Pope Leo XIV issued a fresh call on Monday for an end to the U.S.-Israel war in Iran, while the Vatican also marked the death of a Maronite Catholic priest in southern Lebanon. The remarks came in the context of a wider Vatican diplomatic posture that has leaned toward dialogue and restrained language since the war began, even as church leaders in the United States have spoken more directly.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the pope was responding with “deep sorrow” after the Rev. Pierre El Raii, pastor of Qlayaa, was killed in a bombing in southern Lebanon as he tried to rescue a wounded parishioner. Bruni said Leo “is following events with concern and prays for an end to hostilities as soon as possible.”
The pope prayed for those killed, “especially the children,” and his new message continued what Vatican officials described as a pattern of muted appeals for dialogue and diplomacy in the week since the conflict started. The Vatican’s stance sought to avoid fueling polemics, even as the war escalated and drew sharper reactions from bishops.
Among the most forceful U.S. reactions were statements by Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington, who said the United States and Israel had not met the minimum criteria for the war to be morally just. In remarks carried by the diocesan newspaper, McElroy said such criteria would have included that the war was a response to an imminent threat, that the U.S. and Israel had clearly articulated their intentions, and that the benefits would outweigh the harm.
McElroy cited the consequences he said could follow, including that “Lebanon may fall into civil war,” that the world’s oil supply would face strain, and that the “potential disintegration of Iran could well produce new and dangerous realities,” along with the risk of “immense casualties on all sides.” He concluded that “for all of these reasons, Catholic teaching leads to the conclusion that our entry into this war was not morally legitimate.”
Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago and also a pope Francis appointee, criticized what he described as the White House’s presentation of the war. In a statement circulated through Vatican Media, Cupich said it was “sickening” that a “real war with real death and real suffering” was being treated “like it’s a video game,” and he said the government was treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for “our own entertainment.”
Vatican coverage also pointed to how other church officials addressed the conflict’s portrayal as disconnected from human reality. The Filipino Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, vice president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, said the spectacle of modern warfare risked making it feel like something operated remotely rather than experienced by real people, describing how operators in distant command centers can watch screens where maps, radar signals and algorithm-generated targets move like icons.
Vatican diplomatic leaders, the report said, have rejected the Trump administration’s justification for launching a preventive attack on Iran. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, told Vatican Media last week that if states were recognized as having a right to “preventive war” based only on their own criteria and without a supranational legal framework, “the whole world would risk being set ablaze.”
The Vatican will soon need to translate those diplomatic positions into practical engagement with U.S. officials as it prepares for the arrival of its new ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia. Vatican commentator Massimo Faggioli, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, said in a social media post that Caccia would have to manage what he described as tension between “the Vatican of Leo XIV” and “this USA of Trump” now leading a war fueled by national and religious rhetoric.
A separate note on Monday’s reporting highlighted what it described as a contrast between the pope’s lay emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy and the use of religious arguments and scripture by political leaders to justify the war. The same reporting said that while the pope has refrained from condemning the war, his bishops have not.