Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, stood at the tomb of St. Peter on Saturday evening and delivered his sharpest condemnation yet of the US-Israel campaign against Iran. Pope Leo XIV presided over an evening prayer vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica on the same day the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, as a fragile ceasefire held. Without naming President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, or the United States by name, Leo fired a broadside squarely at Washington. “Enough of the idolatry of self and money,” he declared. “Enough of the display of power. Enough of war. True strength is shown in serving life.”
Leo, a Chicago-born pontiff who was initially reluctant to publicly condemn the violence, stepped up his criticism starting on Palm Sunday and said this week that Trump’s threat against Iranian civilization was “truly unacceptable.” On Saturday, he went further, warning that the “holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death” — an apparent shot at US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. US officials, and especially Hegseth, have invoked their Christian faith to cast the US as a Christian nation trying to vanquish its foes.
Leo’s homily was architecturally careful. He did not mention the United States or President Donald Trump in his prayer, which was planned before the talks were announced — but his tone and message appeared directed at Trump and US officials. Seated on a white throne in his red cape and liturgical stole, rosary in hand, he declared: “In prayer, our limited human possibilities are joined to the infinite possibilities of God. Thoughts, words and deeds then break the demonic cycle of evil and are placed at the service of the Kingdom of God.”
The vigil was no small affair. Joined by parishes on every continent, the event drew thousands to St. Peter’s Basilica for an evening of rosary, meditation on the Church Fathers, and candlelight carried from the Lamp of Peace in Assisi. Seated in the basilica pews was the Archbishop of Tehran, Belgian Cardinal Dominique Joseph Mathieu. The US was represented in the diplomatic corps by its deputy chief of mission, Laura Hochla.
The backdrop to Leo’s words is a rapidly moving geopolitical situation. Trump had written on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will… God Bless the Great People of Iran!” Hours later, he announced a two-week ceasefire subject to Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate, and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz. As the Islamabad talks began Saturday, Trump told reporters outside the White House: “We win regardless of what happens. Maybe they make a deal, maybe they don’t.”
Pope Leo has called for an end to the Iran war repeatedly since early March — from his Lenten appeals for a ceasefire, to his Easter address telling those with weapons to lay them down, to his direct appeal to Trump, to his condemnation of the “unacceptable” threat to annihilate a civilization. But Saturday’s vigil extended that pattern into organized global liturgical action, with dioceses worldwide holding simultaneous prayer services.
What the Vatican has consistently missed — or chosen to ignore — is that the campaign began because Iran spent years building a nuclear weapons program while its proxies, including Hezbollah, rained rockets onto Israeli cities and communities in the north. Israel and the US launched their campaign against Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize the regime and destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile capacities. Iran responded with missile and drone strikes across the region, and Hezbollah launched rocket barrages at Israel, which then began airstrikes in Lebanon as well as a ground operation.
Pope Leo XIV may be the first American to sit on the throne of St. Peter. But on this issue, he is speaking the ancient language of nations that have always told the Jewish people that their self-defense goes too far.
