Who Guards The Strait: What The Church Says When A Militia Holds A Tenth Of World Trade

Perim Island is about 5 square miles of volcanic rock sitting in the throat of the Red Sea. On Friday the Houthis took it, and with it the whole Yemeni shore of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a stretch of water that carries roughly a tenth of everything the world moves by sea. The same day Saudi Arabia shut a pipeline carrying 4 to 5 percent of the world’s oil. Riyadh is bombing, Washington is declining, the United Nations envoy is warning, and Brent crude touched $108. So who guards the strait? The Church has been answering that question since 1963, and her answer asks more of us than anything on offer this week.

The News Story

Iran-backed Houthi forces have taken control of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast and the island guarding the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, putting Tehran’s closest ally astride a waterway that carries roughly a tenth of global seaborne trade.

The advance finished Friday. Four Yemeni government sources told Reuters that Houthi fighters seized Perim Island, known locally as Mayun, which sits in the middle of the strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Forces loyal to the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government withdrew from the island. The seizure came a day after the Houthis captured the port city of Mocha and pushed into the coastal town of Dhubab. Iranian state media described the outcome as a “divine triumph.”

Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline the same day. The 1,200-kilometer line, which moves crude from the Eastern Province to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, had been carrying between 4 and 5 percent of world oil supply when drone strikes hit sections of it in the Riyadh and Medina regions. Riyadh has leaned on that Red Sea route since the Strait of Hormuz, which once handled about 20 percent of the world’s oil, was disrupted by the war between the United States, Israel and Iran that began in late February.

Markets moved. Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate each climbed more than 7 percent last week, to roughly $108 and $103 a barrel, their highest since May. Brent eased back to about $104 on Friday after Iranian state media reported that Tehran would meet Gulf states in Oman to discuss reopening Hormuz. Traffic through Bab el-Mandeb is running near half its pre-crisis level, and vessels routing around the Cape of Good Hope add more than 3,000 nautical miles and 10 to 14 days per voyage.

Fighting continued through the weekend. Saudi aircraft struck the airport at Mokha on Friday, and Yemeni government forces said Saturday they had hit Houthi fighters and vehicles in the city. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said his forces fired ballistic missiles and drones at weapons depots and command facilities at the Saudi base in Sharurah, in Najran province. Saudi Civil Defense reported that a projectile landed Saturday in the al-Tuwal governorate of Jazan, wounding two people and damaging a mosque, several buildings and vehicles. A civil defense spokesman called the targeting of civilian sites a violation of international humanitarian law. On Tuesday, Houthi missiles hit Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jazan and Najran, wounding 73 people, including women and children.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pressed President Donald Trump for American strikes on the Houthis, speaking with him at least twice in a 24-hour span, according to Fox News and Israeli reporting. Trump has so far declined to order strikes, agreeing to help the Saudis with targeting and intelligence sharing.

Yemen’s war reignited in July after about four years of relative quiet under a United Nations truce. More than 500 people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced since, according to the International Organization for Migration and local officials. The UN Security Council held an emergency session this month, where Special Envoy Hans Grundberg warned that Yemen had entered “a new and more dangerous phase of war.”^[1]

Catholic Social Teaching Analysis

A Good That Belongs To Everyone

Start with what a state is. The Compendium says the common good “does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains ‘common’, because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness.”^[2] I can’t think of a plainer picture of an indivisible good than Bab el-Mandeb. No ship owns it. Egypt’s Suez Canal revenue, Europe’s fuel, East Africa’s grain imports, and a Yemeni fisherman’s catch all pass through the same 18 miles of water, and none of that can be carved up and handed out. When the strait is open, it is open for everyone. When it closes, it closes on everyone, and the extra 3,000 miles around the Cape get priced into bread in Mombasa as surely as into diesel in Omaha.

The Compendium goes further and applies this to nations. States “seek individually to promote the common good of their citizens and strive collectively to guarantee that of all peoples, aware that the common good of a nation cannot be separated from the good of the entire human family.”^[3] Look at the actors in this story with that sentence in mind. Saudi Arabia wants its pipeline running. Iran wants a grip on Hormuz and now on a second strait. The United States wants oil under $100 before the midterms. Each is a national good, legitimately pursued, and each of them hangs on a shared good that none of the three can secure on its own.

An Authority The Size Of The Problem

In April 1963, six months after the Cuban missile crisis, Saint John XXIII wrote Pacem in Terris and said something the Church has never taken back. The rulers of individual nations, “being all on an equal footing, largely fail in their efforts to achieve this, however much they multiply their meetings and their endeavors to discover more fitting instruments of justice. And this is no reflection on their sincerity and enterprise. It is merely that their authority is not sufficiently influential.”^[4] The universal common good, he wrote, now “presents us with problems which are world-wide in their dimensions; problems, therefore, which cannot be solved except by a public authority with power, organization and means co-extensive with these problems, and with a world-wide sphere of activity.”^[5]

The Compendium carries that teaching forward without softening it. The Magisterium insists on “some universal public authority acknowledged as such by all and endowed with effective power to safeguard, on the behalf of all, security, regard for justice, and respect for rights.”^[6] And it names the reason in words that fit this week exactly: the attainment of the common good “has become a goal that is beyond the reach of individual States, even if they are dominant in terms of power, wealth, and political strength.”^[7]

Now read the news again. Saudi Arabia, flying Western-built jets, struck the airport at Mokha on Friday, and the Houthis hold Perim Island anyway. The United States, with the most powerful navy in history, declined to strike and offered targeting data. The UN envoy told the Security Council that Yemen has entered a more dangerous phase, which is what a UN envoy can do. Every one of these actors is John XXIII’s ruler on an equal footing, sincere perhaps, and unequal to the problem. “Dominant in terms of power, wealth, and political strength” describes Washington and Riyadh precisely, and the Compendium’s point is that the good is beyond their reach regardless.

Send the carriers, then, and guard the strait ourselves? John XXIII saw that answer coming. Such an authority, he wrote, “cannot be imposed by force. It must be set up with the consent of all nations.”^[8] The Compendium repeats that it “must arise from mutual agreement and that it not be imposed, nor must it be understood as a kind of ‘global super-State.'”^[9] A strait patrolled by one navy in its own interest is the strong hand with a coast guard’s paint job. What the Church asks for is harder than a strike package: a rule, agreed to, that binds the Houthis, the Saudis, and the Americans alike, and a body with the standing to enforce it. I know how that sounds in a week like this one. So does the Pope.

Leo XIV And The Culture Of Power

In Magnifica Humanitas, Leo XIV admits that talk of a shared journey for the whole human family “‘sounds like madness.’ Yet we must not lose hope. I invite everyone to conceive of ways of cooperating and of more effective international institutions, capable of safeguarding the global common good without compromising the legitimate diversity of peoples and nations.”^[10] He then names what stands in the way, and he calls it a culture of power, one in which “the common good of humanity is relegated to the background and the concrete tragedy of peoples at war is reduced to a secondary consideration in relation to strategic interests.”^[11]

Read the coverage of this story with that sentence beside it. Brent. Bab el-Mandeb. Hormuz. Pipeline percentages. Cape of Good Hope transit times. The 500 dead Yemenis and the tens of thousands displaced arrive in the last paragraph, after the markets. That ordering is the culture of power doing what Leo says it does. He ties it directly to the collapse of the multilateral system, where the institutions built to safeguard “a global common good appear to have been weakened,” and what has replaced them is “a disorderly and conflict-ridden multipolarism with a prevailing sense of mistrust.”^[12] I can’t improve on that as a description of the Red Sea today: a militia, a kingdom, a republic, a superpower, none of them trusting any other, and the water in the middle.

One point of method matters here. An older manual would have me grade this week on the just war checklist: is Riyadh’s cause just, are its means proportionate? Leo XIV has moved the question. He writes that “the ‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated,” and that humanity “possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness.”^[13] So I am going to leave the checklist alone. The live question, the one John XXIII asked in 1963 and Leo XIV asks in 2026, is what would actually secure this good for everyone who depends on it. Leo’s answer runs through the United Nations, which he calls essential, while adding that “the current weaknesses of the UN and the international political system reveal the need for profound reforms.”^[14] Both halves of that sentence describe an emergency session that produced a warning and nothing else.

What Healthy Realism Asks

Leo XIV is careful to distinguish hope from naivety. He warns against “a debased form of realism that confuses observation with resignation, arguing that since force prevails, it will always prevail.” Authentic realism, he writes, “seeks viable paths for making peace more than a mere word, through credible institutions, verifiable guarantees, patient negotiations, conflict prevention and the protection of civilians.”^[15]

One thread in this story fits that description, and it is easy to miss under the oil numbers. Tehran will meet the Gulf states in Oman. Oman has brokered between Iran and its neighbors before, and Brent dropped $4 on the report alone, which tells you how much of the price is fear. Leo XIV says the vocation of diplomacy is dialogue “with all parties, including those interlocutors considered less ‘convenient’ or not considered legitimized to negotiate,” and that “every ounce of humility and patience should be employed in order to nurture even the faintest signs of goodwill among parties in conflict.”^[16] The Houthis are the least convenient interlocutor imaginable. The Church’s answer is that the guarding of the strait begins at the table where they sit.

Which brings the question home. The Compendium reminds every nation of “the contribution that every nation is required in duty to make towards a true worldwide cooperation for the common good of the whole of humanity.”^[17] Declining to bomb the Houthis this week may well have been prudent. It is one decision. Building the rule that keeps the strait open for a Kenyan grain importer and a Yemeni fisherman, and submitting to that rule yourself, is a second and much harder decision, and it is the one the Church asks of a nation that says it leads.

Who guards the strait? Today, a militia on a volcanic rock. The Church’s answer has not changed in 63 years: everyone, together, by agreement, or in the end, no one.

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This story turns on the universal common good: the Church’s teaching that a good shared by the whole human family needs an authority, built by consent, that is equal to it.

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Footnotes

1. “Yemen’s Houthis Capture a Red Sea Island in Threat to Shipping,” NPR, September 12, 2026, npr.org; “Iran-Backed Houthi Rebels Seize a Strategic Port and Island, Opening a New Battlefront,” NPR, September 11, 2026, npr.org; “Strikes Shut Down Key Saudi Pipeline as Iran-Backed Houthis Tighten Grip on Crucial Shipping Lane,” NBC News, accessed September 13, 2026, nbcnews.com; “Saudi Arabia’s Shutdown of Key Pipeline Limits Oil Flow as Yemen Hits Back Against Houthis,” NBC News, accessed September 13, 2026, nbcnews.com; “Iranian Allies Captured a Strategic Red Sea Island in a Vital Waterway. Here’s What to Know,” CNN, September 10, 2026, cnn.com; “The Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a Lifeline for the Global Economy, Is in Jeopardy,” CNN Business, September 11, 2026, cnn.com; “Blame Game Begins After Iran-Backed Houthis’ Lightning Advance Down Red Sea Coast,” CNN, September 12, 2026, cnn.com; “Iran Pushed Houthis to Capture Yemeni Red Sea Ports and to Attack Saudi Arabia,” Fox News, September 11, 2026, foxnews.com; “Houthi Attacks on Red Sea Shipping Raise Strait of Hormuz Fears,” Fox News, accessed September 13, 2026, foxnews.com; “Iran-Backed Houthis Capture Strategic Red Sea Island,” Breitbart, September 11, 2026, breitbart.com; “Houthi Projectile Wounds Two, Damages Mosque in Jazan Region, Saudi Says,” Al Jazeera, September 13, 2026, aljazeera.com; “Houthis Take Control of Yemen’s Red Sea Coast, Key Shipping Route,” Al Jazeera, September 11, 2026, aljazeera.com; “Houthis Seize Strategic Island, Saudis Close Pipeline as Fighting Escalates,” CBC News, accessed September 13, 2026, cbc.ca; “Trump Said to Reject Saudi Request for Strikes on Houthis, as They Complete Bab el-Mandeb Takeover,” The Times of Israel, accessed September 13, 2026, timesofisrael.com. ↩
2. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004), no. 164, vatican.va. ↩
3. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 434. ↩
4. Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1963), no. 134, vatican.va. ↩
5. Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, no. 137. ↩
6. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 441. ↩
7. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 442. ↩
8. Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, no. 138. ↩
9. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 441. ↩
10. Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2026), no. 64, vatican.va. ↩
11. Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 188. ↩
12. Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 201. ↩
13. Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 192. ↩
14. Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 226. ↩
15. Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 218. ↩
16. Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, no. 224. ↩
17. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, no. 166. ↩