Vatican City — Pope Leo XIV, alongside top Vatican officials including Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, has repeatedly voiced strong opposition to the ongoing war in Iran, initiated by the United States and Israel in late February. However, the American-born pontiff has notably refrained from explicitly naming US President Donald Trump or the specific nations responsible for the military offensive.
The Vatican's messaging has heavily emphasized the catastrophic toll on civilians. In the opening hours of the conflict, US missiles struck a girls' school in the southern Iranian city of Minab, resulting in the deaths of over 160 people, primarily schoolchildren. US responsibility for the strike has since been confirmed.
Highlighting this tragedy, the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano recently featured a striking front-page aerial photograph of excavators digging mass graves for the victims. Under the headline "Il volto della guerra" (The Face of War), the publication underscored the Holy See's focus on the victims rather than the geopolitical actors.
Pope Leo XIV has mirrored this sentiment through a series of public statements. During a Sunday midday prayer on March 22, he expressed deep "dismay" over the Middle East crisis, describing the suffering of "defenseless victims" as a "scandal for the entire human family." The following day, during an audience with the Italian airline ITA, he sharply criticized the military use of aircraft, arguing that aerial bombardments should be universally banned. By Tuesday evening, speaking to journalists from Castel Gandolfo, he reiterated his plea: "We must work for peace, but not with weapons," lamenting the worsening global violence and rising death tolls.
Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Trinity College Dublin who relocated from the US to Ireland in 2025 following Trump's inauguration, notes that while the Pope's appeals for dialogue have been "frequent and clear," they remain "always indirect." The pontiff has deliberately avoided naming those ordering the bombings.
This approach marks a departure from his predecessor, Pope Francis (2013–2025). In September 2013, Francis actively organized a prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square to deter potential military action in Syria by then-US President Barack Obama. In contrast, Pope Leo XIV has not altered his official schedule to issue a similarly strong symbolic signal.
While the Pope maintains diplomatic ambiguity, other high-ranking church officials have been far more explicit. Chicago's Cardinal Blase Cupich and Munich's Cardinal Reinhard Marx have both publicly stripped the Iran war of any international legal legitimacy. Shortly after the initial strikes on Tehran, Cupich warned against violating state sovereignty, while Marx outright condemned the campaign as an "illegitimate war" that cannot be accepted.
The geopolitical conflict is also causing domestic political ripples in the United States. Catholic voters, who slightly favored Trump in the Fall 2024 elections, are increasingly distancing themselves from his administration's military and immigration policies. According to US media reports, even conservative Catholics previously aligned with the MAGA movement are voicing dissent.
This shifting tide poses a unique challenge for top figures in the Trump administration, notably Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Both men are practicing Catholics who proudly visited Pope Leo XIV with their wives the day after his election, but now find themselves executing a war increasingly unpopular within their own faith community.
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