Consider that while Ukraine is engaged in a terrible struggle against Russian imperialism, the Roman pontiff has deep misgivings about whether Ukraine has the right to defend itself with armed force. He has said repeatedly that weapons aren’t the solution. He has denounced the “madness” of those democracies increasing their military spending––and imposing sanctions––in response to Russia’s naked belligerence. He has laid the blame for the war not with the savage Kremlin despot who has long nursed dreams of annexing Ukraine into a Greater Russia, but with NATO for “barking” at Russia’s door. And in an unfailing sign of moral confusion, Francis has cited Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy of nonviolent resistance, insisting that there’s no such thing as a “just war.”…

The Vatican’s official position on the subjection of Ukraine is a scandal. It recalls St. Paul VI’s 1965 words to the United Nations General Assembly: “Never again war!” This piece of idle sentimentality is fit for the nursery. It has no place in serious discussion of how to protect Europe at a moment of acute danger from a bellicose Russia seeking to resurrect its old empire.

Until the Holy Father and the Church of Rome can emphatically agree that military resistance to unprovoked aggression is right and just, the Vicar of Christ will deserve the scorn of the free world. Because it is the free world which understands that peace is not simply the absence of war, but a more robust and arduous condition of hostility toward tyranny and its depredations.