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Pope Leo XIV rejected claims that God justifies war during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, speaking to tens of thousands gathered in the square. In his homily, he said Jesus is the “king of peace,” who refuses violence and consoles those who are oppressed, framing the day’s religious focus as a direct challenge to religious arguments for fighting.
“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, king of peace, who rejects war, to whom nobody can use to justify war,” Leo said, according to the Associated Press report of the service. He added: “He does not listen to the prayers of those who make war, but rejects them.”
The remarks landed against a backdrop of ongoing conflict, as the report said the U.S.-Israel war against Iran was entering its second month and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued. The pope used his homily during Holy Week to argue that believers should not lose sight of suffering elsewhere, saying that Christians must remember “how many people around the world are suffering as Christ.”
The pope also asked for targeted prayers for Christians in the Middle East. In a special blessing at the end of the Mass, he said he was praying especially for Christians in the region who “suffer the consequences of an atrocious conflict and in many cases cannot live fully the rites of these holy days.”
The Associated Press report said Leo framed the message as a response to religious justifications used by multiple sides of the wider wars. It described how U.S. officials, especially Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have invoked Christian faith to present the war as one fought by a Christian nation, while the report said the Russian Orthodox Church has justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war” against a Western world that it portrays as plunged into evil.
Earlier in the day, the report said the Latin Patriarchate announced that Jerusalem police blocked Catholic leaders from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Palm Sunday. The Latin Patriarchate said it was the first time in centuries that leaders had been prevented from celebrating in the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified.
Israeli police said they denied the Catholic leaders’ access request because all sacred sites in Jerusalem’s Old City were closed to worshippers for security reasons, according to the report. Police said freedom of worship would still be respected “subject to the necessary restrictions.”
The day’s liturgy also carried memories for many in the Vatican of Pope Francis, whose death on Easter Monday was recently followed by the current Holy Week under Leo. The report said Francis was recovering in the Vatican when Holy Week began last year, after a five-week hospitalization for bilateral pneumonia, and later returned to greet the faithful from the loggia of St. Peter’s Square.
The Associated Press account said Francis died the morning after he suffered a stroke and that his nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti, later told Vatican Media that Francis had said, “Thank you for bringing me back to the square” for his final drive around the plaza in a papal motorcade.
Leo is scheduled to preside over the liturgical events of the week, including the foot-washing ceremony on Holy Thursday, which the report said commemorates the Last Supper. It also said Francis, during his papacy, often traveled on Holy Thursday to prisons and refugee centers around Rome to wash the feet of people on the margins of society, a gesture meant to underscore service and humility.
The report said critics sometimes objected to Francis’s annual trips, including because he washed the feet of Muslims and people of other religions. It added that Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, is restoring the Holy Thursday foot-washing tradition to the Basilica of St. John Lateran, and that the Vatican had not yet said which participants would be chosen.
Leo is also expected to preside over a Good Friday procession in Rome’s Colosseum and to celebrate Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, followed by the Easter blessing from the basilica’s loggia, the report said.