The Catholic archbishop for the U.S. armed forces, joining other Catholic leaders questioning the Trump administration's use of military force in Venezuela and a potential takeover in Greenland, is insisting that it "would be morally acceptable" for service members to disobey the orders they feel violate their conscience.
"Greenland is a territory of Denmark," Archbishop Timothy Broglio told the BBC this weekend, reported The Washington Post on Tuesday. "It does not seem really reasonable that the United States would attack and occupy a friendly nation."
He further acknowledged that he's "worried" that service members "could be put in a situation where they're being ordered to do something which is morally questionable."
Broglio added that it would be "very difficult for a soldier or a Marine or a sailor" to disobey an order.
However, "within the realm of their own conscience, it would be morally acceptable to disobey that order, but that's perhaps putting that individual in an untenable situation, and that's my concern," Broglio said.
Broglio's comments align with the concerns mentioned by Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff, as well as the Church's top cardinals in the United States, about the administration's foreign policy and military threats.
Also on Monday, Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., and Joseph Tobin of Newark, the three highest-ranking archbishops in the United States, warned that the use or threat of military force, including in Venezuela or Greenland, has caused the world to question "the moral foundation for America's actions" and "the use of military force and the meaning of peace."
Broglio is head of the D.C.-based Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in which he oversees chaplains serving at U.S. military bases, Veterans Affairs healthcare facilities, and on worldwide diplomatic missions.
He's often seen as a conservative and has served in the past as the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
He spoke out against the Obama administration's decision to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and has spoken out against allowing LGBTQ troops to serve openly in the military.
Broglio also spoke out when the Trump administration announced it was disqualifying transgender people from being in the military, calling sexual orientation and gender identity issues a matter that shows an "incorrect societal attitude."
However, he has criticized the U.S. military's strikes on boats in the Caribbean, which the administration has claimed were being used to smuggle drugs.
"In the fight against drugs, the end never justifies the means," he said in December. "No one can ever be ordered to commit an immoral act, and even those suspected of committing a crime are entitled to due process under the law."
His comments came after media reports that commanders in a boat strike saw survivors and ordered a second attack to kill them.
Broglio didn't refer directly to that incident, but said that the "moral principle forbidding the intentional killing of noncombatants is inviolable."
"It would be an illegal and immoral order to kill deliberately survivors on a vessel who pose no immediate lethal threat to our armed forces," he said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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