Pope Leo Rebuked Him. Now Bishops Are Slamming Hegseth’s Wounded Knee Decision

It’s the second time in a month Hegseth’s drawn fire from the Catholic Church. This time, they say his decision glorifies genocide.

Thank you for reading! Letters from Leo is a reader-supported publication. If you find value in my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or making a one-time donation.

In Rapid City, South Dakota, Bishop Scott Bullock and a group of Jesuit priests delivered a scathing rebuke of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to let soldiers who massacred Lakota Indians at Wounded Knee keep their Medals of Honor.

“On that day, U.S. Army soldiers massacred nearly 300 Lakota women, children, and unarmed men. This was not a battle. To recognize these acts as honorable is to distort history itself,” the Catholic leaders wrote in a joint statement.

They stressed that those who died at Wounded Knee “are sacred” — and even the perpetrators, while also children of God, committed “grave evils” that “cannot be honored.”

Hegseth announced in late September that the 20 soldiers awarded Medals of Honor for Wounded Knee would retain them, deriding critics as “politically correct” and insisting the men “deserve those medals.

The Catholic response was swift. The bishop and Jesuits rejected Hegseth’s revisionism as not about politics at all, but about conscience.

Their stance is rooted in what they call “prayerful correctness, grounded in truth, conscience, and compassion,” not partisan agendas.

“We reject any narrative that erases the humanity of the victims or glorifies acts of violence,” the letter declared, urging America to face its painful past honestly.

Even the Republican-controlled South Dakota Senate recently agreed, voting 32-1, that honoring the Seventh Cavalry for Wounded Knee only “dishonors” the Medal of Honor and implies complicity in genocide.

In other words, truth and justice demand rescinding those medals — not celebrating them.

Pope Leo’s Showdown with Trump’s Agenda

For Pope Leo XIV, this controversy is part of a wider clash with the ethos of the Trump administration.

Just weeks ago, on Sept. 30, Leo publicly warned that Hegseth’s hawkish talk of war was “worrying”, critiquing the newly minted “Secretary of War” for framing U.S. power in terms of “lethality.”

“This way of speaking is worrying… One must always work for peace,” Leo admonished, after President Trump signaled a shift from a Department of “Defense” to a Department of “War.”

It was a rare papal rebuke of a sitting U.S. official, and it underscored Leo’s fundamental point: Christian conscience cannot be subjugated to militant nationalism.

Now Hegseth has drawn the Church’s ire yet again — and bishops and priests are doubling down.

The Wounded Knee dispute isn’t just an isolated historical argument; it’s a microcosm of the moral divide between Trump’s “greatness”-obsessed vision and Leo’s Gospel-centered ethic.

In Pope Leo’s view, true greatness means repentance and solidarity with the oppressed, not whitewashing atrocities.

As the bishop wrote, “If we deny our part in history, we deepen the harm… We bear a moral responsibility to remember and speak the truth.”

By standing with Native Americans seeking justice for Wounded Knee, Leo’s Church is effectively telling Washington that no political calculus can justify celebrating an injustice.

In the face of power, Pope Leo and his bishops are choosing moral truth over “historical pride.” And they’re reminding America that some honors stain the nation’s soul until they are revoked.

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 want to support this mission, here’s how 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.