Over the past year, Prime Minister Mark Carney has become a politician. He plays the game well, but it is a game that demands moral leadership. It is galling to see the former member of a parish social justice group so reserved about condemning an unprovoked war.

The “real world” of politics is supposedly a place for getting things done while retaining a high level of public support. However, Catholic social teaching is not an abstract parlour game that only holds sway in our imaginations. If anything is “real,” it is Church teachings rooted in the Incarnation of the Son of God. How do you get more real than God?

Carney no doubt wants to do good. His efforts to create a middle-powers initiative and to give Canada a more solid economic foundation are examples of that. As well, he faces an unparalleled threat with Donald Trump now leading the powerful nation to our south. In the current situation, one might cut him some slack.

Advertisement

However, his song and dance around the American-Israeli invasion of Iran has been too much. First, Carney gave a thumbs-up to the invasion only an hour or two after the bombs began to fall. Trump had not consulted Carney or other Western leaders, so the prime minister had no advance warning of the invasion. He might have told reporters that Canada needs time to ponder what is taking place before responding. But no.

A few days later, in an attempt to walk back his initial enthusiasm for the invasion, Carney said he reaffirmed his support with regret. Not sure what that might mean. Finally, he avoided attending the House of Commons’ March 9 debate about the war. No doubt his saying anything critical of the invasion would incur the wrath of Trump. Better to hide out at a constituency event than to spark another round of tariffs.

Yet there comes a time when every person, especially a national leader, needs to stand up for moral principles. Will you stand for something or fall for anything?

Advertisement

Some people have taken a stand... at great personal cost. Take Maronite priest Father Pierre El-Rahi, slain by an Israeli artillery tank in southern Lebanon. Father al-Rahi refused an Israeli order to evacuate the village where he ministered. “We are forced to stay despite the danger when we defend our land, and we do so peacefully. None of us carries weapons. All of us carry peace and goodness and love,” he told a French TV station the day before he was slain.

The next day, the priest rushed from a funeral to help two of his parishioners who had been injured by a blast from a tank. When al-Rahi and others arrived, the tank fired again, this time injuring the priest, who later died in hospital. Here was a leader who stood by his people in the face of aggression.

Another example is Joe Kent, head of the U.S. Counterterrorism Center and a (former) Trump ally, who quit his post because he could not “in good conscience” support the war on Iran. In opposition to the American president, Kent said Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. 

Kent claimed high-ranking Israeli officials and elements of the U.S. media have spent the past year carrying out a misinformation campaign claiming Iran represented an imminent threat to America. “This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.”

In Washington, Cardinal Robert McElroy said the U.S. decision to go to war with Iran “fails to meet the just war threshold for a morally legitimate war.” McElroy simply stated moral truth. At his March 15 Angelus talk, Pope Leo XIV said, “Violence can never lead to the justice, stability, and peace that the people are waiting for.”

Advertisement

I have seen Carney as a man of substance even though I don’t always agree with his actions. However, a person whose lodestar is Catholic social teaching would not have fumbled his response to this brutal invasion so badly.

Carney would do well to call for diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Canada was also once a leader in peace initiatives. Instead of spending billions on armaments, Carney could rebuild Canada’s diplomatic capacity to help prevent future wars and bring the dream of world peace closer to reality. Doing so would be a middle power initiative to treasure.