Conservative Military Archbishop Says Catholic Troops Can Defy Trump Orders on Greenland

The archbishop responsible for pastoral care of U.S. service members says an unjust attack on a friendly nation justifies troops’ conscientious refusal under Catholic moral teaching.

Dear friends —

Today’s subscriber-only article marks a genuinely unexpected turn.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio — the Church’s chief shepherd for America’s military and one of the most institutionally conservative bishops in the country — has drawn a clear moral line against President Trump’s threats to seize Greenland by force.

Speaking to the BBC, Broglio went further than anyone anticipated: he said Catholic service members could, in good conscience, refuse an order to invade a friendly nation.

What makes this moment extraordinary is not only the substance of Broglio’s warning, but the source. This is the same archbishop who until recently was reluctant to challenge Trump-era policies at all.

Yet in just a few months, he has now issued three public rebukes of the administration — on religious freedom, on extrajudicial violence, and now on the prospect of unjust war.

Why the shift? And why now? You’ll find out in the second half of this article.

This isn’t about Greenland alone. It’s about whether moral law still places limits on presidential power — and whether the Church is prepared to defend those limits even when it’s uncomfortable.

Thanks to your support, Letters from Leo can track these moments as they happen and explain why they matter.

We’re the only outlet focused full-time on connecting Pope Leo XIV’s moral vision to the realities of American politics — a perspective shaped by fifteen years spent inside both the Catholic Church and the world of U.S. political power.

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you. If not, I invite you to join us.

Paid subscribers have access to the Sunday Scripture Reflection Series and the Q&A mailbag that opened this past week, where you can ask me anything about American politics, Catholicism, Donald Trump, Pope Leo, JD Vance — or my own faith, biography, and life.

Letters from Leo is open to anyone who wants to be informed and inspired by our pope — and to turn that inspiration into action that leaves America and the world more just, less cold, and more alive with hope.

If you’d like to invest in our mission during this new year, here are three ways you can help:

• Subscribe as a paid member to receive exclusive posts about the life and formation of Pope Leo and help sustain this newsletter.

• Donate with a one-time gift to fuel this project’s mission.

• Share this post (and Letters from Leo) with a friend who might enjoy it.

Whether you give $0, $1, or $1,000, your presence here matters — no matter your faith or your politics.

Thank you for reading. I’ll see you on the road.

Speaking in a BBC interview this past weekend, Archbishop Timothy Broglio addressed President Donald Trump’s increasingly explicit threats to seize Greenland by force.

Broglio’s judgment was unambiguous.

Such an operation, he said, could not satisfy the Church’s moral criteria for the use of force. More pointedly, he added that Catholic military personnel would not be morally bound to carry out an order to invade a friendly nation.

The statement landed with force precisely because of who delivered it.

Until recently, Broglio was known as a cautious institutionalist — a Vatican-trained diplomat, a protégé of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, an outspoken opponent of abortion, and a reliable representative of the U.S. bishops’ conservative wing. Elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2022 with strong conservative backing, he was widely viewed as someone unlikely to confront a Republican White House directly.

Yet here he was, on the BBC, suggesting that obedience to conscience may require disobedience to presidential authority.

A Red Line on War

Broglio framed his remarks within the Church’s long-standing moral tradition. Greenland, he noted, is part of the Kingdom of Denmark — a NATO ally of the United States. “It does not seem really reasonable,” he said, for the U.S. to attack and occupy a friendly nation. Such an action, he warned, would further erode America’s moral credibility abroad.

More striking was his discussion of conscience. Catholic service members, Broglio explained, could find themselves ordered to participate in an act that is “morally questionable.” In those circumstances, he said, refusing such an order would be morally acceptable, even if personally costly.

This was not rhetoric aimed at activists or academics. Broglio is responsible for the pastoral care of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. His words carried a clear pastoral concern: political leaders should not place troops in situations where they must choose between fidelity to conscience and fidelity to command.

Not an Isolated Moment

The Greenland rebuke is not an outlier. It is the third time since October that Broglio has publicly challenged Trump administration policy.

In October, he sharply criticized the U.S. Army’s sudden cancellation of all Catholic pastoral support contracts on military bases. The decision eliminated musicians, coordinators, and other support staff from chapel services, leaving already overburdened chaplains to fill the gaps.

Broglio warned that the move disproportionately harmed Catholic service members and impeded their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. Within days, the Pentagon began backing away from the policy.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio (center, in vestments) celebrates Mass for U.S. military personnel during a visit to the Middle East. As head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, Broglio serves as pastor to Catholics in uniform. Known as a staunch conservative, he has nonetheless begun to challenge President Trump’s policies on moral grounds.

In December, Broglio issued another pointed statement condemning U.S. military actions against suspected drug traffickers that bypassed legal process. Drug cartels, he acknowledged, pose a real threat — but violence outside the rule of law, he said, undermines justice and disrespects human life.

Again, his concern was not abstract. He was focused on the moral injury inflicted on those ordered to carry out such actions.

Together, these interventions mark a notable shift. Broglio is no longer confining himself to internal Church governance or abstract principle. He is engaging the moral implications of American power directly — and publicly.

So why now?