VATICAN CITY (AP) — In his most substantial criticism of the United States, the Russians and other military incursions into sovereign countries, Pope Leo XIV on Friday denounced how nations were using force to assert their dominance around the world, “totally undermining” peace and international legal order after World War II.
“War is back in fashion and the desire for war is spreading,” said Leo to the ambassadors from around the world who represent their country’s interests in the Holy See.
Leo did not name individual countries that resorted to force in his lengthy speech, which he delivered mostly in English in a break from the Vatican’s traditional diplomatic protocol of Italian and French. But his speech came against the backdrop of the recent US military operation in Venezuela to remove Nicolás Maduro from power, Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and other conflicts.
The occasion was the Pope’s annual audience with the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, which traditionally amounts to his annual address on foreign policy.
In his first such meeting, history’s first US-born Pope delivered much more than the traditional round of global hotspots. In a speech that touched on threats to religious freedom and the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion and surrogacy, Leo lamented how the United Nations and multilateralism as a whole were increasingly under threat.
“Diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by diplomacy based on force, either by individuals or groups of allies,” he said. “The principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined.”
“Instead, peace is sought through arms as a condition to assert one’s own domain. This seriously threatens the rule of law, which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence,” he said.
Leo explicitly referred to the tensions in Venezuela, and called for a peaceful political solution that keeps in mind “the common good of the peoples and not the defense of partisan interests.”
The US military kidnapped Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, in a surprise overnight raid. The Trump administration is now seeking to control Venezuela’s oil resources and its government. The US government insisted that Maduro’s capture was legal, and said that the drug cartels operating from Venezuela amounted to illegal fighters and that the United States is now in “armed conflict” with them.
Analysts and some world leaders have condemned the Venezuelan mission, warning that Maduro’s ouster could pave the way for more military interventions and further erosion of the global legal order.
Regarding Ukraine, Leo repeated his appeal for an immediate ceasefire and urgently called on the international community “not to waver in its commitment to pursue just and lasting solutions.”
Regarding Gaza, Leo repeated the Holy See’s call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and insisted on the right of the Palestinians to live in Gaza and the West Bank “in their own land.”
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