Pope Leo XIV rejects claims that God justifies war in Palm Sunday Mass message

Pope Leo XIV on Sun­day re­ject­ed claims that God jus­ti­fies war and prayed es­pe­cial­ly for Chris­tians in the Mid­dle East dur­ing a Palm Sun­day Mass be­fore tens of thou­sands of peo­ple in St. Pe­ter’s Square.

With the U.S.-Is­raeli war on Iran en­ter­ing its sec­ond month and Rus­sia’s on­go­ing cam­paign in Ukraine, Leo ded­i­cat­ed his Palm Sun­day homi­ly to in­sist that God is the “king of peace” who re­jects vi­o­lence and com­forts those who are op­pressed.

“Broth­ers and sis­ters, this is our God: Je­sus, King of Peace, who re­jects war, whom no one can use to jus­ti­fy war,” Leo said. “He does not lis­ten to the prayers of those who wage war, but re­jects them.”

Lead­ers on all sides of the Iran war have used re­li­gion to jus­ti­fy their ac­tions. U.S. of­fi­cials, es­pe­cial­ly De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth, have in­voked their Chris­t­ian faith to cast the war as a Chris­t­ian na­tion try­ing to van­quish its foes with mil­i­tary might.

Rus­sia’s Or­tho­dox Church, too, has jus­ti­fied Rus­sia’s in­va­sion of Ukraine as a “holy war” against a West­ern world it con­sid­ers has fall­en in­to evil.

Palm Sun­day marks Je­sus’ tri­umphant en­trance in­to Jerusalem in the time lead­ing up to his cru­ci­fix­ion, which Chris­tians ob­serve on Good Fri­day, and res­ur­rec­tion on East­er Sun­day.

In a spe­cial bless­ing at the end of Mass, Leo said he was pray­ing es­pe­cial­ly for Chris­tians in the Mid­dle East who are “suf­fer­ing the con­se­quences of an atro­cious con­flict. In many cas­es, they can­not live ful­ly the rites of these holy days.”

Ear­li­er Sun­day, the Latin Pa­tri­ar­chate said Jerusalem po­lice pre­vent­ed the Catholic church’s top lead­er­ship from en­ter­ing the Church of the Holy Sepul­chre. It was the first time in cen­turies church lead­ers were pre­vent­ed from cel­e­brat­ing Palm Sun­day at the place where Chris­tians be­lieve Je­sus was cru­ci­fied, the Pa­tri­ar­chate said.

Leo said that dur­ing Holy Week, Chris­tians can­not for­get how many peo­ple around the world are suf­fer­ing as Christ did. “Their tri­als ap­peal to the con­science of all. Let us raise our prayers to the Prince of Peace so that he may sup­port peo­ple wound­ed by war and open con­crete paths of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and peace,” Leo said.

A Holy Week that re­calls Pope Fran­cis’ suf­fer­ing

When Holy Week opened last year, Pope Fran­cis was still re­cov­er­ing at the Vat­i­can af­ter a five-week hos­pi­tal stay for dou­ble pneu­mo­nia. He had del­e­gat­ed the litur­gi­cal cel­e­bra­tions to oth­ers but ral­lied on East­er Sun­day to greet the faith­ful from the log­gia of St. Pe­ter’s Square. Most poignant­ly, he then made what be­came his fi­nal pope­mo­bile loop around the pi­az­za.

Fran­cis died the fol­low­ing morn­ing, East­er Mon­day, af­ter suf­fer­ing a stroke. His nurse, Mas­si­m­il­iano Strap­pet­ti, lat­er told Vat­i­can Me­dia that Fran­cis had told him: “Thank you for bring­ing me back to the square” for the fi­nal salute.

Leo is due to pre­side over this week’s litur­gi­cal ap­point­ments and is re­turn­ing to tra­di­tion with the Holy Thurs­day foot-wash­ing cer­e­mo­ny that com­mem­o­rates Je­sus’ Last Sup­per with his dis­ci­ples.

Dur­ing his 12-year pon­tif­i­cate, Fran­cis fa­mous­ly cel­e­brat­ed the Holy Thurs­day rit­u­al by trav­el­ing to Rome-area pris­ons and refugee cen­tres to wash the feet of peo­ple most on so­ci­ety’s mar­gins. His aim was to dri­ve home the rit­u­al’s mes­sage of ser­vice and hu­mil­i­ty, and he would fre­quent­ly muse dur­ing his Holy Thurs­day hom­i­lies “Why them and not me?”

Fran­cis’ ges­ture had been praised as tan­gi­ble ev­i­dence of his be­lief that the church must go to the pe­riph­eries to find those most in need of God’s love and mer­cy. But some crit­ics bris­tled at the an­nu­al out­ings, es­pe­cial­ly since Fran­cis would al­so wash the feet of Mus­lims and peo­ple of oth­er faiths.

Leo re­stores Holy Week foot-wash­ing tra­di­tion

Leo, his­to­ry’s first U.S.-born pope, is re­turn­ing the Holy Thurs­day foot-wash­ing tra­di­tion to the basil­i­ca of St. John Lat­er­an, where popes per­formed it for decades. The Vat­i­can hasn’t yet said who will par­tic­i­pate, though Popes Bene­dict XVI and John Paul II nor­mal­ly washed the feet of 12 priests.

On Fri­day, Leo is due to pre­side over the Good Fri­day pro­ces­sion at Rome’s Colos­se­um com­mem­o­rat­ing Christ’s Pas­sion and cru­ci­fix­ion. Sat­ur­day brings the late night East­er Vig­il, dur­ing which Leo will bap­tize new Catholics, fol­lowed a few hours lat­er by East­er Sun­day when Chris­tians com­mem­o­rate the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus.

Leo will cel­e­brate East­er Sun­day Mass in St. Pe­ter’s Square and then de­liv­er his East­er bless­ing from the log­gia of the basil­i­ca. —ROME (AP)

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Sto­ry by NICOLE WIN­FIELD | As­so­ci­at­ed Press