Pope calls for peace, diplomacy in light of U.S. strikes on Iran

ROME – History’s first American pope Sunday voiced concern over the recent escalation of hostilities in Iran, now with United States involvement, urging all parties to lay down their weapons and pursue peace and diplomacy.

In his June 22 Sunday Angelus address, Pope Leo XIV lamented that “alarming news continues to emerge from the Middle East, especially from Iran.”

“Against this tragic backdrop, which includes Israel and Palestine, people’s daily suffering, especially in Gaza and the other territories, where the need for adequate humanitarian aid is becoming increasingly urgent, risks being forgotten,” he said.

In a world marked by what his predecessor had called a “third world war fought piecemeal,” Pope Leo said “humanity cries out and calls for peace.”

“This is a cry that requires responsibility and reason, and it must not be drowned out by the din of weapons or the rhetoric that incites conflict,” he said.

“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable chasm,” he continued, saying, “there are no ‘distant’ conflicts when human dignity is at stake.”

The pope’s remarks come after United States President Donald Trump announced Saturday evening, first on social media and then in an address to the nation, that the U.S. had bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran, escalating tensions in its ongoing war with Israel.

In his June 21 address to the nation, Trump called the strikes on facilities in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan a “spectacular military success,” saying the objective in targeting the sites “was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror.”

The United States launched strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, President Trump announced Saturday evening, calling them a “spectacular military success.”

He also issued a warning to Iran to pursue a peace deal in its war with Israel, saying, “There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days… Remember, there are many targets left.”

At his side during the state address were U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Trump’s decision to bomb Iran marks a notable escalation in Israel’s war with Iran, which began June 13 when Israel launched a series of missile attacks on Iran military and nuclear sites, sparking a back-and-forth bombing spree that has generated a mounting death toll on either side.

Israel has said they worked in “full coordination” with the U.S. in planning the American strikes on Iran, which the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization has called a “barbaric violation” of international law.

Within hours of the U.S. bombing, Iran launched a fresh barrage of missiles at Tel Aviv and Haifa, leaving at least 86 people dead.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the U.S. strike, warning that Tehran reserved the right to respond, and saying Trump had “betrayed” Americans who voted for him on the premise that he would end American involvement in wars in the Middle East.

Trump in 2018, during his first term as president, withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, which imposed sanctions on Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relief from sanctions, and opted to reimpose sanctions instead on grounds that the measures in the deal did not go far enough.

In his comments Sunday lamenting the escalation of the conflict, Pope Leo said, “War does not solve problems; on the contrary, it amplifies them and inflicts deep wounds on the history of peoples, which take generations to heal.”

“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, or stolen futures,” he said.

He closed his remarks making an appeal that, “May diplomacy silence the weapons! May nations chart their futures with works of peace, not with violence and bloodstained conflicts!”

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