The current war in Iran is no abstraction for Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who heads the United States’ only global diocese, the Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS), a borderless jurisdiction that includes Catholics serving in the U.S.. armed forces together with their families.
Three of the U.S. military installations visited last Christmas by Archbishop Broglio — bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar — were later bombed by Iran in the war launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28.
But as Vatican leadership under Pope Leo XIV becomes increasingly concerned about the deployment of military solutions that seem to ignore international law before dialogue is attempted, it has often fallen to Archbishop Broglio to articulate Church teaching on sensitive issues around war, peace, and the primacy of human dignity.
The scope of his jurisdiction is daunting: as the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, Archbishop Broglio pastors 1.8 million Catholic servicemen, or 20-25% of the total U.S military worldwide, spread across 750 U.S. military bases in 80 countries.
