice due to the Industrial Revolution; it is trapped in a theologically inspired, pie-in-the-sky escapism. The solution to the awfulness of humanity’s oppression and wars is to stop gazing into the clouds and start tackling the ills of social injustice in the stench of the real world. This is something only the human being, not God, can do. commanded by a moral necessity within. Otherwise, the historical alienation remains, no matter the exotic scents of incense rising to the heavens.
So briefly, what is the philosophical anthropology —presuming this is an adequate descriptor, and not already a theological anthropology— in the humanity of MH? For Leo XIV the dignity of humanity derives from its being created in the image of God, the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (73). The human being is created by God, imaging him with intelligence, creativity, power and freedom, capable of obedience, happiness, and sin—even structural sin (79). Having sinned (e.g. in his rebellion against God and fellow human beings through his misuse of creation as in Cain’s murder of Abel), he or she is redeemed by the Son and reconciled with the Father. His dignity is not only restored but enhanced. The human being lives today with responsibility to preserve and advance this human dignity—the grandeur of humanity—guided in discernment through the Spirit of God in the Church, even and especially in the context of today’s res novae: AI and the digital revolution (94, 96). The human is called to live Truth not in self-serving isolation intensified by AI, but in responsible relationship to God, fellow human beings, and the environment. It is through human making, human self-making in creative labor, strength and the sweat of their brows, that humanity enhances itself in grateful responsibility to God’s love. In this context Leo XIV teaches that humanity is called to a civilization of love (185,187)—not chaotic activity at cross purposes in building a tower of Babel but in coordinated, cooperative, responsible and free collaboration, guided by the Spirit of God in building a new Jerusalem. In this Jerusalem humanity is ensured before God’s holy shrine (184 ff).[5] And at home.
The question is whether the lofty philosophical/theological anthropology presented in MH is in fact able to safeguard the grandeur of humanity from degeneration due to man’s self-making gone awry—now enhanced by AI. MH points to the grandeur of humanity that is made in the image of the triune God and makes itself—works itself out—in the image of God’s inner relationality as a guiding example and imperative for human relationality and community. The trouble is that despite the education and discernment that comes with the grandeur of this humanity, it is easily rejected, worse, easily ignored, in most cases not even considered. It is the magnificence of rococo baroque irrelevant to the leaking roofs of families eking out an existence in shanties of misery. People are too busy with the urgent agenda of finding food to eat, clean water to drink, growing up, growing in responsibility, growing old, meeting deadlines, making ends meet, building careers, fighting sickness, battling boredom, exploring relationships, exploring passions, friendship, love, testing character and commitment—all of which are tangential to the chilling concerns in MH that seek to protect humanity from the ill-effects of technology. The experience is often the reverse: that with the many concerns that come with the drudgery of human life, I am grateful for the technology that relieves me of the burdens imposed on me in living human life. I am grateful for the cellphone, the technology that allows me to talk to my wife in Manila as I labor in Dubai so that our children can get quality university education. I am willing to work hard to acquire a laptop and use it, for it is not paid for by grace.
Of course, this level of actuality is not quite what Leo XIV is warning against in MH, as AI increasingly actually deprives people of work, chooses who and who are not relevant to the dominant technocratic paradigm, relegates unemployable castaways to the social peripheries, and guides the intelligent weapons that warriors deploy to destroy one another and whole countries, even regions, with ever-greater destructivity and threat to the globe. But personally, in the world that affects me, I can ignore MH. It is too long. Too lofty. Too churchy. Too subtle. Too nuanced. The power of self-interest and the profit motive are more actual. More compelling. More urgent. The alienation of the capitalist way of responding to human need continues to be embraced in global culture —where the richest 10% of the global population earns over 52% of all income, while the bottom 50% earns less than 9%. The top 0.001% if the world’s population holds three times the wealth of the poorest half of humanity. In communist nations or socialist nations “with-local-characteristics” (as in China), countries are still journeying through capitalist alienation into the communist future. The necessity (Not-wendigkeit) for the communism of human solidarity is not yet actual. So, the status quo marks time into a future of more of what is present.
The question that emerges for the human being today: are AI and the digital revolution the real problems? Or rather a humanity that has lost its moral moorings even prior to or irrespective of AI? The image of the Crucified Lord no longer calls forth a compelling ought even from pious believers. Erstwhile disciples cease to follow the Lord as they admit, “This is a hard saying,” (Jn 6:60). After the Industrial Revolution, the industrialists disavowed humanity to find new wealth in productivity. Marx disavowed God to recover humanity in the necessity of human revolution. Today, people disavow humanity for permission to persist. In the real present. The focus is on the existential present, not the chimeral future.
The Social Doctrine of the Church
Third, foundations and principles of the Social Doctrine (SD) of the Church. Leo XIV believes that the contribution the Church has to make towards the protection and advancement of humanity in the context of AI and the digital revolution is through the SD of the Church, “a living reality in dialogue with history, cultures and sciences … capable of guiding the personal and social lives of believers even today” (46). MH offers a detailed presentation of the genesis of the SD in the context of the Church’s magisterial, i.e., formally instructive, function (28-45). Instructive as this is, we will confine ourselves to a summary of the Foundation and Principles of the SD in MH (46-89) through which Leo XIV hopes to get the faithful and people of goodwill[6] to “rediscover their duty of implementing the above principles in their lives.” This include dealing critically with AI and the digital revolution, which if not properly evaluated and discerned may be inimical to humanity. In the SD, as stated above, he locates “elements for discernment”: “a few essential elements for a moral and social discernment that safeguards the primacy of the human person, in order to ensure that it will always be human intelligence.” (97).
In this context, the foundations of the SD are three (48-58):
Created in the image and likeness of the Triune God, the human person is grasped only in relationship with God who relates with him or her. The relationality of divine love between the three Persons of the Trinity, shared with humanity through the Incarnation, Redemption and evangelizing mission of the Church as guided by the Holy Spirit, becomes for the baptized determinative of the relationality that he or she ought pursue and realize in dignified human life with fellow human beings and with creation. This manifests the dignity, mystery or grandeur of humanity that constitutes the inner foundation of the Church’s SD, the way of the Church in tackling social problems (48-50).
The grandeur of humanity is not attributed only to a human collectivity but affects individuals. In this context “the sublime dignity of all persons, their superiority over all material things and their universal and inviolable rights and duties” are recognized (51). Persons are ends in themselves, not to be instrumentalized. Their dignity is moral (how a person makes choices), social (based on living conditions through which social respect is manifested), and ontological (the dignity accruing to all persons equally simply by being human). In this context, the fundamental dignity of each person is neither acquired, nor earned nor justified. It inheres in the person (51-53).
An expression of the intrinsic human dignity is the universal recognition of human rights as proclaimed by the United Nations in 1948. Human rights are universal, inviolable and inalienable. This includes the right to life from conception to one’s natural end. Human rights are endangered when regarded only formally, allowing technological progress to violate human dignity. They are endangered when their foundation of their universality—ultimately in the understanding of the human person created in the image of God and functioning under a just God of history—is no longer recognized. In such circumstances, minority rights are violated or persons are not protected by appropriate laws, access to employment, education, and participation in decisions that affect them. Social policies must lead to the optimum flourishing of all people possible in a given period of history.
The consequent principles of the SD are five (59-81):
First, the principle of the common good. It is the social expression of the dignity recognized in every person. It is a consequence of the relatedness between the human being and the Triune God whose communal interpersonal relationality in divine love becomes the imperative for human relationality in human love. It is a non-negotiable value through which divine life impresses itself on human life, and the Christian freely goes beyond the narrow confines of his or her own interests and commits himself or herself, within the limits of personal ability and enabled by grace, to the communal good, the common good, where all thrive. About this Vatican II affirms that the common good consists in “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.” It is “a greater good which belongs to everyone, and it can only be achieved, nurtured and protected by our collective efforts (60). It is the summit of social action and of social morality. It involves a shared vision, dialogue and free collaboration in obedient love. Here, the State’s responsibility is to ensure cohesion, unity and the proper organization of civil society, so that the common good can be pursued with everyone’s contribution. The common good is to be pursued beyond the nations, inhabitants of other nations having possibly contentious human interests and concerns. It is the pursuit not only of a more relational world but of a more fraternal world, where the subjugation of another nation is recognized as gravely immoral (59-64).
Second, the principle of the common good implies the principle of the universal destination of all goods. Returning to our foundational concept of the human’s relationality being determined by the Triune God’s divine relationality impacting on him, the earth’s goods—soil, water, air and natural resources—are given by God to the entire human family to sustain the lives of all conferring on each person the right to use these goods. This applies not only to material goods, but also to immaterial and cultural goods. Meanwhile, the right to private property is always subordinate to the universal destination of goods, as there has never been in Church tradition recognition of an absolute right to private property. Today this definitely includes “property” such as patents, algorithms, digital platforms, technological infrastructure and data.
Third, the principle of subsidiarity is that human individuals must participate in envisioning and realizing human society, and social structures must support this bottom-up, participatory, community-led, rank-and-file participation. Higher-level authorities should not supplant the participation of individuals, families, local communities and intermediary organizations in pursuing the common good. This does not vitiate the crucial role of the State in fulfilling bringing about the common good, but guides it, always enabling all social actors to fulfill their respective missions. Hence, a paternalistic or welfare state does not advance subsidiarity by encouraging lower-tier dependence on the State. Subsidiarity must be observed not only by government but by economic and technical actors in the use of power brought about by AI and the digital revolution. This technology, which monopolizes expertise, data and decision-making authority, involves companies and platforms that define conditions for access, rules, visibility, forms of interaction, and even economic opportunities. Subsidiarity requires that such be directed towards the common good, and not merely towards the owners and purveyors of technology.
Fourth, the principle of solidarity recovers the social whole that may appear to have dissipated in the bottom-up participation of subsidiarity. The foundational relationship of the human being created in the image of the Triune God relating and sharing life and mission with humanity is recalled. “The obligations of solidarity, justice and charity are rooted in the human and supernatural fraternal bonds that unite individual and populations. Fraternity is not merely an aspiration of believers, but a social and political reality to be embodied in communal choices and endeavors. Solidarity, then, is the concrete recognition that the future ofeach individual is connected to the futureof all” (73).
Leo XIV recognizes that we often experience a kind of “de facto” solidarity in lives intertwined by such as digital networks and global economies and communications. But “this network of relationships,” he says, “only constitutes solidarity in the fullest sense of the word when it becomes a concrete choice.” In the context of the Christian faith, it is “a call … to take responsibility for the lives and wounds of our brothers and sisters.” (74) We note then that solidarity involves the free action of individuals and the free action of God realizing the grandeur of humanity (74). It is a principle and a virtue. “As a principle, it expresses the objective order of relationships among individuals, groups and peoples, pointing to an awareness of interdependence whereby the good of each person depends of the good of others. As a virtue it requires a ‘firm and persevering determination ‘to strive for the common good, with particular attention to those most in need’” (75). Furthermore, this solidarity has a global dimension as well as a dimension of responsivity of future generations. In the context of AI and the digital revolution, “Solidarity demands that decisions regarding data, algorithms, platforms and artificial intelligence take into account not only the immediate benefit for a few, but also the impact on all peoples and of future generations” (76).
Fifth and finally, the new principle of social justice in MH. It is a concrete way of following Jesus today in fidelity to the Gospel, where its Good News, its understanding of humanity, and its imperatives are shared with all, especially with the poor. It is “characterized by the capacity of a social, economic and political order to allow everyone—particularly the weakest—to live a truly dignified life, without leaving anyone behind” (77). Hence, Pope John Paul II speaks in social justice of a preferential option for the poor. And Pope Francis calls our attention to new forms of human exclusion in a throwaway culture (78).Thus, social justice helps us recognize that injustices do not arise solely from the wrong choices of individuals, but also from structures, mechanisms and economic and cultural systems that produce inequality almost automatically (79). John Paul II called these “structures of sin” including wars, colonialism, racial or gender discrimination, violence against individuals and entire peoples, which enlightened people must work against in restoration of social justice. Today, this must include the new environment shaped by digital technologies (80), and especially the manner in which society treats migrants, refugees and those forced to move due to poverty, violence, climate change and environmental disasters. In their neediness they ought to be responded to not out of fear but out of the fraternity that Is founded on our relationship to the Triune God (81).
These principles form a dynamic, integrated, compelling unity. One cannot pick the common good and discard the universal destination of goods; nor may one favor subsidiarity against solidarity. Leo XIV states, “I am convinced that a harmonious relationship between these principles requires that they be considered collectively, so that it becomes clear how they relate to and complement each other” (46). Out of these “noble principles” emerges the concept of integral human development, i.e., the development of each man and of the whole man. “Development is truly human when it places people at the center instead of the accumulation of wealth, and when it concerns peoples as well as individuals.” It is not truly human if it increases consumption for some while shifting costs and burdens onto others, or relegates entire regions to subordinate roles, preventing them from realizing their full potential. “Development is integral when it is not limited to the economic sphere but promotes quality of life in the spiritual, cultural, moral and relational dimensions, while respecting our common home, the diversity of peoples and their ways of life” (83). It is today also a benchmark of an integral ecology. “True progress is not what increases the wellbeing of some by degrading ecosystems, shifting costs onto the most disadvantaged communities, or compromising the living conditions of those who will follow us” (84). “Seen in this light, integral human development is the framework through which we can interpret the changes of our time, including those brought about by the digital revolution. Technical innovations, including artificial intelligence, are not neutral. …. They must be evaluated by asking a crucial question: do they truly help individuals and peoples to become more humane and fraternal, while respecting our common home and future generations” (85).
Reflections Towards Relevance
There is obviously much to reflect on in this presentation of the SD of the Church in MH, especially when one understands its foundations and principles as a historically transformative and dynamic whole. For Leo XIV they are the manner through which the Church contributes to the discernment necessary to protect humanity against the deleterious effects of AI and the digital revolution on humanity. Their strength is that they are ultimately based on the vision of the human being created in the image of the Triune God. This is a vision that is to be guarded, protected, cherished and advanced, especially as for believers it connects to the compassionate will of a creative, redeeming and loving God impacting on history.
At the same time, looking at the world today, it may also be considered that their weakness is that they are based on this magnificent philosophical/theological anthropology. So lofty, it fails to capture the earthy aspirations of the poor person dreaming to own a proper smart phone, or the frustration of a person needing to crunch impossibly huge amounts of data, or the neediness of a person wanting to be helped by a prosthetic powered “intelligently” by AI. MH is a 65,000-word masterpieceabout magnificent humanity standing up to the threat of AI and the digital revolution. But the number of people excited enough to read through its pages is not overwhelming.
One can only hope that when the contradictions between the promises of AI and the promises of the Kingdom of God—or even of the socialism-with-human-characteristics— become clear, the concept of the human created in the image of God will prevail over the bot proclaiming salvation in the image of man.
[3] I have been assisted in the presentation by Google Gemini.
[4] Species being (Gattungswesen) is Karl Marx’s philosophical anthropology culled from his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844: Marx Engels Werke, vol. 40
[5] In this paragraph I have simply tried to gather key elements of the philosophical/theological anthropology in MH. They are themes repeated, reflected on and interwoven throughout the text of MH.
[6] While Leo XIV considers Christians and “people of goodwill” implementing the SD in their lives, it may be noted that the relationship of the believing Christian to a Social Doctrine that is based on a genuine relatedness to the communality of the Triune God impacting on history and on his or her personal life in history is different from a person who appreciates this only from a conceptual understanding of its principles or a desire to collaborate in projects to protect humanity from AI, especially in how the moral imperative for action is or is not received. For the Christian, kneeling before the Crucified Lord of the New Covenant begets a moral ought that is of genuine personal and relational significance. In many texts, Leo XIV addresses believers only.
The exasperating situation with the US-Israeli military action Epic Fury against Iran is due mainly to there being no clearly articulated and generally agreed upon objectives in this military “excursion.”[1]Epic Fury has meanwhile escalated into a full-scale war[2], though “war” is denied by its instigators since the US lacks the required congressional approval for a war, and the aggressive military force applied in fact violates international law as well as universally binding moral imperatives relative to a “just war”[3].
Yet, while the US needed to triumph, Iran needed only to survive. It did, through an asymmetric defensive plan that was 40 years in the making. As the US and Israel escalated the war with all that the modern military industry could provide them at huge cost, Iran survived through simple drones and missiles but with precise and measured lethality. It hit targets in Israel, in US bases and their host nations throughout the Gulf region and undermined Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome of invincibility—pushing the US into a panicked search for an off-ramp.
Narratives of Competing Objectives
The narratives of competing objectives contend with each other to rationalize the war based on different, if not contradictory, logical systems. Among these are: a swift military decapitation of the Iranian leadership, including the former Supreme Leader of the theocratic state, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; or, an effort to support democratic regime change in Iran that would conform to the ends of American democracy under President Donald Trump’s White House; or an effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb; or, an effort to stop Iran from enriching uranium for peaceful purposes in accordance with its sovereign rights; or an effort to annihilate Iran as a sovereign nation and ancient civilization largely at the powerful behest of Israel which views Iran as an existential threat.[4] For Israel, it is but a corollary imperative that Iran’s surrogates, the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas in Palestine and the Houthis of Sudan, be annihilated with Iran. This latter objective exposes the practical complicity of the US in the internecine conflict of Israel with Iran and its abiding objective to obliterate Iran and its allies enabling Israel to emerge as the regional hegemon.[5]
Meanwhile, a byproduct of this conflict with competing objectives is the new objective of reopening the Strait of Hormuz which had been first closed by Iran in defensive retaliation for Epic Fury’s first day of bombing rampage. This decapitated Iran’s leadership and decimated thousands of civilians, including at least 160 elementary-school girls in Minab, southern Iran. The blockage was and remains to be hugely consequential for the global economy since approximately 20% of the world’s petroleum products—diesel, gasoline, liquid nitrogen gas, and urea essential for fertilizer—flows from the Persian Gulf through the Hormuz Strait to the world market. In fact, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) did not close the strait completely. It let the oil of nations that were not its adversaries in war pass through the strait into the world market after complying with the requirements determined by the IRGC. As the adverse results of this disruption in the global market became more apparent through skyrocketing prices of diesel commodities and derivatives, the opening the strait became a more central objective of Epic Fury.
Shared bed. Jilted Suitor. Obstructive Netanyahu
Over time the global power of this blockage became increasingly clear to leaders such as Donald Trump. Sensing that there was money to be made and that US power and domination could be powerfully projected through control of Hormuz, Trump suggested in an April 8 interview with ABC News that the strait could be managed as a joint venture between the US and Iran. Why not get into bed with the enemy if shared profits could make them mutually happy? When Iran rejected this offer during the peace negotiations in Islamabad, Trump decided to send in the US navy to blockade the Strait of Hormuz himself.
Meanwhile, the Islamabad negotiations that could have provided an honorable exit for the US from the war had been hijacked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advance Israel’s objective of annihilating Iran. For this objective—and his own political survival—continuous war in the Persian Gulf was necessary; Trump’s desired off-ramp needed to be demolished. The original demand of the US for Iran to fully open the strait to ease tensions in the global economy, turned bizarrely into its own blockage of the strait, accompanied by preparations of US marines and army paratroopers for a boots-on-the-ground invasion of Iran through Hormuz. The escalation trap was triggered: the US threatened Armageddon with much bluster; Iran replied calmly, “Bring it on.”
Meanwhile, in the US those who had voted for Trump for a second term to make sure the US never gets stuck in the quagmire of a “forever war” and to make sure that consumer prices drop for ordinary Americans were frustrated and angered by Trump now entangling the US in another “forever war” whose immediate effect was skyrocketing consumer prices.[6] No matter how Trump may have been smitten by his ability to send in his stealth bombs to rain down more bunker-busting bombs on Iran, the proximity of the mid-term elections whose negative outcome threatened not only his presidency but possibly also his freedom, underscored the need for an off-ramp from the war that could still allow him to claim victory.
Ceasing Ceasefires
The first ceasefire that offered hope for such an off-ramp was called on April 8 after 40 days of intense combat for a two-week period—until April 22. It was brokered by Islamabad and was intended to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But it was not reopened because of Iran’s complaint that Israel was still bombing Lebanon against the Hezbollah. The US and Israel claimed that ceasefire in Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire deal. Iran insisted it was. Islamabad corroborated that it was. So Iran kept the strait closed.
On April 16, a separate ten-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was announced in Lebanon—after the US had exerted pressure on Israel to comply. With this ceasefire, Iran announced that for its duration commercial shipping would be allowed through the Strait of Hormuz. But hardly had the euphoria of the global market been felt due to the reopened strait when Iran closed the strait again on April 18 because the US had refused to lift its naval blockade on the strait. Iran would not give up its power over the strait only to allow the US exercise power over it. So, did the antagonists want the strait opened or closed? Their deep distrust of each other kept it closed.
Then, when the initial Islamabad-mediated two-week truce came to an end on April 22, Trump—still desperately seeking his off-ramp—agreed to an extended ceasefire on April 24 for three weeks to allow time for Iran to make a new proposal for a negotiated deal. Meanwhile, on April 23, Iran seized two ships in Hormuz, even as Trump warned that the US would shoot and kill any boat bringing mines to the strait. But by this time, Iran had already mined it.
Quagmire
People have died in this war, and many more are yet to die. People suffer from this war, some as direct collateral damage from the bombings and missile attacks, but others because their lives in Far East Asia, South America, Egypt, Germany or Greenland have been upended as a consequence of this war. The blood and the pain of those affected are on the hands of those individuals who have initiated the war with unclear objectives, and keep it going. Iran is not the aggressor here. The US and Israel are. As a sovereign state Iran has the right to defend itself against the aggression of the US and Israel. Through the IRGC, it has to date done so with stunning control and tenacity—defending itself asymmetrically against the high-tech and lavishly-funded military might of the US. Leveraging its unified people, its terrain that makes invasion extremely difficult, and its control over the Strait of Hormuz, it has succeeded in gaining control over the conflict—even without having to declare victory over its enemies.
By this time it is clear: Trump wants to leave the war. He had thought that that the “excursion” into Iran would be brief, like his excursion into Venezuela. But Iran, he learned, is not Venezuela. So leadership decapitation shifted to democratic regime change which shifted to preventing Iran from having a nuclear bomb, which shifted to permitting Iran despite strenuous Israeli objections to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, to breaking the blockage on the Strait of Hormuz to ease the strain on the global economy, to going into a joint venture with Iran to profit from the blockage of the strait, to the US forcing Iran to unblock the strait while sending in the US Navy to block it anew. Meanwhile, boots on the ground and bombing Iran back into the Stone Age are still not off the table. Trump wants to leave Epic Fury but is driven by a daemon for glory and majesty that forbids him from leaving unless he is the Victor, the Strong Man, the Hero, the Emperor and the Messiah who has brought healing and salvation to the world[7]…. And with Netanyahu for a friend, ally, and shifty eminence grise, Trump will not get out until Iran is annihilated. As he downplays the increasing length of this war through comparisons with World War I, World War II, the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan and the Korean War,[8] he is with no off-ramp practically committed to a forever war. Mad?
The Madness of War
Yes. Pope Leo has condemned the “madness of war,” the “delusion of omnipotence,” the use of God’s name to justify killings, and “leaders whose hands are full of blood.” He has insisted that world leaders move from rearmament to dialogue and mediation.[9] He is well aware that the Iran war involves dynamics that flirt with nuclear war and that both Trump and Netanyahu have threatened their use in the course of Epic Fury. The inability to find a face-saving off-ramp leads to escalations in rhetoric and action which push the world closer to a nuclear catastrophe with each frustrating day.
To break the vicious impasse, to return to sanity, the aggressors must admit their aggression and show genuine openness for peace. They must show remorse for the blood on their hands, for the inanity of their shifting objectives of war. They must be willing to repair the damage they have wrought. For damage that is irreparable, the loss of lives which few seem to recognize, they must be willing humbly to apologize. All must recognize the sovereignty of all nations, including the poorest nations of Africa or of the Caribbean or of the Malay Archipelago. International organizations of nations must liberate themselves from the chokehold of self-interested states on their administration[10] in order to implement international law fairly and equally. An international court and organization that can only bring justice to a Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines while long-recognized international criminals such as Netanyahu of Israel and Putin of Russia remain free and in power to continue their savagery[11] destroys the credibility of international justice. Meanwhile, people must not tire to heed the conscience call of their humanity—created in the image of God—to condemn the madness of Epic Fury and call for the accountability of the politicians who consider the drive for power and domination as a legitimate justification for war. On April 6, 2025, after Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum for Iran or face “all hell” and “destruction,” Pablo Cardinal David of the Philippines addressed American Catholics and the US government with the prophetic words, “When power is used without restraint, when war is chosen without listening, when destruction is justified as strength, that is not leadership. That is moral failure.” He asked Americans to “stop what must not be unleashed” and to “renounce war.”
Meanwhile those who have resisted aggression must regard their resistance as a contribution not only to their national survival but to the global common good. Nations must stand up to the aggression of bullies. But in time they too must walk away from the madness of war to return to the sanity of an ancient and venerable civilization.
[1] “Excursion” is the recreational activity which US President Donald Trump confuses for the militarily significant word, “incursion,” which is a “sudden, often temporary, and unlawful invasion of a foreign territory, typically involving armed forces crossing a border” (AI Overview). Originally Trump imagined that this military activity against Iran would be over in a few days—as was the case in his military raid on Venezuela, which resulted in the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro for trial in New York for drug trafficking and Trump’s control of Iranian oil. Trump has meanwhile learned the difference between Venezuela and Iran.
[2] A war is a sustained and long-term engagement involving mobilization of national military resources in order to defeat the enemy, force surrender, or achieve long-term geopolitical shifts. Since its start, Epic Fury is today, April 23, is 54 days old. Because of the lack of off-ramps for the US, and the resistance of Israel to the US taking such an off ramp, the possibility of its deteriorating into a “forever war” is high. In his campaign speeches, Trump promised he would not lead America into another forever war, but instead make sure that consumer prices decrease. He has done the opposite.
[3] Among the non-existent requirements for a just war for Epic Fury according to Just War Theory are: 1. Just Cause (Jus ad Bellum): a. lack of imminent threat; b. the objective of regime change, not considered a legitimate cause for war according to international law. 2. Legitimate/Proper Authority: a. the action with taken without UN Security Council clearance; b. the US action was taking without Congressional approval violating the US Constitution. … 5. Proportionality (Jus in Bello and Jus ad Bellum):a. Excessive force or collateral damage: the aerial bombardment campaign a\imed to cause massive infrastructure destruction, with reports indicating high collateral damage, including civilian casualties, etc. (AI Overview).
[4]On April 1 during a primetime address, US President Donald Trump threatened to return Iran “to the Stone Ages” if a deal was not reached regarding the ongoing conflict. He said, “Over the next two or three weeks we are going to bring them [Iran] back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” (AI Overview).
[5] “The costs in human lives—and the apparent disregard for their value—are high: “As of early to mid-March, 2026, Operation Epic Fury has resulted in significant casualties: over 3,375 reported killed in Iran (including civilians), at least 13 US service members killed, and over 4,000-6,000 combatants killed by Israel. Hezbollah and Lebanon have faced intense strikes, while Israel reports thousands” (AI Overview). The thirteen caskets ceremoniously draped in the American flag saluted on March 7 by the American President sporting a white USA baseball cap underscores the poignancy of the thousands killed in Iran, including women and children, mourned by their loved ones.
[7] On April 13, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, the Divine Healer. It drew sharp criticism, some characterizing it as blasphemous. Against the criticism, Trump admitted to the posting said he was just a medical doctor associated with the Red Cross.
[8] He made these comparisons in a White House address on Epic Fury on April 1, 2026, April Fools’ Day.
[10]The veto power of the US, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China on the Security Council allows military adventurism and bullying with impunity.
[11] Vladimir Putin has been under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant since March 17, 2023 based on allegations of the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Gallant are under ICC warrant for arrest for crimes against humanity committed from 8 October 2023 to 20 May 2024, including, using starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts during the Gaza war. The lack of prosecution for these criminal acts have contributed to the conviction that certain countries are immune, that war atrocities can be normalized by impunity, and that might makes right.
The US-Israeli war against Iran continues. War is necessary to kill the “bad guys” according to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.[1] But for Hegseth, the “bad guys” include revered religious leaders and competent government officials, combatants and civilians, scientists and technicians, college students and elementary schoolchildren. Along with the infrastructure necessary for their shared life and culture in Iran, they are all fodder for the mighty US bully bombers. Since there are 90 million Iranians occupying some 1.65 milliion square kilometers of a large central plain fortified by massive, rugged mountain ranges, the bombers’ grim mission against the “bad guys” is endless—if not illusory.
No Off-Ramps. Only Escalation.
Possible off ramps from this “forever war” through “negotiations”—even those supposedly mediated by Pakistan—towards a quickie declaration of victory by President Trump are repudiated by Israel’s Netanyahu whose objective in the war, as long demonstrated by his actions, is the destruction of the Iranian State. Nothing less. As long as the Iranian State exists, it is an existential threat to Israel. Even if the war “ends”, Israel will not cease to endeavor to annihilate Iran. That is why, conversely, one of its non-negotiable demands of Iran to end this war is the total incapacity of the US and Israel to mount another attack against Iran after this war ends. In fact, Iran today is absolutely put off by repeated US treachery in negotiations. In June, 2025, while US representatives were engaged in talks with Iran regarding its nuclear program, the US launched Operation Midnight Hammer, targeting Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan with bunker-busting bombs. In February, 2026, ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran mediated by Oman were torpedoed by the US launch of Epic Fury.
Meanwhile, off-ramps for the US that would claim victory for such as regime change in Iran, or the “obliteration” of Iran’s military apparatus, or the liberation of the Strait of Hormuz, are illusory against the undeniable reality of the opposite, namely: the unmitigated ability of Iran working through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to keep the regime alive and governing, the continued Iranian dominance over the Strait of Hormuz controlling the passage of petroleum and crucial fertilizers into the global market, the effective demonstration of military might through drone and missile attacks on pinpointed targets in Israel and in US military bases in the Gulf States, Its only off-ramp is to ramp up the war in a spiral of costly escalation.
Trump’s “do this or else” deadlines—48 hours, then five days more, then currently to April 6th—have been announced with his characteristic swagger on his Truth Social platform. But these only refreshed his TACO[2] infamy, exposed his strategic naivete, his dismissal of Iranian strength, and his shameless market manipulation in the interests of the dollar bond market and the US oligarchy.
But the delays also bought the Pentagon time to sail its 3500 Marines into the Iranian region and ready the complementary 2000 members of the 82nd Airborne Division for “limited ground operations” against Iran. This may mean that while feigning a will to negotiations, the US is planning to take military control of such as Kharg Island on the Strait of Hormuz—an escalatory step which would be powerfully contested by Iran. Ranged against the US’ “boots on the ground,” Iran, analysts say, has 610,000 active-duty personnel, 350,000 trained reservists and ample lethal military hardware. They would also have the tactical and psychological advantage of engaging the invaders from home territory.
While Iran doubles down to defend the Strait of Hormuz, the war is further escalated by the participation of the Houthis of Yemen in support of Iran. They have the capability not only to shoot missiles and drones into Israel but to control the merchant marine traffic sailing through the Bab el-Mandab Strait at the southern extreme of the Red Sea.
But the Iranian position is further strengthened by the technical, logistical, and military support coming from Russia, North Korea and China. With their help, Iran is not only able to stock up on food supplies and the latest in military hardware coming from these countries for the long term. It is now able to better hit enemy targets through the advanced technology coming from these countries.[3]
Trump’s “excursion” into the war against Iran on the prodding of Israel’s Netanyahu has trapped him into a new “forever war.” There is no off-ramp in sight other than escalation. But every US up-cycle of escalation reveals new layers of the enemy’s military strength and tenacity. Iran will not stop until it has achieved its objective—the neutralization of the striking capacity of Israel, appropriate war reparations, and the effective removal of US dominance in the Persian Gulf.
Forever Costs in the Philippines
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the “forever” nature of the war looms between the disastrous consequences in increased global energy costs for every strike and counter-strike in the Middle East, and the earnest hopes of such as motorcycle and taxi drivers (Grab, Angkas, Joyride, etc) whose gasoline costs have increased by 41 percent since Feb 28, the start of the war, and jeepney drivers whose diesel costs have increased by 123% for the same period.[4] Since the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Body (LTFRB) has not approved the increase of rates for Grab[5], citing passenger affordability concerns, Grab drivers today must increase their work time from 8 to 12 or even 15 hours in order to earn what they need to live on. These drivers hope the forever war in the Middle East might soon be over, so that things might return to normal. Yet, even if the kinetic hostilities of the war should stop soon—which is quite unlikely—with the amount of infrastructure damage done to petroleum production facilities in the Gulf region, is there at all hope that things can return to normal soon? If not, all our citizens shall have to participate in discerning the way towards a socially just management of gasoline and diesel. The multiple gas guzzlers of billionaires must not be allowed to hurt the basic livelihood of a taxi driver, a fisherman, or a ferry operator—whether he uses gasoline or diesel.
Last Tuesday, March 24, President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. declared “a national energy emergency” in response to the war in Iran and the “imminent danger” posed to the country’s energy supply. Transport workers, commuters and consumers had called out the president for not responding swiftly enough to increase in fuel prices.[6] Key effects of the declaration include: authorized direct purchasing of petroleum products, bypassing traditional, lengthy procurement processes; implementation of the Unified Package for Livelihoods, Industry, Food and Transport (UPLIFT), which affords fuel subsidies for public utility vehicles and free transit rides; and empowerment of the government through the Department of Energy to stabilize energy prices, implement energy conservation measures, and coordinate directly with private utility providers.[7] Under this emergency, the Philippines through Petron Corporation, the country’s only oil refiner, imported at least 700,000 barrels of crude oil in late March, 2026, with a total of 2.48 million barrels secured to shore up inventory to June, this year. Meanwhile, in the same period, the Philippines and China resumed high-level talks to discuss possible joint oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea. According to the Department of Energy, the West Philippine Sea is estiomatated to contain over six million barrels of oil and more than seven billion cubic feet of natural gas categorized as undiscovered resources.[8]
Whether the ambitions emergency policies and projects translate into real energy relief for the nation, especially for its minimum wage earners, its farmers and fisherfolk, remains to be seen.
Persisting Imperative for Universal Fraternity and Social Friendship
From the Philippines, viewing the ferocious war in the Middle East between the big global military powers cannot be exempted from appreciating its painful effects in the Philippines, especially on its most socially marginalized and unprotected. That view can also not be abstracted from the vibrant Christian faith of the majority of the Philippine’s people, especially in this Holy Week when the central mysteries of this faith—redemption from sin and evil, most especially from war, through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. At heart, that redemption willed by a compassionate Father through a Spirit of Love, is for all human beings created all in the image of God. Jesus shed his blood that human blood may no longer be spilled. This includes the blood of all the belligerents in the Middle East, regardless of differences in their religions, ideologies, nationalities or cultures. This insight into universal human dignity under one Father is insight into the universal Fraternity that Pope Francis advocated passionately, calling forth our shared duty to work together in social friendship for universal solidarity and peace.[9] We are brothers and sisters together in a shared world. We need to practice the social friendship that with God’s grace leads us into the way of peace.
[1] US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s words: “It takes money to kill bad guys,” during a press briefing on March 19, 2026.
[2] TACO means: Trump Always Chicken’s Out. This was observed when he would threaten high tariffs with a “deal” in mind, then backtrack—chicken out.
[3] Sometimes referred to as the China, Russia, Iran, North Korea (CRINK) Alliance. Cf. YT. TimesXP: Russia Urges North Korea to Deploy Troops to Iran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=257hy5g0GCs. WION: Russia, China condemn US attacks on Iran.
[4]Diesel price: before Feb 28, the start of the war, P64./liter. Rose by P79.79 to P143.79 as of March 31, 2026 or 123%. Gasoline price: before Feb 28, P71./liter. Rose by P29.to P100./liter or 41%.
[5] Grab belongs to the LTFRB’s category of Transport Network Vehicle Services (TNVS)
“Lead Us Not into Another Forever War” was the title of my last ICSI Commentary. It offered a description of the circumstances of the US-Israel war against Iran in its initial eleven days.[1] Three weeks after the start of this war on February 28, 2026, signs are not encouraging that Trump and Netanyahu have not been trapped into another “forever war.”
Despite unmitigated US bombings of Iran and Israel’s additional attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the retaliatory drone and missile attacks of Iran against military and communications centers in such countries as Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have proven stunningly effective. This means that the presupposed ability of the US military to defend themselves and their host countries in the Persian Gulf against Iran’s attacks have proven illusory. Especially disappointing for Israelis was the failure of their vaunted “Iron Dome” to protect its population from the overwhelming number of Iranian and Hezbollah missiles simultaneously coming from various directions. While many were shot down at great cost in military hardware, enough got through to deliver their destruction and terror.[2] Although the US killed Iran’s Intelligence Minister, Esmail Khatib, on March 18, through air strikes, and the day before, Iran’s top security officer, Ali Larijani, it has not stopped the retaliatory attacks led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.[3] In an attack which the Israeli Defense Force uncharacteristically described as “devastating,” seven top generals of Israel were killed on March 19 by a Fattah-2 hypersonic precision missile.[4]
While the tit-for-tat violence engulfed both sides in a spiral of military escalation, especially disruptive for the global economy was Iran’s closure on February 28 of the Strait of Hormuz to international merchant marine traffic, immediately cutting a fifth of the world’s required daily supply of crude oil and liquefied natural gas. This has caused the prices of crude oil to soar 40% to 50% and the prices of gasoline and diesel to rise 30% to 50%. Trump had been warned about the possibility that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, but thinking that his attack on Iran would be merely what he called an “excursion” (the military term he meant to use was incursion, i.e., not an invasion, but a quick raid!), he dismissed the warning, not understanding the global cost of an effective blockage of the strait. When the economic cost of skyrocketing costs in gasoline stations and factories began to dawn on him, he pooh-poohed it, announcing that the US Navy would provide escorts for the merchant ships passing through the strait. It never did. US naval ships escorting merchant ships interdicted by Iran in the strait would only provide more ships for Iranian drones and missiles to sink. Iran’s controlling power in the strait was not its naval force, which Trump boasted he had sunk, but its missile and drone force ensconced on the Iranian coast and in the high mountains guarding the narrow strait.
Frustrated that his own naval officers refused the folly of providing naval escorts for merchant ships, Trump bowed to the law of military escalation. In mid-March he announced that the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli would depart the US base in Okinawa, Japan with some 2,500 marines to enter the Iran war. Talk was that American marine “boots on the ground” would take over Kharg Island on the strait, where Iranian oil was processed before global distribution. To date, the marines are still “enroute” to the Persian Gulf keeping their distance from it.
Meanwhile, in another Trumpian escalation of the war, with the spotlight on him desperate to get out of the quagmire he had waded into, he asked Japan, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom, and even China to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to liberate it from Iran’s blockage. To win support from the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whom he claimed the US protects, he warned that the NATO faces “a very bad future”, if they did not collaborate. Against this bluster, German Chancelor Friedrich Merz refused outright, stating, “Germany is not part of this war, and we do not want to be part of it.” He cited a lack of mandates from the European Union, the United Nations and NATO.
One would be tempted to deride Trump for his uncanny ability to bungle American national interests, dumbfound his allies, and be the victim of his own hubris were he not so powerful and dangerous. Israel has nuclear weapons; the US has more, and Trump can activate them. Now more than ever, Iran needs to have its own in self-defense. As of mid-March 2026, the Israel-US vs. Iran war has resulted in 2,400 deaths, over 1,300 of which were Iranians. Another 900 were Lebanese. Against these huge numbers, Israel and the US have each suffered 12 to14 deaths. For anyone with a sense of humanity and its inalienable dignity, these are not laughing matters.
Insight into Trump’s situation could suggest that he miraculously just stop the war, glorify his gains, prevaricate on his losses, and pull away from a Persian Gulf he does not have the power to dominate and control. But he has meanwhile ignored Iran’s three conditions to end the war: accept its right to develop nuclear power, provide reparation for the damage inflicted on Iran, and guarantee internationally that US and Israeli military aggression against Iran shall not happen again.
Apparently, however, Trump does not make his decisions based on insight. He resorts rather to an instinct to control by overwhelming power and domination. Or by what may be yet more dangerous—total arbitrariness. The Iran war will end, he says, “when he feels it in his bones.”
Our Moral Imperative?
While Trump attempts to discern the feelings in his bones, we are certain that the war of the US and Israel against Iran is illegal, a violation of the provisions of the UN Charter proscribing unauthorized violation of the sovereignty of member states. We are also convinced that it could not qualify as a just war under the criteria developed by such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.[5]
We also believe that this ongoing war is a crime against humanity that ultimately involves all nations, all peoples and all individuals wherever they are. This is not just because of the disruptive price increases of gasoline, diesel and imported consumer goods resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It is because of the ever-intensifying degradation of the human family, the human individual and the inherent dignity of the human person through the normalization of lightheaded military aggression and the trivialization of human suffering and death underlying the rhetoric and acts of military domination. From such a degradation, no one on the globe is exempted. War violates everyone’s humanity, not only its immediate perpetrators and victims. That is a fact which every human being must affirm from a deep interior core of humanity from within. And before this degradation be total, where the forces of inhumanity, both actual and spiritual, annihilate the human race and the planet earth with it, the human being—but especially the Chistian—must cry out in protest.
In this context, especially as the annual liturgical celebration of the Christian Paschal Mystery invites reflection and prayer on the inviolable dignity of the human being redeemed in Jesus Christ, we must reflect on what is wrong—morally wrong—with this war beyond its apparent illegality and its unjustness. For this reflection I would like to invite you to a reflective reading or re-reading of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Fratelli Tutti issued on the eve of the Feast of the saint whose recognition of the fraternity not only of all human beings but of all created beings helped inspire it, St. Francis of Assisi, on October 3, 2020.[6] For him, it is not only Brother Jew and Brother Israeli and Brother Christian and Brother American and Brother Iranian and Brother Shia and Brother Sunni. It is Brother Palestinian and Brother Ukrainian and Brother Venezuelan and Brother Chinese. But it is also Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Brother Wind and Sister Water.[7]Fratelli tutti: we are all brothers and sisters under the creativity and love of a shared Father.
Fraternity is an interior and compelling connectedness that comes with the wisdom, benevolence and providence of the Creator. It is an ontological reality that cannot be morally denied without the consequences that today threaten the destruction of all humanity and the planet it inhabits. It calls for “a love that transcends the barriers of geography and distance.” It “allows us to acknowledge, appreciate and love each person, regardless of where he or she was born or lives” (FT, 1). It acknowledges “the dignity of each person” in such manner that all “can contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity” (FT, 8). Fraternity is universal and transcendent; it cannot be walled in within the boundaries of a Caucasian society; it cannot be isolated within the shores of an island archipelago.
But it is not a finished reality. It calls forth obedience to a shared aspiration to realize it. In FT, this is social friendship. “A love capable of transcending borders is the basis of what in every city and every country can be called ‘social friendship’” (FT, 99). Genuine social friendship makes true universal openness possible. If you acknowledge universal fraternity, you must engage in social friendship. This engages human beings from the imperative of their inner freedom against human offences destructive of universal fraternity.
In the US-Israeli war against Iran which offends against universal fraternity, social friendship might be manifested—to mention only a few examples—in every effort to express care and concern that the violence, killing and war that unjustly affects thousands of non-combatant citizens come to a just end; in every effort to articulate through dialogue what that just end may entail; in every effort to expose the truth about the outcomes and costs of the war especially in terms of the destruction of lives, human values and cultures; in every effort to call out the arbitrariness and irrationality of leaders in their responsibility for the conduct of war; in every effort to block obfuscation of the genuine costs of continued war, not only among the belligerents in the Persian Gulf, but for affected non-participant countries in the conflict.
Towards the end of FT, Francis recalls his collaboration with his dear Muslim friend, Ahmed Al Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar in Egypt. The Document for World Peace and Living Together, jointly signed by them[8], is a powerful example of Universal Fraternity and Social Friendship. An excerpt from this document is a fitting way to conclude this reflection on a war that involves Israel, the US, Iran, Jews, Christian and Muslims:
“In the name of God who has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and who has called them to live together as brothers and sisters, to fill the earth, and make known the values of goodness, love and peace;
“In the name of innocent life that God has forbidden to kill, affirming that one who kills a person is like one who kills the whole of humanity, and that whoever saves a person saves the whole of humanity;
“In the name of orphans, widows, refugees and those exiled from their countries; in the name of all victims of wars, persecutions and injustice, in the name of the weak, prisoners of war and those tortured in any part of the world without distinction.
“In the name of people who have lost their security, peace and the possibility of living together, becoming victims of destruction, calamity and war;
“In the name of human fraternity, that embraces all human beings, unites them and renders them equal;
“In the name of this fraternity torn apart by policies of extremism and division, by systems of unrestrained profit or by hateful ideological tendencies that manipulate the action and future of men and women;
“In the name of freedom, that God has given to all human beings, creating them free and setting them apart by this gift;
“In the name of justice and mercy, the foundations of prosperity and the cornerstone of faith;
“In the name of all persons of good will present in every part of the world;
“In the name of God and of everything stated thus far, we declare the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard” (FT, 285).
In pursuit of human fraternity, social friendship consists in a culture of dialogue, mutual cooperation, and reciprocal understanding. This is our enduring moral imperative.
[2] The Israeli prohibition against journalists and citizens filing and posting outcomes of Iranian missile attacks on social media shrouds the real casualties of such in Israel in darkness.
[4] Cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVAy3UkBnrY. Fattah-2 is equipped with plasma management guidance that allows it to change course at Mach speeds to avoid interception by ten defensive missiles.
In his campaign towards his second election as 47th President of the US, Donald Trump vowed not to lead the US into another “forever war.” The focus of his new term was to be the US border and getting the prices of groceries down. But through his aggressive tariff program, meanwhile declared illegal by the US Supreme Court[1], he has driven the prices of consumer goods up—many of them belonging to longstanding supply chains of imported goods. He has also just fired his Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, for failing, among other things, to reign in her notorious US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operatives; they were responsible for gunning down two citizens objecting to their bullying tactics.[2]
On February 28, 2026 Trump allowed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to lead him into bombing Iran.[3] Israel bombed first; the US followed. Prior to the bombing, the United States had been actively involved in negotiations mediated by Oman on the possible peaceful development by Iran of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It was participated in by US special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff and the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi. Because Iran’s religious and political leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had prohibited by fatwa[4] the development of a nuclear bomb for his country, the outlook for successful negotiations was positive. But Netanyahu’s long-time ambition to neutralize the military threat Iran posed for Israel prevailed. He took Trump with him. Hence, the objective of the attack was not just containment of the nuclear program of Iran, the original US objective, but now regime change[5] through the joint Israeli Operation Roaring Lion and the US Operation Epic Fury.
In the Epic Fury of the Roaring Lion, bombs and missiles rained down on an array of targets in Iran including on a meeting of the Ayatollah and his key collaborators and relatives.[6] The Iranian leadership was decimated along with the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, Southern Iran, killing some 168-180 people, most of whom were school children.[7] Trump thought that the decapitation of the Iranian leadership would inspire the takeover of Iran by groups that had been critical of the authoritarian leadership of the Ayatollah.
But he was wrong. The killing of the Ayatollah Khamenei and companions was viewed as martyrdom and sparked massive religiously colored political protests in Iran. It also immediately triggered the retaliatory missile and drone strikes led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC). These targeted twenty-seven US-bases in the region, along with the Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar and Ain al Usin Air Base in Iraq; Israel, including Tel Aviv and Haifa; the Ras Tanuria Refinery in Saudi Arabia, the Sheik Isa Airbase (home of the US 5th Fleet) in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The war on Iran metamorphosed into a regional conflagration.
On March 4, the IRDC declared and enforced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water between the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Oman through which twenty percent of the world’s daily supply of crude oil and of Liquid Nitrogen Gas (LNG) flow. This had crippling effects on the global economy.[8] In response, President Trump announced that the US Navy would escort merchant ships negotiating the closed Strait of Hormuz. But this never happened. As the war progresses and the infrastructure of oil and LNG production is damaged, oil prices soar.
Donald Trump thought that involvement in Iran would be similar to his military attack on Venezuela, which had extracted its autocratic head, Nicolas Maduro, and hauled him to New York for trial on charges of drug trafficking. Trump then found working with the Interim President, Delcy Rodriguez, congenial; she gives him what he wants. But Trump has since discovered that regime change in Iran is infinitely more complex. He originally announced that he would be critically involved in selecting the new Iranian leader, insisting that the son of Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei, was not acceptable. However, as of March 9, 2026, the new Supreme Council of Leaders selected Mojtaba Khamenei, consistent with the dominant anti-US and anti-Israel sentiment in Iran. President Trump and Netanyahu have responded with continued bombings in Iran; both have stated he will not last long. With US Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump announced more and deeper US military strikes in Iran are foreseen, even the possibility of American boots on the ground.
Yet, the final objective of the war is hazy. The war is over, according to the White House Press Secretary Karoline Levitt, when Iran “no longer poses a threat to the U.S.A.” and the “mission’s goals have been fully realized.” There has however never been a clear statement of what “the threat to the USA” is nor what the “mission’s goals” are. That is the clear recipe for a “forever war.” What is unclear is arbitrary, subject to whim. And to the tyranny of absolute power.
Trump promised his voters that he would not lead them into a “forever war.” But that is precisely what he has led them to in Iran and the Middle East.
Even as his negative ratings among Americans now appear to be calling him to a new forever war in Cuba.
II. Opposing War Forever
How do we judge the current conflict in the Middle East? Does it have anything to do with binding international commitments, and perhaps more fundamentally, with binding moral imperatives? Is the world bound by a shared moral code which determines rightness or wrongness on more than “might makes right” since on this globe we share a common humanity, even a common Creator?
The current conflict in the Middle East is occasion to review the Charter of the United Nations (UN)[9] which serves as a binding international treaty. Israel, the United State, Iran and 190 other countries are members of the UN.
The Peoples of the UN determine “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights … and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other international laws can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, to unite our strength and maintain international peace and security, and ensure, by the acceptance of principes and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used save in the common interest, and to promote international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples.” (Preamble).
In this Charter, the following provisions under Article 2 appear particularly relevant: “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such manner that international peace, security and justice, are not endangered” (π3); and “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations” (π4).
A state may use force in self defense—if “an armed attack occurs” (cf. Article 51) or with authorization by the UN Security Council (cf. Art. 39 and 42).
Reviewing these provisions, the US and Israel are in violation of the UN Charter. Their initiating military force through their Epic Fury and Roaring Lion against Iran, a co-signatory State of the UN, without clarifying their bellicose objectives—to end uranium enrichment, to replace the Iranian leader, to bring about regime change, or to deepen its global military, political and economic hegemony—are in violation of Article 2, π3 and π4.
Beyond the UN Charter, we may find guidance in the Just War theory. In self defense, a war may be just if at one and the same time “the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain; all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; there must be serious prospects of success; the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.” [10]
The Just War theory is a moral framework, rooted in the thought of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas,[11] that tries to determine when war may be morally permissible and how it must be fought. It seeks to restrain violence while acknowledging that force may sometimes be necessary to defend justice. It is traditionally divided into three areas:
Justice in Going to War (Jus ad bellum). This requires: (1) Just Cause—usually self-defense against aggression or protection of innocent life; (2) Legitimate Authority—Only a lawful political authority may declare war; (3) Right Intention—the goal must be justice and peace, not domination; (4) Last Resort—all peaceful alternatives must be exhausted; (5) Probability of Success—War must not be futile slaughter; and (6)Proportionality—the good expected must outweigh the destruction caused.
Justice in the Conduct of War (Jus in bello). Even in a just war, conduct must respect moral limits: (1) Discrimination—civilians may not be targeted; (2) Proportionality—only necessary force may be used; (3) No intrinsically evil means, e.g. torture, genocide, or deliberately mass killing.
Justice After War (Jus post bellum). The goal must be a just peace, including reconstruction and fair settlement. The deeper natural-law principle behind this is: War is morally permissible only if it restores justice and peace while respecting the dignity of persons.[12]
Applying these criteria to Epic Fury and Roaring Lion:
Justice in Going to War (Jus ad bellum). The US and Israel cannot claim (1) Just Cause—since there was neither imminent threat of war nor grave destruction to Israel nor the United States; (2) Legitimate Authority—as aggressors against a sovereign nation, they did not have legitimate authority; (3) Right Intention—since their objectives were not clear in bringing overwhelming military force onto Iran, their intention was not justice and peace but domination; (4) Last Resort—they short circuited the negotiations participated in by Iran and the US under the mediation of Oman to allow the declaration of war; (5) Probability of Success—since the objectives were never clarified “success” cannot be defined, inviting a new “forever war”; and (6) Proportionality—again when the objectives were never defined but are practically left to the whim of the aggressor with a powerful military, any destruction—including the killing of 165 school girls—can be rationalized.
Justice in war (Jus in bello). Israel and the US fail in these norms. (1) Discrimination: As of March 7-8, the estimated number of civilians killed in Epic Fury and Roaring Lion is 1332 Iranian civilians, among these some 300 children; the military strikes have damaged over 7,900 homes and 65 schools. (2) Proportionality: There has been no effort to limit the force used by the Israeli and US militaries. The strikes were intended to overwhelm and overkill. (3) No intrinsically evil means: the mass killings were intended; there were no warnings, no discrimination between combatants, women and children.
III. Unjust war.
We must call a spade a spade. The war the Middle East brought on by the aggressors, Israel and the United States, is unjust. Both nations violate the UN Charter, to which they are bound by international treaty; they violate the conditions for a Just War. On the other hand, Iran, based on the UN Charter and the Just War theory, has a right to defend itself against unjust aggression.
Even if Iran is overwhelmed militarily, it is not the case that might makes right. This must be re-asserted emphatically as many observers appear to throw up their hands and say there is nothing that can be done against the overwhelming might of Israel and the US. They resign, overcome by the bully. But there is a right and there is a wrong. In the end, right and wrong ought determine the moral position of all. If not, we forfeit a world where all collaborate towards the common good of all, for a world where hegemonic bullies enslave all to their self-interests.
Both the UN Charter and the Just War theory are based on a concept of natural law that believers and non-believers can subscribe to. It is based on the universal dignity of the human being and what is imperative because of this dignity. What is imperative in the Middle East War today is to call out its injustice.
In dealing with the natural law, the believer recalls the Creator and the ultimate Lawgiver for Creation and humanity. He is the author of the Eternal Law; He sets the finality of Creation. But he is not just abstract Reason, Law and Finality. He is a Trinity of Persons turned towards us in Creativity, Compassion, Justice, Redemption and Love. Before this God there is right and wrong, freedom and consequence. This God’s Might makes right.
[1] This happened on Feb 20, 2026 through a 6-3 ruling that the wide-ranging tariffs imposed by Trump beginning January 20, 2025 as punishment for alleged trade imbalances or as leverage in negotiations with both allied and adversary nations through use of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) were unconstitutional. Beyond the IEEPA, however, Trump may still impose tariffs based on other laws, though not as extensively.
[2] Killed in Minnesota were Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse on Jan 24, 2026 and Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother on Jan 7, 2026. Noem was also fired because of her $240M self-promoting campaign, which she claimed falsely that President Trump had knowledge of.
[4] A religious ruling binding on Muslims issued by a competent religious leader
[5] By “regime change” is meant the replacement of one government or political system with another. It goes far beyond swapping a leader with another; it typically entails dismantling the existing political apparatus, changing fundamental government rules, and often replacing the ideology and culture of government. The regime change intended by the Roaring Lion and Epic Fury was an Iranian government subservient to the military, security and economic interests of Israel and the United States.
[6] Mohammad Pakpour, Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Ali Shamkhani, top adviser to Khamenei and head of the National Defense Council; Aziz Nasirzadeh, Defense Minister; Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Armed Force; Hassan Khomeini , grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; Mohammad Shirazi, head of the military bureau; Salai Assadi, the Intelligence Chief; and various members of the family of Ali Khamenei. Among the officials could have been a successor to Khamenei, other than Mojtaba Khamenei. While the latter is the frontrunner of the Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobran), the constitutional body responsible for the selection, he is rejected by US President Donald Trump who claims a right to co-determine the next leader of Iran.
[8] In the Philippines this has motivated Pres. Ferdinan d Marcos Jr. to declare a four-day work week as local pump prices increased by PHP 7.48 per liter of gasoline, PHP 17.28 per liter of diesel, and PHP 32.35 for kerosene.
When the EDSA People Power Revolution came 40 years ago, I was still a priest-in-charge of the Catholic Sambayanang Kristyano ng Kristong Hari on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City. I had been missioned there by my Jesuit Provincial, Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, because of a perceived radicalization of the 50,000 urban poor families that populated what was then the National Government Center, including the Batasang Pambansa, and Payatas. It was an assignment which thrilled me since I’d specialized on Marxian philosophy; I shared Marx’s conviction: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world; what is imperative now is to change it.”[1]
In the Philippines, there was much to change. Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. had been assassinated on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport. His widow, Corazon “Cory” Aquino was now leading the political fight to liberate the Philippines from the overstaying Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos had been elected in 1965, re-elected in 1969, but through his imposition of martial law in 1972, he junked constitutional term limits to remain in power till 1986. Meanwhile, his rule was marked by rampant graft and corruption, acute inequality between the poor and the elite, mismanagement of the economy, recession, and incarceration, torture and death for Filipinos who would oppose the “conjugal dictatorship”. Meanwhile, the urban poor in the Sambayanang Kristyano ng Kristong Hari were using the skills of community organization and the Catholic imperatives to social justice to protect themselves against unjust and inhumane demolitions and to struggle for access to humane housing—a human right.[2]
Response to the Cardinal’s Call
When the EDSA Revolution commenced on Feb 22, we had been celebrating an evening Thanksgiving Mass of newly ordained Fr. Sunny Barana, S.J. Suddenly, the call of Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin to go to EDSA was on all available media: radio, TV, word of mouth. Almost simultaneously, with resources coming from “friends and supporters,” we had commandeered local jeepneys and busses. Some 4,000 urban poor were on the move. We ended up right outside the gate of Camp Crame—quite conscious that our presence there was tempting the gods to rain down bullets on us. We were excited, tense and anxious. Yet it was the call of Cardinal Sin that steadied us:
“My dear People, I wish you to pray, because it’s only through prayer that we may solve this problem. This is Cardinal Sin speaking to the people, especially in Metro Manila. I am concerned about the situation of Minister Enrile and General Ramos. I am calling on our people to support our two friends at the camp. If any of you can be around Camp Aguinaldo to show your solidarity and support at this crucial period, when our two good friends have shown their idealism, I would be very happy if you support them now. I would only wish that violence and bloodshed be avoided. Let us pray to Our Blessed Lady to help us in order that we can solve this problem peacefully.”[3]
Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos had been leading the opposition against the authoritarianism of Marcos while Col. Gringo Honasan plotted a coup against Marcos through the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM). They did not win the support of Cory Aquino who refused to front for a military junta led by Enrile. Yet they were given the “friendly” support of Cardinal Sin as the People Power Revolution broke.
Meanwhile, thousands of people of various walks of life—workers, students, educators, priests, religious women and men—came to stand up to the tanks and armed warriors with roses and rosaries. They came not just to be part of the fun, but to participate in the shared moral obligation of social transformation: an obligation they recognized from their being part of God’s creation, from their inner sense of binding imperative, from the response that God calls forth from them personally.
As this unfolded, it cannot be overlooked that when the Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Fabian Ver urged Marcos to give the order to fire upon the massed-up revolutionaries and save his regime, Marcos refused. He insisted that the people were to be dispersed, not fired upon. This act of military restraint and moral probity, I believe, was a gift of grace.[4]
On Feb 25, 1986, Marcos and his family fled the Philippines with the assistance of the US government for Hawaii. On the same day, Cory Aquino was sworn in as eleventh president of the Philippines.
Looking Back on EDSA ‘86
It is good to be able to celebrate the anniversary of EDSA ‘86—for me, a shining moment of transfiguration in our national history when God broke through. We came together as a People, ousted a dictator, recovered our humanity, restored our democracy, and opened a new chapter in Philippine history. In time, that new chapter would be defined by the 1987 Philippine Constitution—a fundamental law of the land that is marked for its commitment to social justice.
But looking back at what has transpired since EDSA ’86, we must also wonder whether the graces of that shining moment in our history have been squandered. Do we still have a shared sense of outrage at the injustices committed by the empowered elite against the People? Do we still have a sense of “People Power” driven by active “people’s organizations”, inspired by insight into the human dignity of people? Do we have a sense of a shared Philippine community and culture, identifying us as a unique People, for whom sacrifice, even self-sacrifice, in service is an obligation? Why have we not yet achieved the social justice that is the heart of the 1987 Philippines Constitution? This includes in Article XII full protection of labor (local and overseas), full employment, the right to organize, the right to strike, the right to a living wage, agrarian and natural resources reform, urban land reform and housing, health and essential services, protection for women and vulnerable workers, and in Article II provisions mandating the rejection of political dynasties.
For some, disillusioned by our shortcomings since EDSA ’86, the participation of Cardinal Sin appears as his illegitimate meddling in secular politics. It was an illegitimate entry of the Church into partisan politics and a dangerous precedent for further Church meddling in Philippine political life—where the Church feels obligated to publicly choose between a Marcos Jr, a Leni Robredo, or a Sara Duterte and the catastrophic insinuation that the Church’s choice is God’s choice.
But even if Cardinal Sin’s and the Church’s participation in EDSA ’86 is viewed as a special moment of grace, each Filipino and Filipina still needs to clarify how he or she would feel obligated to contribute to the national common good, what the philosophical or religious foundations for moral obligation are for him or her, and how we are together to recover our sense of shared Filipino dignity and obligation as a People in the family of nations. Reinterpreting Marx: if we want to change the world, it is imperative that we first interpret it. Unless we accept obligation, necessary transformation is arbitrary.
[1] Karl Marx. Last of the Theses on Feuerbach, 1845.
[2] On this issue we were inspired and guided primarily by the 1987 document published by the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace entitled, “What Have You Done to Your Homeless Brpother?” It asserted that homelessness is a violation of human dignity, and appropriate housing a human right.
[4] It can be compared to the violent response of the Chinese State against the “People Power” uprising on Tienanmen Square in Beijing less that four months later on June 3-4, 1989 under Deng Xiaoping. Students were demonstrating for political reform, freedom of the press, and an end to corruption. The estimated deaths vary from several hundred to two thousand.
In my last ICSI commentary[1] we focused on the rupture between reality and “inconvenient myths” that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pointed out with candid clarity at the World Economic Forum. He is now leading a coalition of “middle powers” into a future that they chart on their own, despite the bullying of superpowers and erstwhile safekeepers of what was once the harmonious world order.[2]
Towards the end of my commentary, I suggested that it may be wholesome for us in the Philippines to reconsider our own foreign policy in the light of possible “inconvenient myths” on which our current foreign policy may depend precariously. I also suggested we strengthen our cultural institutions and democratic commitments—including our religious commitments—none of which should just be “convenient myths.”
Apostles’ Creed
Especially as Ash Wednesday is upon us, we may begin with the Apostles’ Creed which we reaffirm with every Sunday Mass as our personal and communal belief. We believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth. We believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, incarnated into our world, our Redeemer through his passion, death and resurrection. We believe in the Holy Spirit, through whom the Holy Catholic Church is constituted, the communion of believers in Jesus, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Empty ritual? Convenient myth? Or bedrock of personal conviction with moral imperatives in this world?
Three Moral Positions
If the latter, one or more of at least three moral positions may be implicated.
The first involves the Eternal Law: that the Creator creates this world with an overarching divine order through which He governs this world towards its ultimate end. His divine wisdom and rationality are its Eternal Law. From this, all other laws, including the natural law, are derived.[3] Human beings, created in God’s image, obey this law in freedom.
The second is duty: that human beings experience a moral call to obedience which is absolute and not conditioned by natural outcomes or inclinations. I do what I must, because that is what practical reason obligates me to through categorical imperative. It is pure apodictic obligation, an inescapable moral demand.[4]
The third is personalism: that moral obligation is most profoundly anchored in responding appropriately to the person, human or divine.[5]
In my view, it is possible to draw personal moral insight from a combination of these three: using my own reason, I obey the natural law, which I know is derived from the Eternal Law of God. I obey it, as it were, as unconditionally demanded. In this obedience I am responding in history to the divine Persons turned towards me and to persons whom God entrusts to me.
Moral Obligation for Social Justice
This includes the moral obligation I have for social justice. It is built on just relations between individuals (commutative justice), and on just distribution of the benefits and burdens of society within a community (distributive justice). Social justice is the obligation I bear for the common good in obedience to natural law, on acceptance—as it were—of a categorical imperative to obey the same, in response to the Persons of the Trinity calling forth from us the common good of all persons without exception needing to thrive as human beings in history. Social justice looks at God, looks at obligation, looks at the common good as an imperative of love, human and divine. A laborer without a living wage, a “squatter in his own country,” and a victim of corruption are not thriving as human beings. And neither are those who don’t care.
But how do we join the ranks of people who care? There are many victims of social injustice, and many who are complicit in bringing the social injustice on them, some with full knowledge and intent, others with unconscious naivete and practical complicity. Some knowingly exploit the sweat and tears of laborers, others are happy simply to benefit from the fruits of their exploitation and to contribute to its perpetuation. As I patronize the products from a sweat shop, the owner profits, the laborer continues to be exploited, and the social injustice continues. Distributive injustice reigns. The owner lives in a gated village, the worker in a slum, I enjoy what I buy, the injustice is overlooked and the suffering normalized in a silent social complicity. Too many other things of great importance to attend to! No time to stop, to bend down, and tend to the wounded Samaritan left by the wayside to die—not even for the priest and the Levite, representatives of the religious elite. In a society like the Philippines where most believe in God our Father, his Son our Redeemer, and his Spirit of Love, how many have time to bend down and extend a wounded person the compassion of the Father?
A Social Justice Constitution and Beyond
We are blessed with a social justice Constitution. There is no provision in the constitution for laissez faire capitalism—where the invisible hand protects the profits of the wealthy at the cost of the oppressed. Instead, the Constitution focuses on distributing wealth, protecting labor rights, promoting cooperatives to alleviate poverty, and insisting on universal quality education for all.[6]
More compellingly, we are created, sustained and moved by a compassionate and caring God whose justice in the end he will establish, “separating the goats from the sheep,” admitting to eternal happiness those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked. “For whatever you have done or not done to one of these the least of my sisters and brothers, that you have done or not done to me”[7]
Some find that terrifying. Others, comforting. In the end, we must each understand how the moral imperatives in our lives operate, leading us to fulfillment or perdition. They must be ruptured from “convenient myths”. They must penetrate deep into our hearts and the heart of our society, even if they must extirpate their demons “by the finger of God.”[8]
Meanwhile, the White House and the Kremlin “have allowed New START, their last nuclear arms control treaty, to die. For the first time in 50 years the two nations do not have limits on the size or compositions of their arsenals.”[9] The demons have been released to incinerate the human race and annihilate the planet. Surely, not “by the finger of God.”
[2] Note recent breakdown of talks toward the renewal of the US-Canada-Agreement (USMCA) of 2020. When Trump demanded imperiously that Carney subject Canada’s economy to US interests, Carney declared “We choose dignity over dependency.” He then walked out of the talks with his delegation. Cf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9c5KdrDz_Q
[3] Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Questions 90-97
[4] This position dates back to Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, 1788.
[5] Some noted exponents of this position are Max Sheler (1874-1928) and Karol Wojtila (Pope John Paul II) (1920-2025)
[6] Article XII, Sec. 1 calls for a more equitable distribution of opportunities, income and wealth to benefit the people, especially the underprivileged. Sec. 6 states that the use of property has a social function and encourages cooperatives to broaden ownership. Sec. 9 requires a section for urban land reform and housing for the underprivileged. Art. II, Sec. 18 recognizes labor as a primary force and mandates protection of workers’ rights. Art. XIV, Sec.1 provides that the State protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels.
[7] The Last Judgement according to Matthew: Mt. 25:31-46, esp. 40,45
[8] Jesus indicates his ability to extirpate demons “by the finger of God.” Luke 11:20, Mt. 12:28.
Mark Carney is not Donald Trump, nor is he Vladimir Putin. The Canada that he represents has a national territory second only to that of the Russian Federation. It is huge.[1] But its population is about a tenth of its southern neighbor, the United States, about a third of Mexico, and about a third of the Philippines. For many years Canada and the US lived as friendly neighbors; they found strength in their neighborliness; they shared values of democracy, free trade, human rights, decency and fairness. In mutual defense, Canada and the US had each other’s backs. Each took each other’s sovereignty for granted, meaning seriously, even as they appreciated cultural similarities and differences. They interlocked their industries, their supply chains, their trade; they strengthened each other in interdependence. Many agreements were formalized by elaborate treaties or contracts; others were realized just in the blessings of shared families or shared friends or shared vacations in each other’s countries.
The World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, from January 19 to 26,[2] was ignited by urgency. Kristalina Georgieva, managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, warned the world of more exogenous shocks—sudden, unexpected, and unpredictable events originating outside economic systems like pandemics, natural disasters, wars and technological shifts. Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank, warned that the world is “heading for real trouble” if we don’t pay attention to the distribution of wealth and the disparity that is getting “deeper and bigger.” She urged leaders to think about people and to understand the writing on the wall. Andrew Forrest, Executive Chairman and Founder of Fortescue, a major Australian-based, global green technology, energy and resources company, called out the folly of business and political leaders knowing of the planet’s boundaries[3] and electing to cross them anyway.
Participating in this extraordinary global gathering avowing a “spirit of dialogue” were 60 heads of state, 400 political leaders, and 830 CEO’s and board chairs. It was the best attended of all WEFs. Against the backdrop of urgent natural, humanitarian and planetary threats, the most concerning were those of the geopolitical global order that since the return of Donald Trump to the US Presidency at the beginning of 2025 had been suddenly upended. The world free trade order that had been championed by the United States since the end of World War II was replaced disruptively by caustic tariffs applied to countries or industries based on alleged trade imbalances; they were justified ultimately by the bullying might of the US; they were notoriously erratic, one day imposed, the next day withdrawn, earning Trump the mocking moniker, “TACO”—Trump Always Chickens Out. The ridicule ignored, the tariffs were weaponized and applied. Affected countries, allies or opponents of the global hegemon, accepted them in the hope that they could survive them. Yet while the US Treasury trumpeted tremendous income from the tariffs, it was the American taxpayers paying for the disruption in the increased cost of groceries, toys and cars.
Disdain, if not opprobrium.
In this world gathering it might have been expected that the limelight would be on US strongman Donald Trump. He had begun the new year with a military attack on Venezuela, the abduction of its President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and the haughty announcement that Venezuela and its largest crude oil reserves in the world was effectively now under US control. More recently Trump announced the US intention to take over Greenland, if necessary, by military force. Yet, instead of the limelight, he was served disdain, if not opprobrium, especially by the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) previously led by the US. As the US doubled down on the strategic necessity of Greenland and the Arctic region for its national security (and that of any country who would wish to buy into this security), European members of the NATO prepared for an Article 5 response to American aggression. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France and Canada sent troops for military exercises in Greenland.[4] In the face of this credible push back, Trump pulled a “TACO”. Suddenly, addressing the WEF, he disclosed that the US would not use military force in taking over Greenland, and claimed that there was agreement with NATO General Secretary, Mark Rutte, to give the US all it wanted—even though there had been no consultation with the NATO principals.
Rupture
This was a day after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney took the limelight of the Davos WEF with his speech which he delivered both “as a pleasure and as a duty.” The official transcript does not give it an official title[5]. But if I were to hazard one it would be “Rupture.”
He speaks about “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a harsh reality where geopolitics, where the large main power, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” A rupture ends something and begins something. This rupture ends the “pleasant fiction” of the past—that there is a rules-based international order, that there is a general willingness for nations to come together to work out those rules based on shared values, that free trade is a shared value, that there is general adherence to the sovereignty of nations, that there is a general acceptance of the advantages of mutual or muti-lateral interdependence. With the rupture, the illusion is over: the rules-based order has yielded to the whims or caprice of a powerful global bully; sovereignty is overpowered by the domineering might of the strong; the negotiations of the past that weighed the possibility or impossibility of proposed polices have yielded to the one-sided imperatives of the despot; trade is not to achieve mutual benefit among partners but to effect the domination of one over the other—not win-win, but zero sum. Hence, “the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”[6]
The rupture, however, breaks away from fiction-enabled domination and breaks through to new political possibilities in truth.
For Carney, the sooner the insight into the necessity of the rupture, the better. “There is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.”
“Well, it won’t,” Carney states flatly. So long as people and nations perform as if the fictions were true, the dictator dominates the world order. He does what he can, and the weak suffer what they must.
When the rules don’t protect you, protect yourself, or organize to protect yourselves
By contrast, “a country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself, has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. This leads to a world of independent fortresses—poorer, more fragile, less sustainable because they do not collaborate, they do not grow by complementing each others’ strengths, they rely on independent transactions. Meanwhile, “economic integration” as demanded by the hegemon means coercion and domination. Unable to benefit from global cooperation, the smaller nations must hedge against the risks at great cost. They either accept the costs of resilience on their own or they come together to share them fop mutual benefit. The rupture leads to a new horizon of cooperation. “Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses. Shared standards reduce fragmentations. Complementarities are positive sum.”
Principled and pragmatic
Carney subscribes to the “value-based realism” of Finland’s President, Alexander Stubb. It is a realism that is “both principled and pragmatic—principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, and respect for human rights, and pragmatic [meaning]… We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.” Carney means this to be a deeply values-based engagement yet entering broadly into different relations (like with China, Qatar, India, ASEAN, Thailand, the Philippines and Mercosur) to strengthen its influence and reach. Carney is leading Canada to pursue “variable geometry”, that is, to enter “different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests, e.g.,the Coalition of the Willing in support of Ukraine. Meanwhile, on principle, he says, “We stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark, and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.” Canada was among the nations that put boots on the ice in Greenland to protect its autonomy. As we have seen, Donald Trump heard this, and the following day announced a shift in his Greenland position.
Where the Great Power fortresses run rough shod over the world, Carney’s call is for Middle Powers like Canada, the European Nations, Indonesia and Australia to unite. “The middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” The remark is not just sardonic, but an architectonic for dealing with a world of rupture and opportunity.
The view from the Philippines
The last WEF at Davos did not grab much attention in the Philippines. Yet perhaps it should have. Just the warnings of world leaders on the probable increase of exogenous occurrences, on the increasing disparity in the distribution of wealth, and on the planetary boundaries that continue to be breached bespeak a sick and deeply threatened world. Meanwhile Davos 2026 is also important because the misbehavior of the head of a hegemonic state in the last year has occasioned a rupture between a world whose guiding principles have had to be declared “convenient myths” and have forced a rethinking of how to move forward, at Davos with Mark Carney and Canada in the limelight. Honesty, truth, values, pragmatism and hard choices are part of Canada’s resolve to move forward. Where programmatic commitments like this are scarce, it has been refreshing to witness it. Yet, in this threatened world, nothing is certain. As Carney stated, “we take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish it to be.”
In this context, it may be important for us in our country to list where the “convenient myths” are which give us a dubious sense of security and well-being. One may be that we are protected from external aggression by the US. Today the US engages in external aggression openly and shamelessly. It may also be a “convenient myth” that this hegemon would come to our defense in case of external aggression based on the terms of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty. The US does not honor the covenants of the World Trade Organization (1947) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, 1995); why should it be bothered by a decades-old treaty with the Philippines? The present White House seems to be more interested in military dominance over the Caribbean through a regurgitation of the Monroe doctrine into a Donroe doctrine[7] than in a serious commitment to maintaining peace in the Far East. Another convenient myth may be that of international justice, where the incarceration and pending trial of former Philippine President Duterte postures its truth, but the untouchability of arguably greater international criminals, Putin and Netanyahu, proves its untruth. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, it may also be time to reconsider our foreign policy in Carney’s spirit of “variable geometry”, exploring new creative relationships, especially with our ASEAN partners, China, India, Latin America and Africa. At the same time, it appears that we must strengthen our democratic institutions and cultural commitments. Philippine democracy and our cultural soul —including our religious convictions—ought never be just “convenient myths.”
[1] Canada has 9.98 million square kilometers, although Russia is 1.7 times larger than Canada. It is slightly larger than the USA (9.52 million square kilometers)
[3] Cf. the nine environmental boundaries identified by the Stockholm Resilience Center. As of 2023-35, six to seven of these boundaries have been breached. Cf. https;//www.stockholmresilience.org/reaearch/planetary-boudaries.
[4] Cf. YouTube: FRANCE 24 English: Several European Countries and NATO allies send troops to Greenland.
[6] The classical quote is from the Melian Dialogue in Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars (Book 5, Chapteer 89).
[7] In 1823 the Monroe Doctrine established the US policy that the Western Hemisphere was closed to further colonization by European powers. Donald Trump justifies his aggressiveness in the Caribbean and Latin America in terms of US national security even without congressional legitimation. His is the “Donroe Doctrine.”
On January 3, 2026, the President of the US bombed Venezuela. He abducted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife from its capital, Caracas; they are now in a US prison awaiting trial for conspiracy in narco-terrorism and cocaine importation. Trump’s intention was not
to take down the narco-politician as officially avowed, nor even a high-minded effort to restore Venezuela to democracy. The true intention was to take control of the world’s largest oil reserves, some 303 billion barrels of crude oil. To do that, he used the US military, arguably still the strongest in the world. He and his henchmen, Sec. of State Marco Rubio and Sec. of War, Peter Hegseth, would be strongarming the Vice President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, to act according to Trump’s determination of US interests in Venezuela. “The US is running Venezuela”, Steve Miller, the Deputy Chief of Staff of US foreign policy, declares.
But VP Rodriguez defiantly states that Maduro is the only president of Venezuela. Even as Maria Corina Machado, Maduro’s opposition figure in exile, inanely gives Trump her Nobel Peace Prize in exchange for a swag bag of cheap Trump souvenirs.
The global reaction is general condemnation of the US aggression, having no justification in international law. Trump has violated the terms of US membership in the United Nations (UN), the international community of nations, bonded on the “principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members” and their shared commitment “to settle their international disputes by peaceful means” and to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state” (UN Charter, Art. 2). While the UN Security Council met on the Venezuela issue on January 4, it has not finalized its position. The US, as one of the permanent members of the UN, has veto powers to any Security Council resolution. Meanwhile, Venezuela has objected. So too, China, Russia, Columbia and Mexico.
At the same time, Trump has openly stated his toxic intention to take over Greenland by military force or to purchase it for the security requirements of the US. Greenland belongs to Denmark, and Denmark belongs to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states: “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized the Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with other parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use or armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Friedrich Nielsen have repeatedly articulated their joint rejection of the US intention; this rejection has been repeated in official meetings both in Greenland and in the US. Yet the intention of Donald Trump, unchecked by the US legislature or judiciary, survives. The question remains: will Greenland, Denmark or NATO survive Trump’s imperial will? Will Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia survive the imperial power of the United States? Will the Americans who are black, brown, yellow, poor, immigrants, and marginalized, needing health care, affordable housing and groceries survive the bullying by the US imperial plutocracy?
These considerations are not top of mind in the Philippines, just as the development of China and its apparent stand-off with the US are not top of mind. More attention is being given to the DPWH corruption scandals, or to whether Marcos supporters can survive a political comeback by the daughter of the erstwhile strongman, Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte. But the misbehavior of the US President allegedly in the interests of his country cannot be overlooked by Filipinos who are also sensitive to the bullying tactics of China that is today massing thousands on Chinese fishing boats in the Scarborough and Ayungin Shoals, backed by the powerful Chinese Coast Guard, harassing Filipino fisherfolk pursuing their livelihood within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. Does the misbehavior of the US in Venezuela and Greenland provide justification for the misbehavior of China in the West Philippine Sea? Indeed, does the misbehavior of the US not argue for the justifiability of the invasion of Russia into sovereign Ukraine in pursuit of the former’s national interest?
We have bases in the Philippines where the US has installed medium-range Typhon and SM-6 missiles that are directed at targets in China. Why are we allowing that? In case of a conflict between the two global hegemons, we invite lethal warheads to rain on the Philippines both from China and the US—without any ability to decide whether China may deserve our support in the interests of global peace. If the US does not have the integrity to honor its UN commitments, why should it honor its obligations under the Mutual Defense Treaty between the US and the Philippines signed in 1951?
With the disturbing developments that greets the beginning of this new year, this series of commentaries hopes to offer information and critical reflections on issues that ought to unsettle us. In the news today, it is the US that is the hawk and China the dove in Venezuela. But in the West Philippine Sea, it is China that is the hawk, and the US the untested dove. Light may be available from Revelation, theology, philosophy, the social teaching of the Church, the human sciences and a desire to survive independently, based on our own religious, moral and cultural values, in a disruptive world.
Light may also be available from you. Your thoughts and comments are valuable. I would love to receive them through: jetaborasj@gmail.com.
Fr. Joel E. Tabora, S.J. Blog 
Not Leadership, but Moral Failure
The exasperating situation with the US-Israeli military action Epic Fury against Iran is due mainly to there being no clearly articulated and generally agreed upon objectives in this military “excursion.”[1] Epic Fury has meanwhile escalated into a full-scale war[2], though “war” is denied by its instigators since the US lacks the required congressional approval for a war, and the aggressive military force applied in fact violates international law as well as universally binding moral imperatives relative to a “just war”[3].
Yet, while the US needed to triumph, Iran needed only to survive. It did, through an asymmetric defensive plan that was 40 years in the making. As the US and Israel escalated the war with all that the modern military industry could provide them at huge cost, Iran survived through simple drones and missiles but with precise and measured lethality. It hit targets in Israel, in US bases and their host nations throughout the Gulf region and undermined Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome of invincibility—pushing the US into a panicked search for an off-ramp.
Narratives of Competing Objectives
The narratives of competing objectives contend with each other to rationalize the war based on different, if not contradictory, logical systems. Among these are: a swift military decapitation of the Iranian leadership, including the former Supreme Leader of the theocratic state, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; or, an effort to support democratic regime change in Iran that would conform to the ends of American democracy under President Donald Trump’s White House; or an effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb; or, an effort to stop Iran from enriching uranium for peaceful purposes in accordance with its sovereign rights; or an effort to annihilate Iran as a sovereign nation and ancient civilization largely at the powerful behest of Israel which views Iran as an existential threat.[4] For Israel, it is but a corollary imperative that Iran’s surrogates, the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas in Palestine and the Houthis of Sudan, be annihilated with Iran. This latter objective exposes the practical complicity of the US in the internecine conflict of Israel with Iran and its abiding objective to obliterate Iran and its allies enabling Israel to emerge as the regional hegemon.[5]
Meanwhile, a byproduct of this conflict with competing objectives is the new objective of reopening the Strait of Hormuz which had been first closed by Iran in defensive retaliation for Epic Fury’s first day of bombing rampage. This decapitated Iran’s leadership and decimated thousands of civilians, including at least 160 elementary-school girls in Minab, southern Iran. The blockage was and remains to be hugely consequential for the global economy since approximately 20% of the world’s petroleum products—diesel, gasoline, liquid nitrogen gas, and urea essential for fertilizer—flows from the Persian Gulf through the Hormuz Strait to the world market. In fact, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) did not close the strait completely. It let the oil of nations that were not its adversaries in war pass through the strait into the world market after complying with the requirements determined by the IRGC. As the adverse results of this disruption in the global market became more apparent through skyrocketing prices of diesel commodities and derivatives, the opening the strait became a more central objective of Epic Fury.
Shared bed. Jilted Suitor. Obstructive Netanyahu
Over time the global power of this blockage became increasingly clear to leaders such as Donald Trump. Sensing that there was money to be made and that US power and domination could be powerfully projected through control of Hormuz, Trump suggested in an April 8 interview with ABC News that the strait could be managed as a joint venture between the US and Iran. Why not get into bed with the enemy if shared profits could make them mutually happy? When Iran rejected this offer during the peace negotiations in Islamabad, Trump decided to send in the US navy to blockade the Strait of Hormuz himself.
Meanwhile, the Islamabad negotiations that could have provided an honorable exit for the US from the war had been hijacked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advance Israel’s objective of annihilating Iran. For this objective—and his own political survival—continuous war in the Persian Gulf was necessary; Trump’s desired off-ramp needed to be demolished. The original demand of the US for Iran to fully open the strait to ease tensions in the global economy, turned bizarrely into its own blockage of the strait, accompanied by preparations of US marines and army paratroopers for a boots-on-the-ground invasion of Iran through Hormuz. The escalation trap was triggered: the US threatened Armageddon with much bluster; Iran replied calmly, “Bring it on.”
Meanwhile, in the US those who had voted for Trump for a second term to make sure the US never gets stuck in the quagmire of a “forever war” and to make sure that consumer prices drop for ordinary Americans were frustrated and angered by Trump now entangling the US in another “forever war” whose immediate effect was skyrocketing consumer prices.[6] No matter how Trump may have been smitten by his ability to send in his stealth bombs to rain down more bunker-busting bombs on Iran, the proximity of the mid-term elections whose negative outcome threatened not only his presidency but possibly also his freedom, underscored the need for an off-ramp from the war that could still allow him to claim victory.
Ceasing Ceasefires
The first ceasefire that offered hope for such an off-ramp was called on April 8 after 40 days of intense combat for a two-week period—until April 22. It was brokered by Islamabad and was intended to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But it was not reopened because of Iran’s complaint that Israel was still bombing Lebanon against the Hezbollah. The US and Israel claimed that ceasefire in Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire deal. Iran insisted it was. Islamabad corroborated that it was. So Iran kept the strait closed.
On April 16, a separate ten-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was announced in Lebanon—after the US had exerted pressure on Israel to comply. With this ceasefire, Iran announced that for its duration commercial shipping would be allowed through the Strait of Hormuz. But hardly had the euphoria of the global market been felt due to the reopened strait when Iran closed the strait again on April 18 because the US had refused to lift its naval blockade on the strait. Iran would not give up its power over the strait only to allow the US exercise power over it. So, did the antagonists want the strait opened or closed? Their deep distrust of each other kept it closed.
Then, when the initial Islamabad-mediated two-week truce came to an end on April 22, Trump—still desperately seeking his off-ramp—agreed to an extended ceasefire on April 24 for three weeks to allow time for Iran to make a new proposal for a negotiated deal. Meanwhile, on April 23, Iran seized two ships in Hormuz, even as Trump warned that the US would shoot and kill any boat bringing mines to the strait. But by this time, Iran had already mined it.
Quagmire
People have died in this war, and many more are yet to die. People suffer from this war, some as direct collateral damage from the bombings and missile attacks, but others because their lives in Far East Asia, South America, Egypt, Germany or Greenland have been upended as a consequence of this war. The blood and the pain of those affected are on the hands of those individuals who have initiated the war with unclear objectives, and keep it going. Iran is not the aggressor here. The US and Israel are. As a sovereign state Iran has the right to defend itself against the aggression of the US and Israel. Through the IRGC, it has to date done so with stunning control and tenacity—defending itself asymmetrically against the high-tech and lavishly-funded military might of the US. Leveraging its unified people, its terrain that makes invasion extremely difficult, and its control over the Strait of Hormuz, it has succeeded in gaining control over the conflict—even without having to declare victory over its enemies.
By this time it is clear: Trump wants to leave the war. He had thought that that the “excursion” into Iran would be brief, like his excursion into Venezuela. But Iran, he learned, is not Venezuela. So leadership decapitation shifted to democratic regime change which shifted to preventing Iran from having a nuclear bomb, which shifted to permitting Iran despite strenuous Israeli objections to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, to breaking the blockage on the Strait of Hormuz to ease the strain on the global economy, to going into a joint venture with Iran to profit from the blockage of the strait, to the US forcing Iran to unblock the strait while sending in the US Navy to block it anew. Meanwhile, boots on the ground and bombing Iran back into the Stone Age are still not off the table. Trump wants to leave Epic Fury but is driven by a daemon for glory and majesty that forbids him from leaving unless he is the Victor, the Strong Man, the Hero, the Emperor and the Messiah who has brought healing and salvation to the world[7]…. And with Netanyahu for a friend, ally, and shifty eminence grise, Trump will not get out until Iran is annihilated. As he downplays the increasing length of this war through comparisons with World War I, World War II, the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan and the Korean War,[8] he is with no off-ramp practically committed to a forever war. Mad?
The Madness of War
Yes. Pope Leo has condemned the “madness of war,” the “delusion of omnipotence,” the use of God’s name to justify killings, and “leaders whose hands are full of blood.” He has insisted that world leaders move from rearmament to dialogue and mediation.[9] He is well aware that the Iran war involves dynamics that flirt with nuclear war and that both Trump and Netanyahu have threatened their use in the course of Epic Fury. The inability to find a face-saving off-ramp leads to escalations in rhetoric and action which push the world closer to a nuclear catastrophe with each frustrating day.
To break the vicious impasse, to return to sanity, the aggressors must admit their aggression and show genuine openness for peace. They must show remorse for the blood on their hands, for the inanity of their shifting objectives of war. They must be willing to repair the damage they have wrought. For damage that is irreparable, the loss of lives which few seem to recognize, they must be willing humbly to apologize. All must recognize the sovereignty of all nations, including the poorest nations of Africa or of the Caribbean or of the Malay Archipelago. International organizations of nations must liberate themselves from the chokehold of self-interested states on their administration[10] in order to implement international law fairly and equally. An international court and organization that can only bring justice to a Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines while long-recognized international criminals such as Netanyahu of Israel and Putin of Russia remain free and in power to continue their savagery[11] destroys the credibility of international justice. Meanwhile, people must not tire to heed the conscience call of their humanity—created in the image of God—to condemn the madness of Epic Fury and call for the accountability of the politicians who consider the drive for power and domination as a legitimate justification for war. On April 6, 2025, after Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum for Iran or face “all hell” and “destruction,” Pablo Cardinal David of the Philippines addressed American Catholics and the US government with the prophetic words, “When power is used without restraint, when war is chosen without listening, when destruction is justified as strength, that is not leadership. That is moral failure.” He asked Americans to “stop what must not be unleashed” and to “renounce war.”
Meanwhile those who have resisted aggression must regard their resistance as a contribution not only to their national survival but to the global common good. Nations must stand up to the aggression of bullies. But in time they too must walk away from the madness of war to return to the sanity of an ancient and venerable civilization.
[1] “Excursion” is the recreational activity which US President Donald Trump confuses for the militarily significant word, “incursion,” which is a “sudden, often temporary, and unlawful invasion of a foreign territory, typically involving armed forces crossing a border” (AI Overview). Originally Trump imagined that this military activity against Iran would be over in a few days—as was the case in his military raid on Venezuela, which resulted in the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro for trial in New York for drug trafficking and Trump’s control of Iranian oil. Trump has meanwhile learned the difference between Venezuela and Iran.
[2] A war is a sustained and long-term engagement involving mobilization of national military resources in order to defeat the enemy, force surrender, or achieve long-term geopolitical shifts. Since its start, Epic Fury is today, April 23, is 54 days old. Because of the lack of off-ramps for the US, and the resistance of Israel to the US taking such an off ramp, the possibility of its deteriorating into a “forever war” is high. In his campaign speeches, Trump promised he would not lead America into another forever war, but instead make sure that consumer prices decrease. He has done the opposite.
[3] Among the non-existent requirements for a just war for Epic Fury according to Just War Theory are: 1. Just Cause (Jus ad Bellum): a. lack of imminent threat; b. the objective of regime change, not considered a legitimate cause for war according to international law. 2. Legitimate/Proper Authority: a. the action with taken without UN Security Council clearance; b. the US action was taking without Congressional approval violating the US Constitution. … 5. Proportionality (Jus in Bello and Jus ad Bellum):a. Excessive force or collateral damage: the aerial bombardment campaign a\imed to cause massive infrastructure destruction, with reports indicating high collateral damage, including civilian casualties, etc. (AI Overview).
[4]On April 1 during a primetime address, US President Donald Trump threatened to return Iran “to the Stone Ages” if a deal was not reached regarding the ongoing conflict. He said, “Over the next two or three weeks we are going to bring them [Iran] back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” (AI Overview).
[5] “The costs in human lives—and the apparent disregard for their value—are high: “As of early to mid-March, 2026, Operation Epic Fury has resulted in significant casualties: over 3,375 reported killed in Iran (including civilians), at least 13 US service members killed, and over 4,000-6,000 combatants killed by Israel. Hezbollah and Lebanon have faced intense strikes, while Israel reports thousands” (AI Overview). The thirteen caskets ceremoniously draped in the American flag saluted on March 7 by the American President sporting a white USA baseball cap underscores the poignancy of the thousands killed in Iran, including women and children, mourned by their loved ones.
[6] Poll: Trump’s approval rating hits second-term low as Americans sour on the economy and the Iran war. Two thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of inflation and of the Iran war. Cf: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/poll-trumps-approval-rating-hits-second-term-low-economy-iran-war-rcna331462 …
[7] On April 13, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus, the Divine Healer. It drew sharp criticism, some characterizing it as blasphemous. Against the criticism, Trump admitted to the posting said he was just a medical doctor associated with the Red Cross.
[8] He made these comparisons in a White House address on Epic Fury on April 1, 2026, April Fools’ Day.
[9] Assertion made by Pope Leo XIV during a series of addresses and a peace vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica in April, 2026. Cf the Urbi et Orbi Message of Leo XIV on Easter Sunday, 5 April, 2026: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/urbi/documents/20260405-urbi-et-orbi-pasqua.html
[10]The veto power of the US, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China on the Security Council allows military adventurism and bullying with impunity.
[11] Vladimir Putin has been under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant since March 17, 2023 based on allegations of the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Gallant are under ICC warrant for arrest for crimes against humanity committed from 8 October 2023 to 20 May 2024, including, using starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts during the Gaza war. The lack of prosecution for these criminal acts have contributed to the conviction that certain countries are immune, that war atrocities can be normalized by impunity, and that might makes right.