The white smoke from the Vatican chimney is a sign of beginning, but on this somber Sunday morning in Rome, there was an air that felt heavy with the burden of an ending — ABC: The possible end of fragile global peace. As sunlight bathed the ancient stones of St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV stood and addressed a swathe of almost 60,000 pilgrims, whose reactions to his message found him faltering not with age but with the weight of what he had to say.
Today the Pontiff’s weekly Angelus address became a desperate “Cry for Humanity.” After the deadly turn in hostilities that erupted in Iran and then sent oil prices soaring, threatening economic devastation for millions worldwide, the Holy Father scrapped his prepared theological talking points. Instead, he issued a direct, passionate appeal to the leaders of the United States, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“The soil of the Earth is already thirsty for water,” the Pope said, his words ringing out across the colonnade. “Let us not satisfy that thirst with the blood of our brothers and sisters. War is always a defeat — a defeat for politics, a defeat for humanity, and a shameful surrender to the forces of evil.”
A Shepherd in the Crossfire
For the 200,000 Catholics in Iran and millions of Christians and Muslims and secular citizens trapped inside the current bombardment, the Pope’s words were hardly just religious rhetoric; they were a lifeline of visibility. Ever since the beginning of the “Strait of Hormuz Blockade,” communication with the Christian communities in Isfahan and Tehran has become sporadic.
The Pope’s plea centered on the humanitarian corridors that have been blocked by the maritime standoff. He referred specifically to the “silent victims” of war — the elderly, in Tehran, who cannot obtain medication because of the fuel crisis there, and children in coastal villages who awaken not to morning tide but to missile defense systems.
“I have addressed myself to those who can turn off the engines of destruction,” Leo XIV went on, leaning heavily against the velvet-trimmed sill of his window.
Also read: Shadows over the Strait: The US-Israel Joint Offensive and the Shifting
A World in Pieces: The Ripple Effect
The pope’s message didn’t simply apply to the battlefield. In a surprising move for many Vatican watchers, he weighed in on the “economic violence” being inflicted now at gas stations and grocery stores from Chicago to New Delhi. By nodding to the $100-per-barrel oil marker, he linked the geopolitical struggle with a common worker’s struggle.
He recounted praying with a woman who called after he read on air a letter from a young mother in Lebanon, whose country is already hanging by the thinnest thread, recounting how rising bread prices — directly related to rising energy costs for transport — meant feeding her children each day was now essentially miraculous.
Read more: Iran bombs oil refinery in Bahrain
A request for an immediate “Lenten truce”
As Lent neared its climax, Leo XIV suggested a “Universal Truce of God” — an idea originating in the Middle Ages when warring factions would cease fighting during holy days. He demanded a 72-hour cease-fire to permit the Red Cross and the Red Crescent to bring food and medical supplies to the most hotly contested parts of the Iranian interior.
Since then, the response from the international community has been both reverential and strategically ambivalent. The UN Secretary-General immediately endorsed the Pope’s appeal, but Washington and Tehran continue to talk past each other in sharply polarized terms. But the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, overseen by Cardinal Parolin, is said to be working discreetly on a “back channel” meeting between mid-level envoys in Switzerland.
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