The message was as clear as modern popes get, especially in their Palm Sunday mass. “Brothers and sisters, this is our God,” Leo XIV told the faithful in St. Peter’s Square: “Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’”

You’d have to be willfully obtuse to miss the American-born pontiff’s reference. He was criticizing the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran and distancing the church from attitudes expressed by the administration of Donald Trump, and specifically Pete Hegseth, the secretary of “war.”

Hegseth, whose body is tattooed with battle cries used by the Crusaders (such as Deus Vult, “God wills it”), has been hosting regular prayer services at the Pentagon, even inviting an evangelical pastor who is associated with Christian Nationalism. At one such service, for the American forces now fighting against Iran, Hegseth prayed to “almighty God, who trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle.” This is clearly not the God of Leo XIV, but a deity who fits Hegseth’s cult of lethality.

“Behold now the wicked,” Hegseth continued, before asking the Lord to “grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence” and to “let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.” On other occasions, Hegseth has vowed to give “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”

As he injects his brand of Christian Nationalism into America’s military culture, Hegseth also appears to have the blessing of the commander-in-chief. “I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump said at his inauguration last year. Whether he’s read the Bible or not, the president certainly values the iconography of religion sanctifying power — when being blessed at the Resolute Desk, for instance.

After millennia of antecedents, this latest trend of trying to enlist God into warfare didn’t start in America, of course. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long been co-opting the Orthodox Church to legitimize his aggression against Ukraine.

After Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, invoked God’s command in Deuteronomy to smite and exterminate the Amalekites as he ordered the Israeli campaign in the Gaza Strip. In launching this year’s war against Iran, just before the Jewish holiday of Purim, Netanyahu cited the story of Esther, in which the Jews of Persia almost became victims of genocide but “the lot was cast” and the wicked Haman met his end, as will Tehran’s “evil regime.”

The opposing side, meanwhile, has of course been fighting explicitly for God since 1979. After Israel killed the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his son and successor declared the deceased leader a martyr to rally Shias, Iranians and other Muslims to fight even harder.

From the Crusades which are so dear to Hegseth to the Thirty Years War, history is rarely as clear as when it offers this lesson: Mixing religion and warfare is a terrible idea. The theology in such conflicts usually masks more primal power struggles (1) and still tends to make the wars and warriors more fanatical and bloodthirsty.

Unlike Russia, Israel or Iran, however, America is unusual in that it has a Constitution that separates church and state. That also means proceeding gingerly with confessional rituals in the military, whose service members represent all faiths, including none, and should never feel pressured or excluded.

One veteran who, as a Jew, did feel excluded in the military during the 1970s (when he was hazed and even beaten), is Mikey Weinstein. A Republican who used to work for Ross Perot and served as a military lawyer, he later founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which represents service members who feel inappropriate pressure to conform to religious norms set by their superiors.

That problem has got much worse since Trump and Hegseth took office last year, Weinstein told me, and worse again since they launched the Iran war. His foundation has been inundated with calls from service members — including Christians who were told they’re not Christian enough, Weinstein adds — whose commanders told them that the war is “part of God’s divine plan,” with some citing the Book of Revelation on the subject of Armageddon.

Such proselytizing violates the Constitution and military codes of a pluralistic nation, Weinstein told me in a Zoom call during which he was interrupted by two calls threatening him and his family and one from a service member needing legal advice. It also carries the “putrescent stench of Christian nationalism,” he added, warning that if past is prologue, the result may be “oceans of blood.”

Blood — that’s also the word Leo XIV used on Palm Sunday. Whether your guide is history, the Holy See, a Jewish veteran, or the Constitution, the conclusion would seem to be the same. America, of all countries, would be wise to leave God out of this war — and out of any war.

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(1) The Thirty Years War, for example, ostensibly started as a conflict between Catholics and Protestants but then turned into indiscriminate carnage among all of Europe’s major powers, with Catholic France at one point allied with Protestant Sweden. In the current Iran war, Iran is retaliating against the U.S.-Israeli strikes in part by hitting Gulf states that are also Muslim.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.

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