Just or unjust? Catholics respond to the Iran war

Jesuitical

America Media

News, News Commentary, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2026

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on “Jesuitical,” Ashley sits down with America’s chief correspondent, Kevin Clarke, to discuss the widening conflict with Iran and whether the U.S. intervention in the conflict can be justified under just war theory. Then, we re-share one of our favorite interviews from last year: a conversation with Jamie Baxter, the founder & C.E.O. of Exodus 90. The program, which helps men to strengthen their faith through prayer, asceticism and fraternity, faced some early skepticism from some in the church—and the “Jesuitical” team—that gave way to greater understanding and valuable innovation. Links for further reading: Against Unjust and Unjustified War with Iran I regret supporting the Iraq War. We shouldn’t repeat our mistakes in Iran now. Cardinal Parolin on Iran war: ‘The force of law has been replaced by the law of force’ Lebanese archbishop: Innocents are ‘paying the price’ of Middle East war Pope Leo urges a halt to ‘spiral of violence’ across Iran and Middle East Sorrow, shock for Catholics in Middle East as US and Israel strike Iran amid negotiations You can follow us on X and on Instagram @jesuiticalshow. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/jesuitical. Please consider supporting “Jesuitical” by becoming a digital subscriber to America magazine at americamagazine.org/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Jesuitical, a podcast from American Media for Saints and Sinners.
0:14.9	You can join us each week for honest conversations about the Catholic Church in our world today, sometimes over drinks.
0:21.6	I'm Ashley McKinless, and I am not joined by Zach or Sebastian. The former is still hanging out with his baby,
0:26.6	and the latter is sick, but I am joined by my colleague Kevin Clark. Thanks for coming on, Kevin.
0:32.4	It's delightful to be here with you as a member of Plan C, I guess.
0:38.4	So thanks for having me.
0:39.9	There is no one else.
0:40.8	I would rather talk to this week when there is such momentous international news to discuss.
0:47.6	Kevin, you are a senior editor and direct our international coverage, so stories from around the world.
0:53.6	And yourself have reported from war zones.
0:56.7	So I thought you would be a good person to come on to talk about the situation in the Middle East.
1:02.3	Yeah, I did some reporting from Iraq from the Central African Republic, and I'm hoping to avoid
1:08.2	reporting from Iran in a few months.
1:12.1	It's been some kind of week for most of us.
1:15.3	This war caught a lot of us by surprise.
1:18.2	And I guess we're going to call it a war.
1:20.2	The president has called it a war a few times, although there's some dispute in Congress
1:23.6	about how to characterize what's happening in Iran.
1:26.6	But from my perspective, they're
1:29.0	dropping bombs on people. It kind of looks like a war. Yeah. So we're going to get into some of the
1:33.4	Catholic reactions to the war in the Middle East. And that's going to be in Sides of the Times.
1:39.6	And then we're going to share an interview from last year that is connected to Lent. It is with Jamie Baxter.
	...

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