“Something Called the Just War Doctrine” — Speaker Johnson Lectures Pope Leo XIV on Augustine

“Something Called the Just War Doctrine” — Speaker Johnson Lectures Pope Leo XIV on Augustine

The Speaker, an evangelical with no theological training, told Pope Leo XIV he misunderstands the doctrine his patron saint invented while the pope walked through the ruins of Augustine’s cathedral.

Did Johnson just theology-splain ‘just war doctrine’ to Pope Leo XIV?

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s attempt to correct Pope Leo XIV on “just war doctrine” has turned into a theology fight with unusually sharp political stakes, after the lawmaker invoked a doctrine historically associated with St. Augustine against a pope who spent 12 years leading Augustine’s religious order. Johnson told reporters Wednesday that the issue in the Middle East was “a very well-settled matter of Christian theology” and referred to “so…