During the Saturday night vigil mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Leo XIV led the world’s Catholics into Easter and urged them to strive for peace rather than becoming numb to the magnitude of the conflicts happening.
The first American pope urged the people to “not allow ourselves to be paralysed” with what’s happening around the world and encouraged Catholics to be like the saints who fought for justice so that “Easter gifts of harmony and peace may grow and flourish everywhere.”
During the event, he also baptised ten adult converts to Catholicism.
Additionally, the pope walked the cross through all 14 stations during the Way of the Cross on Good Friday during Leo’s first Holy Week, for the first time in decades.
He restored a custom that his predecessor, Pope Francis, had broken by allowing the people and even non-Christians to participate in the custom of washing the feet of twelve priests on Holy Thursday.
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The pope as an outspoken war critic
Pope Leo XIV, who has been a vocal critic of the Iran conflict, claimed that fear and mistrust have been permitted to “sever the bonds between us through war, injustice and the isolation of peoples and nations.”
During another mass in St. Peter’s Square on Palm Sunday, the speaker vehemently denounced war and the use of religion as an excuse for violence, stating that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.”
“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” Leo said.
“He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’”
He made a direct appeal to United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday, urging the president to find an “off-ramp” to end the war.
“Let us also pray for all the migrants who have died at sea, especially those who lost their lives in recent days off the coast of Crete,” he added, drawing attention to those who perished in the Mediterranean.
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