The newly installed Pope Leo XIV is making clear that he’s preparing to go on a peacekeeping blitz at a moment of several hotspots and major war zones across the globe.
Leo this week quoted the late Pope Francis in denouncing the multiple raging conflicts, from Ukraine to Gaza to Yemen to India-Pakistan to Syria to Sudan to Ethiopia to Libya, saying it was a “third world war in pieces.” He’s already been making phone calls to Kiev and Gaza.
“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” he said. “Let everything possible be done to achieve genuine, just and lasting peace as soon as possible,” he added, just ahead of Russia-Ukraine peace talks set for Thursday. President Trump is not expected attend these negotiations in person, despite earlier teasing the idea.
In a fresh message this week, the Pope has also called for the release of all prisoners of war (POWs) and further praised the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, reportedly brokered by President Trump, it should be noted.
“I, too, address the world’s great powers by repeating the ever-present call ‘never again war,’” Leo had also said starting Sunday.
President Zelensky has invited the new Pope to visit Ukraine and see the war-ravaged country in person. Currently, the Pope is preparing to travel to Turkey at a later date, to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea (in Asia Minor).
In Wednesday audience remarks, Leo also highlighted the plight of the suffering Christians of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East.
He acknowledged that that the region’s ancient Christian populations have been forced to flee their homelands because of “war and persecution, instability and poverty.”
“It was a reference to the exodus of Christians from the Middle East, Iraq and Syria especially, where entire communities have been displaced by years of Islamic extremist violence,” The Associated Press writes. “Many of these communities in northern Iraq were some of the oldest of the faith, where the dialects of Aramaic – the language of Jesus – are still spoken.”
The newly installed pontiff said he is ready to “help bring enemies together, face to face” as a peacemaker.
“Who better than you can sing a song of hope even amid the abyss of violence?” he declared. “From the Holy Land to Ukraine, from Lebanon to Syria, from the Middle East to Tigray and the Caucasus, how much violence do we see!”
Trump putting the world on notice that the new leadership and alliances will be based on friendship and commerce; “not chaos.” The Saudi Crown Prince with a smile in agreement and appreciation.pic.twitter.com/koZ9MFh0H2
— Based Infidel (@SouthernSwag_) May 13, 2025
Interestingly, Trump too has begun to present himself as a ‘peacemaker’ – and his message to the Middle East this week has been one of ‘deal-making, not chaos’ – and so the timing of this dual messaging from the Vatican as well as Washington could make for better chances at peace in the various conflict zones. However, it remains that Trump has been in the Gulf overseeing hundreds of billions of dollars in new weapons sales… so there’s that.
On Iran, Trump said at a state dinner in Doha to his Qatari hosts on Wednesday, “You’re also working with us very closely, with respect to negotiating a deal with Iran, which is the far friendlier course that you would see.”
“I mean, two courses, there’s only two courses. There aren’t three or four or five, there’s two. There’s a friendly and a non-friendly, and non-friendly is a violent course, and I don’t want that. I’ll say it up front. I don’t want that, but they have to get moving,” the president added, as he attempts to forge ahead on a new nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/14/2025 – 22:10
