This story has been updated.
By Gary Gately
Pope Leo XIV opened his first Holy Week as the leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church Sunday with a forceful appeal for peace, warning against invoking religion to justify war and saying God rejects the prayers of those who do so.
“Christ, King of Peace, cries out again from his cross: ‘God is love! Have mercy! Lay down your weapons! Remember that you are brothers and sisters!’” Pope Leo told tens of thousands of the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for Palm Sunday Mass.
“This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them,” Leo said, before quoting the prophet Isaiah, “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: Your hands are full of blood.”
In his six-minute homily, also viewed by millions in live broadcasts and livestreams, the first U.S.-born pope again refrained from naming any specific world leaders — and has not done so in increasingly forceful appeals for peace since the Iran war began a month ago.
But Leo’s sharp rebuke of those who invoke God to justify war comes against a backdrop of Trump administration officials —most notably, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — employing religious rhetoric to rationalize their aggression against Iran and praying for divine aid in inflicting retribution upon the Islamic Republic.
On Wednesday, Hegseth prayed at a Christian worship service for military and civilian workers at the Pentagon: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
The U.S. is not alone in invoking religion to justify the war, which has left more than 2,800 dead and displaced millions. All sides have done so, including Israel and Iran.
Amid war, seeing Christ among “a crucified humanity”
In his Palm Sunday homily — in which he referred to Jesus as the “King of Peace” seven times — the 70-year-old Leo said: “As we set our gaze upon him who was crucified for us, we can see a crucified humanity. In his wounds, we see the hurts of so many women and men today…. Above all, we hear the painful groans of all those who are oppressed by violence and are victims of war.”
The Palm Sunday liturgy opened with the traditional procession in St. Peter’s Square, as Pope Leo, cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and thousands of lay Catholics carried olive branches, a symbol of peace, and palm fronds on a gorgeous spring day in the Eternal City.
Jesus, Leo reminded us, entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on a donkey, not as a warrior king, but as a humble savior who embraces peace and rejects violence: “He did not arm himself, or defend himself or fight any war. He revealed the gentle face of God, who always rejects violence. Rather than saving himself, he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, embracing every cross borne in every time and place throughout human history.”
Leo closed his homily by quoting a prayer to the Virgin Mary by Italian Bishop Antonio Bello, a vocal critic of the Gulf War who died of cancer in 1993, whom Pope Francis declared venerable in late 2021 in recognition of his “heroic virtues,” moving him a step closer to sainthood:
“Holy Mary, woman of the third day, grant us the certainty that, in spite of all, death will no longer hold sway over us; that the injustices of peoples are numbered; that the flashes of war are fading into the twilight; that the sufferings of the poor are breathing their last. And grant, finally, that the tears of all the victims of violence and pain will soon be dried up like frost beneath the spring sun.”
Then, in a blessing at the close of the Mass, Leo prayed specifically for Christians in the Mideast.
“Just as the church contemplates the mystery of the Lord’s Passion, we cannot forget those who today are truly sharing in his suffering. Their ordeal challenges all our consciences. Let us raise our prayer to the Prince of Peace that he may sustain the peoples wounded by war and open concrete paths to reconciliation and peace.”
In his Angelus message after the Mass, Leo again lamented the long shadow the Iran war has cast on Christians in the Holy Land, where frequent fire from Iranian missiles has led to the closing of most of the major holy sites.
The Holy City Jerusalem stood mostly empty and eerily quiet, in contrast to the traditional Palm Sunday procession of tens thousands of pilgrims walking down the narrow, hilly streets toward the Old City, and Jerusalem police barred Catholic leaders from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the first time in centuries.
“At the beginning of Holy Week, more than ever, we are close in prayer to the Christians of the Middle East who are suffering consequences of war during these holy days,” Pope Leo said. “Precisely when the church contemplates the mystery of the Passion of the Lord, we cannot forget how many today participate in a real way in his suffering, Their suffering challenges the conscience of everyone.”
Prayers for all victims of wars, migrants drowned at sea
Leo also urged prayers for all those suffering the ravages of war, including across the Mideast and in Ukraine, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, saying: “Let us raise our prayer to the Prince of Peace that he may sustain the peoples wounded by war and open concrete paths to reconciliation and peace.”
The pope went on to call for prayers for “all the migrants who have died at sea,” including 22 who drowned off the coast of Crete after six days aboard a dinghy in the Mediterranean.
“Land, sky, and sea are created for life and for peace,” Leo said.
Hours earlier, leaders of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land released a joint statement denouncing Israeli police for barring Catholic leaders from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass in Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It marked the first time in centuries that Catholic leaders had been prevented from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass at the church, built on the site of both Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
The statement expressed “deep sorrow” that police turned back Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, and the Custos of the Holy Land, Father Francesco Ielpo, the official guardian of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as they walked toward the church.
In the statement, the two Catholic leaders noted they walked together privately, without a procession, and decried what they called “fundamentally flawed” and “manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure” representing “an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship.”
“Yet,” the statement added, on a hopeful note, “the Patriarch invites us to welcome the King with hearts pondering the love that never gives up, but freely and faithfully gives of itself, trusting in The final word of God, the empty tomb…leading us toward a peace that is not an illusion, but the fruit of the cross.”
Read the full text of Pope Leo XIV’s Palm Sunday Mass homily.