Will the United States take over Greenland? Will force be involved? It’s an open question, and the Trump administration seems interested. Catholic philosopher Edward Feser looks to Church history and the just war tradition to evaluate the move. He concludes that there is “no theological support to be found for such an attack. It would clearly violate the traditional natural law criteria of just war doctrine. U.S. seizure of Greenland by military force would be as manifestly unjust a war as any in recent memory.”

Feser also takes on some arguments in favor of expansionism, supporters of which point to the Crusades and the Spanish colonization of the New World. The Crusades, Feser notes, were largely defensive—they aimed to retake land conquered by Muslims—and authorized by the pope. American action in Greenland would be neither. As for colonization, while the colonization of sparsely or nomadically populated lands may in some cases be licit, Greenland is claimed by a state.

For further reading: In 2025, Richard Cassleman asked “Is Just War Theory Still Relevant?” It is, he says, but must adapt to the changing circumstances of modern conflict.

From the February issue: A cousin to King Henry VIII and a cardinal nearly made pope, Reginald Pole was one of the most consequential figures of the English Reformation; in fact, along with Queen Mary, he almost overturned it. Patricia Snow tells this fascinating tale along with that of the long, lonely exile Pole spent in Europe. Sympathetic to the Reformers, Cardinal Pole was heartbroken by the finality of Trent. 

For further reading: Snow is no stranger to Reformation-era England. In February 2017 she wrote on Hilary Mantel’s novel about Oliver Cromwell: “The Devil and Hilary Mantel.” It’s an audacious piece.

Humanities professor Glenn C. Arbery reviews Chilton Williamson Jr.’s The Last Westerner. Arbery notes how the romantic and heroic is transposed onto the Southwestern landscape.

“Williamson takes his epigraph from the twelfth-century writer Chrétien de Troyes, whose Lancelot establishes the ideal of this novel: “‘He fares well who obeys the commands of love, and whatever he does is pardonable, but he is the coward who does not dare.’”

For further reading: Martin Gramling reviewed a book about a very different Southwestern hero, ­Francisco Garcés: “No Country for Christendom” (April 2025). Garcés ministered to the Quechan Indians before his murder. Gramling’s review, like Arbery’s, makes for a great read.

Upcoming Events

• February 1, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida: “Recovering the University’s Soul” ft. Bishop Robert Barron | Sarasota, FL. Register here

• February 3, 2026: Second Annual Angelicum Aquinas Lecture: “A Conversation with the Theologian of the Papal Household” ft. Fr. Wojciech Giertych, O.P. | New York, NY. Register here.

• March 5, 2026: Annual D.C. Lecture: “Our Crisis is Metaphysical” ft. Mary Harrington | Washington, D.C. Details coming soon.

Until next time,

JACOB AKEY

Associate Editor