In an immediate response to the bombardment of Iran, Pope Leo urged an end to the violence and a resumption of diplomacy – jaw-jaw over war-war in the immortal words of a British prime minister.

 The message from the spiritual head of the world’s largest religion was as measured and wise as it was timely and essential.

“Stability and peace are not built with mutual threats nor with weapons, which sow destruction, pain, and death, but only with a reasonable, authentic and responsible dialogue,” Leo said in an address at St. Peter’s Square. “May diplomacy regain its proper role, and may the well-being of peoples, who yearn for peaceful existence founded on justice, be upheld. Let us continue to pray for peace.”

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Almost simultaneously, during his trade trip to India, Canada’s Catholic Prime Minister pledged Canadian support for the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes that have effectively decapitated the theocratic and martial leadership of Iran.

As with Canada’s decision two decades ago to militarily remain out of the U.S. war in Iraq, Prime Minister Mark Carney made it clear this country will not be contributing arms to the current American-Israeli cause. But he was unequivocal about where the True North stands on the aims of the conflict. His words were as measured and wise in their own way as Pope Leo’s.

“Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” Carney said. “Canada stands with the Iranian people in their long and courageous struggle against this oppressive regime and we reaffirm Israel’s right to defend itself.”

At first blush, the two statements might seem contradictory, yet this is one of those rare instances in politics generally – never mind geopolitics specifically – when apparent opposites are each so right that they form a circle of sanity together.

Pope Leo is unquestionably right that stability and peace cannot prevail on a foundation of threats, armaments, destruction, pain and death. Only good faith diplomatic negotiation can provide the solid ground of civilized co-existence between former combatants.

But Carney’s words equally astutely and prudently name the source of instability underlying any attempt at negotiated peace with Iran in the days and weeks ahead. The regime’s fixation on arming itself with nuclear weapons transforms its already blood-soaked threats to international peace and security into a global existential crisis. Until that idée fixe is overcome, either through a change of leadership heart or through arrivals of new leadership, hope for genuine diplomacy will remain only a dream devoutly to be wished.

With the caveat that nothing is ever entirely clear under Donald Trump, it seems evident to anyone observing in a fair-minded way that he reluctantly reached such a conclusion before giving the go-ahead for the strikes that began Feb. 28. Indeed, given his usual mishmash of misdirection and hyperbole, the U.S. President’s eight-minute video laying out the cause for war was a model of specificity and, dare it be said of him, restraint.

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Prime Minister Carney replicated that model in his own remarks by focusing on the nuclear threat and, perhaps more crucially from a Catholic perspective, the end of suffering for the Iranian people.

Their plight has truly become unbearable over the decades since the 1979 revolution brought the mullahs to power. Carney was actually tactful in calling their violent abuse of 93 million Iranians merely “oppressive” during that time.

It’s not necessary to itemize over 47 years the blood-stained grotesqueries of their cruelty. We need only go back two months to January of this year when ordinary people unable to afford the basics of life because of the regime’s appalling economic mismanagement filled the streets of Iranian cities demanding change.

By President Trump’s estimate, 32,000 citizens were murdered when the State crushed those protests. For judiciousness sake based on Trumpian experience, reduce by two-thirds and that’s still 10,000 people killed for demanding that they be able to buy milk.

If ever a cause demanded world-wide cries for social justice – and there are thousands – the plight of the Iranian people surely ranks high on the list.

In pursuit of that justice, Pope Leo and Canada’s Catholic Prime Minister have both sagely articulated two necessities for obtaining it. Though they might seem at first at odds, they are of one accord: remove the threat, begin to discuss the way forward for a safer, more righteous world. Both follow in the circle of sanity. Let us pray.

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