Pope's Stark Message: 'War Is Back in Vogue'

In his most substantial critique of US, Russian, and other military incursions in sovereign countries, Pope Leo XIV on Friday denounced how nations were using force to assert their dominion worldwide, "completely undermining" peace and the post-World War II international legal order. "War is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading," Leo told ambassadors from around the world representing their nations' interests at the Holy See, per the AP. Leo didn't name individual countries that have resorted to force in his lengthy speech. But it came amid the backdrop of the recent US military operation in Venezuela to remove Nicolas Maduro from power, Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, and other conflicts.

The occasion was the pope's annual audience with the Vatican diplomatic corps, which traditionally amounts to his yearly foreign policy address. History's first US-born pope delivered much more than the traditional roundup of global hot spots. In a speech that touched on threats to religious freedom and the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion and surrogacy, Leo lamented how the United Nations and multilateralism as a whole were increasingly under threat. "Peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one's own dominion," he noted. "This gravely threatens the rule of law, which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence."

Leo did refer explicitly to tensions in Venezuela, calling for a peaceful political solution that keeps in mind the "common good of the peoples and not the defense of partisan interests." On Ukraine, Leo repeated his appeal for an immediate ceasefire and urgently called for the international community "not to waver in its commitment to pursuing just and lasting solutions that will protect the most vulnerable and restore hope to the afflicted peoples." On Gaza, the pope repeated the Holy See's call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and insisted on the Palestinians' right to live in Gaza and the West Bank "in their own land."

Leo also repeated the church's opposition to abortion and euthanasia and described surrogacy as a threat to life and dignity. "By transforming gestation into a negotiable service, this violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a product, and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family," he said.