The sermons of Pete Hegseth and Pope Leo share a common tradition

This past week, when many Christians around the world began to celebrate the beginning of Easter week, related sermons offered different interpretations of the US-Israeli war against Iran. On Wednesday, at his monthly service at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth read a prayer from a pastor and offered his bloodthirsty views on the ongoing military operations in the Middle East. A few days later, in his first Palm Sunday homily, Pope Leo XIV took his title as Jesus as “Prince of Peace.”

Many have noted the timing of these two addresses and more than the subject matter. It is hard to argue against the view that the pope’s speech was a direct rebuke of Hegseth’s military commitment. But, as a Christian historian who focuses on religious violence, I believe that many Americans would be surprised to learn that both sermons come from the same tradition.

Hegseth began by reading a passage from the Book of Psalms that makes it clear that his prayer was for the destruction of the enemies of the United States (Psalm 18:37-42: “I pursued my enemies and caught them and did not return until they were destroyed . . . He then gave many biblical references from, among other sources, the Psalms and the prophet Jeremiah to make that point clear. Hegseth asked God to “do it [the enemy’s] a desolate country,” to “break the teeth of the ungodly,” and to give the American army “an unbreakable unity, and exceeding violence . . . against those who do not deserve mercy.”

The Pope once again filled his Palm Sunday homily with biblical references – in this case, from the prophets and the gospels. The Pope emphasized the humility of Jesus when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, his rebuke of the apostles by using a sword to protect him before he was arrested and his willingness to go to his death on the cross. Then, directly, Leo said: “Brothers, this is our God: Jesus, the Lord of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war, and he does not hear the prayers of those who fight, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even if you multiply your prayers, I will not hear them: your hands are full of blood.'” (Isaiah 1:15) Clearly, he said: “You if you make many prayers, I will not hear them. The Pope decided that the prayer should be to end the suffering of those victims of violence.

There is clear daylight between these two sermons, an apparent gulf regarding Christianity’s relationship to war. But to ask what other words represent the “real” relationship between Christianity and violence would be raising the wrong question. In my work researching that relationship (including a forthcoming book on the subject), I have learned that the Christian tradition has been entwined with violence and heroic attempts to reject it from the beginning.

Matthew Gabriele

Matthew Gabriele is a professor of Medieval Studies at Virginia Tech and co-author of “The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe,” as well as “Oathbreakers: The Civil War That Destroyed an Empire and Made Medieval Europe.” He also hosts the podcast “American Medieval.” Find him at profgabriele.com.