“I forcefully renew the appeal to stop the war and to support every initiative for dialogue and peace,” the pope said, urging global solidarity in prayer for Ukraine and “all places suffering from war.”
Newsroom (May 27, 2025, 09:18, Gaudium Press) As the drums of war grow louder across multiple continents, Pope Leo XIV has emerged as perhaps the pre-eminent global voice calling for reason amid the rubble. His impassioned appeal during Wednesday’s general audience—simultaneously addressing the escalating conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza—reveals a papacy determined to speak moral clarity into our age of endless warfare.
The timing could not be more critical. In Ukraine, what began as localized drone exchanges has erupted into one of the most intense aerial bombardments since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. The numbers tell a horrifying story: 355 drone strikes in a single day, civilian infrastructure deliberately targeted, and now Moscow’s ominous claims of preparing its own “peace proposal”—a phrase that historically precedes renewed offensives rather than genuine diplomacy.
Speaking at the close of his May 28 general audience, the pope said that his thoughts in recent days “often go to the Ukrainian people, struck by new, serious attacks against civilians and infrastructure.”
“I assure my closeness and my prayers for all victims, especially for children and families,” he said.
Yet even as the Pope spoke, another tragedy demanded his prophetic witness. Gaza has become a moral catastrophe that tests the limits of human language. His description of “the cries of mothers and fathers rising to heaven” as they cradle their dead children should shake the soul of anyone claiming civilization. The recent Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter, killing 18 children, represents not some tragic anomaly but the predictable consequence of warfare conducted in the most densely populated urban environment on earth. That this comes amid what the UN calls “full-blown famine” makes the situation not just a military crisis but a complete collapse of our shared humanity.
What makes Pope Leo’s intervention particularly significant is its refusal to engage in the false moral equivalencies that often paralyze peace efforts. His simultaneous calls for Hamas to release all hostages and for Israel to respect international humanitarian law demonstrate the Church’s unique capacity to uphold universal principles without partisan blinders. When he demands that world leaders prioritize ceasefire negotiations over military escalation, he challenges the fatalistic assumption that violence is the only path forward.
History may remember this moment as a turning point. With Western governments increasingly divided on these conflicts and the UN Security Council paralyzed, the moral authority of the papacy remains one of the few forces capable of transcending geopolitical divides.
The Pope’s closing invocation of Mary, Queen of Peace, was more than pious rhetoric—it was a reminder that in our fractured world, some truths remain universal: that no child should die for a politician’s ambition, that no mother’s wail should be drowned out by artillery, and that true peace requires not just the absence of war but the presence of justice.
The question now is whether the world’s power brokers will heed this call—or whether, as in so many conflicts before, they will wait until the last grave is dug before realizing what the Vatican has understood all along.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crux Now
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