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Pope Leo XIII Expresses Frustration at Failure to End the War with Iran: “Many Innocent People Have Died”
Pope Leo XIII, aboard the papal plane, expressed his frustration on Thursday with the inability of US and Iranian leaders to get diplomatic efforts back on track to end the war. “One day Iran says ‘yes,’ the United States says ‘no,’ and vice versa.” He added, “There is also the entire population of Iran, innocent people who are suffering because of this war.” Leo XIII told reporters during the flight back to the Vatican after an 11-day pastoral visit to Africa. “We don’t know where this will lead us, what has once again created this chaotic situation, critical for the world economy.”
Pope XIII made these remarks as the fragile ceasefire in place since April 8 was tested once again by the confrontation in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
The narrow strait between Iran and Oman, through which up to 20% of the world’s oil passes, was virtually blocked in early March following the imposition of an Iranian blockade, followed by one from the United States, which prohibited ships from entering or leaving Iranian ports.
President Donald Trump declared on Thursday in Truth Social that Iran is having great difficulty defining its leader and insisted that the United States has total control over the Strait of Hormuz.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later published in X that the country’s leadership is united. Iranian state institutions continue to act with unity, purpose, and discipline, he said.
Asked about reports that the hardline Iranian regime was executing political opponents, Leo stated that he condemns capital punishment and “the murder of people.”
“So, when a regime, when a country, makes decisions that unjustly take the lives of other people, obviously that is something that must be condemned,” the Pope said.
Leo has provoked Trump’s ire by strongly advocating for an end to the war with Iran. This public dispute has overshadowed his papal tour off our African countries, which concluded
Thursday with a Mass for thousands in Malabo, the former capital of Equatorial Guinea.
The Chicago-born pontiff appears to have tried to defuse tensions with Trump, declaring last week that he is “not at all interested” in debating with the US president.
And when reporters asked him Thursday about the contentious issue of immigration, Leo made a statement with which Trump would likely agree.
“Personally, I believe that a state has the right to establish rules for its borders, and I am not saying that everyone should enter without order, creating situations that can sometimes be even more unjust in the places of arrival than in the places they just left,” the Pope said.
However, Leo placed the responsibility for alleviating the migration crisis on wealthy countries, rather than on the desperate migrants trying to escape poverty in their home countries. “I wonder what we in the richest countries are doing to change the situation in the poorest countries,” Leo said. “Why can’t we seek help from governments to invest, even large and wealthy multinational corporations, to change the situation in countries like those we have visited during this trip?”
Migrants, the Pope added, “are human beings, and we must treat them with humanity and not treat them, as is often the case, worse than pets or animals.”
Leo began his tour of Africa on April 13 with a stop in Algeria, becoming the first leader of the Roman Catholic Church to visit this predominantly Muslim country.
There, Leo followed in the footsteps of St. Augustine, one of Christianity’s most important thinkers and an inspiration to the religious order to which he belongs, by making a pilgrimage to the ruins of the ancient Roman city where Augustine lived and worked in the 5th century AD. C.
Pope Leo flew to Cameroon, a country in Central Africa, where he presided over a Mass attended by more than 100,000 people and openly criticized corruption in the presence of Cameroonian President Paul Biya. The 93-year-old president has clung to power since 1982 in a country where 43% of the population lives in poverty. Leo’s next stop was Angola, where he criticized the unequal distribution of wealth in this mineral-rich nation.
