Pope Leo XIV in Rome today called for dialogue, a ceasefire, and peace in the war between Israel, the United and States, and Iran
Letter #15, 2026, Sunday, March 1: The Pope and the War
It is the second Sunday in Lent, and we are suddenly, since yesterday, in a time of new war —and in this time, Pope Leo‘s voice is a powerful, solitary voice calling for peace.
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This afternoon, Pope Leo XIV visited the Quarticciolo — one of Rome’s more impoverished and dangerous neighborhoods, with a large open-air drug market.
He was the first Pope to visit this corner of the city in 46 years, since John Paul II came on February 3, 1980.
The Pope met first with children on the parish sports field at the Church of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ, tended by the Dehonian Fathers. Leo told the children he was “very happy to be here with you this evening.”
Then he spoke about the evil in their neighborhood — the drugs, the violence — and said that human freedom means we can choose goodness, and that choosing goodness is how we gradually transform the world.
“Always reject what harms your health,” the pope told them. “Say yes to what is good. Always no to drugs, yes to wellbeing.”
Then he turned to the war.
“I’m deeply concerned, and we don’t know how many days it will last, about the situation in the Middle East,” Leo said. “War again! And we must be heralds of Jesus’ peace, which God desires for everyone! We must pray much for peace, live in unity, and reject the temptation to harm others; violence is never the right choice.”
He told the children of the Quarticciolo that believers must be “messengers of peace.” He spoke of children in Gaza: “Many children in this world have no family, home, food, or bed. This is a tragedy we see. In Gaza, many children died, lost parents, school, and shelter.”
In his homily, Pope Leo preached the Transfiguration — the Gospel of the Second Sunday of Lent (Matthew 17). He told the parish that life is a journey that requires trust, and that we are always tempted to control everything, when the true treasure is found in accepting God’s hidden promises.
The Noon Angelus
Hours earlier, at noon, the Pope had stood at the window of the Apostolic Palace and laid the theological groundwork for what he would do that afternoon.
Reflecting on the Transfiguration, Leo described Christ’s radiance on Mount Tabor as something that “foreshadows the light of Easter: an event of death and resurrection, of darkness and new light that Christ radiates on all bodies scourged by violence, crucified by pain, or abandoned in misery.”
He said the Transfiguration “transfigures the wounds of history, enlightening our minds and hearts.” Then he asked the crowd a question that hung in the Lenten air: “Does this captivate us? Do we see the true face of God with a gaze of wonder and love?”
Then the pope turned from Mount Tabor to the fires burning across the Middle East.
On Saturday, the United States and Israel launched a joint military assault on Iran — Operation Epic Fury — targeting sites across Tehran, Isfahan, and Qom. Iranian state media confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after 37 years in power.
Tehran retaliated with missile strikes against Israel and Gulf nations hosting American military bases. The bombs fell just days after an Omani diplomat announced that a breakthrough on Iran’s nuclear program was within reach — that peace was close.
Pope Leo XIV did not mince words.
“I address to the parties involved a heartfelt appeal to assume the moral responsibility to stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” he said.
He warned the world was staring at “a tragedy of enormous proportions.”
And then he spoke these words: “Stability and peace are not built with mutual threats, nor with weapons, which sow destruction, pain, and death, but only through a reasonable, authentic, and responsible dialogue.”
He called on diplomacy to “recover its role” and demanded that the good of peoples be promoted — “peoples who long for peaceful coexistence founded on justice.” And he closed with a plea that cut to the bone: “Let diplomacy silence the weapons.”
At noon, the pope preached the Transfiguration — Christ’s radiance piercing through darkness — and pleaded for nations to stop a war.
By late afternoon, he was sitting with mothers of addicted children in a Roman neighborhood that most of the world has forgotten, telling children to be messengers of peace and telling the elderly that God’s love is a greater force than whatever has broken their families.
—RM
