Vance and Johnson lecture Pope Leo on 'just war' theology — but Thune pushes back: 'Let the church be the church'

After President Donald Trump harshly and repeatedly criticized pope Leo XIV for opposing the war against Iran, Vice President JD Vance and House Republican Majority Leader Mike Johnson shifted the line of attack away from political discussion and turned much more toward the theological realm.

According to Vance and Johnson, Pope Leo would not be advocating "just war," a philosophical and legal doctrine that seeks to determine when it is morally legitimate to start a war and how it should be conducted.

During a Turning Point USA event in Athens, Georgia, the vice president, who professes the Catholic faith, asserted that Pope Leo should "be careful" when speaking on theological matters, questioning his criticism of the ongoing war and also the Catholic leader's recent posts on 'X' about peace and warmongering rhetoric.

"Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps and liberated those, those innocent people, you know, those who had survived the Holocaust? I certainly think the answer is yes," Vance said during the event.

"Now we can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just, but I think in the way that it's important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it's very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology," the vice president continued.

"But I think one of the issues here is that if you're going to opine on matters of theology, you've got to be careful. You've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth, and that's one of the things that I try to do, and it's certainly something I would expect from the clergy, whether they're Catholic or Protestant," he said.

Rep. Mike Johnson went a bit further in his criticism, directly addressing just war doctrine, lecturing Pope Leo on theology.

"It is a very well-settled matter of Christian theology," Johnson told reporters when asked about the pope's recent statements. "It's something called the 'just war' doctrine."

Critics were quick to chime in on 'X', recalling that just war, whose origins come from Greek philosophy, had its Christian formulation in St. Augustine of Hippo between the 4th century and was later systematized by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. Pope Leo XIV, who holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, is the first pontiff of the Order of St. Augustine, that is, an Augustinian friar, from the same Catholic saint who formulated the doctrine of 'just war' in the 4th century.

However, beyond the criticism of Catholic authorities and parishioners of the Republican leaders, a high-profile Republican responded to Vance and Johnson.

The Senate majority leader, John Thune, asserted that Republicans should focus on economic issues before theological ones.

"When he talks about matters of theology? Isn’t that his job?" Thune told Punchbowl News reporter Andrew Desiderio. "I’d stay focused on the administration, on the economic issues, the pocketbook issues that I think most Americans care about, and let the church be the church."

This is the second time Thune has disassociated himself from attacks on Pope Leo. The first time was when he was asked about Trump's criticism of the supreme pontiff, stating, "I would leave the church alone."