Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stepped to the Pentagon podium on Thursday and, for the second time in as many weeks, asked the Christian God to bless the air war over Iran. Hegseth urged Americans to pray for troops “on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ was unavailable for comment, but his negative views on war are widely known by people not named Pete Hegseth.
This is actually a video, and he's going to think of his next word really soon… (SECWAR/Flickr)
The remarks followed an earlier CBS News interview in which Hegseth said American forces were shielded by “the providence of our almighty God,” a claim that, if true, raises serious questions about why the defense budget is $886 billion and climbing. Hegseth also described the enemy as “fanatics who seek a nuclear capability in order for some religious Armageddon.”
Speaking of fanatics, Hegseth has “God Wills It” tattooed on his arm in the original Latin of the First Crusade. He also has a Jerusalem cross on his chest, a sword-and-Scripture tattoo on his forearm, and a 2020 book titled “American Crusade” about holy war against brown people who just coincidentally also have oil. Also, Hegseth is a known douchebag, but the God stuff takes it to a whole other level.
Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church, presumably hoped to spend his papacy on matters other than correcting the Secretary of War’s morally bankrupt interpretation of Psalm 144. During his homily for Laetare Sunday, Leo addressed the situation directly, stating that those who “involve the name of God in choices of death” were misusing the faith. He added that “God cannot be enlisted in darkness,” a sentence that would seem to be self-evident to everyone but people interested in twisting bible verses to support their own immoral ends. I’ll leave it to you to draw the obvious conclusion.
This one is not a video, but Pope Leo is doing jazz hands. (m.iacobucci.tiscali.it/depsoitphotos)
Hegseth, for his part, appeared to treat the rebuke from the leader of 1.3 billion Catholics the way he treats most forms of institutional pushback: by doing exactly the same thing again, but louder and dumber. His Thursday briefing doubled down on his personal interpretation of the bible, presumably on the theory that if you’re going to get into a Scripture fight with the Vatican, you might as well Godsplain to The Pope while you’re at it.
Iran has responded through aligned militias across the region, with rocket and drone attacks hitting U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria. The escalation has rattled global energy markets, as Iranian authorities have warned that continued strikes could disrupt activity in the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil passes daily. Economists have noted that oil prices respond poorly to holy wars, though they haven’t been great with regular ones either.
Pope Leo XIV has continued to call for diplomacy and restraint, and the Vatican has urged international leaders to focus on de-escalation. It is unclear how much influence the Pope currently has on a Defense Secretary who was dismissed from National Guard inauguration duty for his tattoos, wrote a book advocating a modern crusade, and is now reading war psalms at press conferences while the world’s largest Christian denomination asks him to please stop. But historically, conflicts between people who think God is on their side tend to resolve themselves quickly and without complication.
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