At the end of January, the Cardinal Archbishops of Chicago, Washington, DC, and Newark issued a joint statement on the morality of U.S. foreign policy, measuring it against the principles set forth by Pope Leo XIV in his address to the diplomatic corps assigned to the Holy See.  They asserted that, “Catholic social teaching testifies that when national interest narrowly conceived excludes the moral imperative of solidarity among nations and the dignity of the human person, it brings immense suffering to the world and a catastrophic assault on the just peace that benefits every nation and is the will of God.”  Further, these faith leaders raised concerns about the use of military force and threats (as seen in the conflict in Iran).  The bishops expressed fear that the building of just and sustainable peace is being reduced to partisan categories that encourage polarization and destructive policies.  Pope Leo stated that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force…War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading,” and he emphasized the need for international aid to safeguard the most central elements of human dignity, decrying the movement by wealthy nations to reduce or eliminate their contributions to humanitarian foreign assistance programs.  He pointed to “increasing violations of conscience and religious freedom in the name of an ideological or religious purity that crushes freedom itself.”  The bishops “embrace [Pope Leo’s] vision for the establishment of a genuinely moral foreign policy for our nation to build the peace that Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel.”