VATICAN CITY — As violence and war plague countries across the world, and news headlines report increasing tensions and rising death tolls every day, Pope Leo XIV’s incessant appeals for peace rang out during the liturgies and celebrations that marked Holy Week and the Easter Triduum, as he emphasized Christ’s Resurrection and triumph over death.
Holy Week opened with Pope Leo XIV presiding over the Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square on March 29.
The pope addressed the congregation with the words spoken by Christ when one of his disciples, according to the Gospel, drew a weapon to defend him: “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
Jesus “did not arm himself, or defend himself, or fight any war,” the pope said. “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.”
During the chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, April 2, celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Leo invoked a peace that touches every dimension of human existence, especially “in this dark hour of history” in a world “torn apart by the powers that ravage it.”
“Neither in the pastoral sphere nor in the social and political spheres can good come from abuse of power,” he said.
The pope’s appeals for peace throughout Holy Week pointed to the ongoing dichotomy between evil and love. Similarly, the meditations written by Father Francesco Patton, former Custos of the Holy Land, for the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum, presided over by the pope, echoed this same tension.
Patton retraced the path walked by Jesus among those who shared his faith and those “who deride or insult him,” while emphasizing that “such is the reality of our daily life.”
Darkness — as a prelude to Easter morning — accompanied the vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, which was filled with 6,000 people on April 4. God “does not desire our death,” Pope Leo underlined in the face of narratives of conflict that reduce victims to mere numbers.
“Man can kill the body, but the life of the God of love is eternal life, which transcends death and which no tomb can imprison,” he said.
Leo XIV urged the creation of a “new world of peace and unity,” starting from humanity’s failures, as he referred to the sea through which God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, an element that the pope described as a “gateway to a new life of freedom,” but also “a place of death.”
On the clear and sunny morning of Easter Sunday, April 5, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Square in the presence of 60,000 faithful. He said “death is always lurking.”
“We see it present in injustices, in partisan selfishness, in the oppression of the poor, in the lack of attention given to the most vulnerable,” he said. “We see it in violence, in the wounds of the world, in the cry of pain that rises from every corner because of the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.”
However, he reiterated how one can — and must — accept the Easter invitation to “lift our gaze ... so that we may discover that Jesus’ tomb is empty, and therefore in every death we experience there is also room for new life to arise,” beyond tombs and suffering.
“The Lord is alive and remains with us,” he said. “Through the cracks of resurrection that open up in the darkness, he entrusts our hearts to the hope that sustains us: the power of death is not the final destiny of our lives.”
Pope Leo renewed that appeal for peace in a brief statement April 7 to journalists waiting for him in Castel Gandolfo.
Against the backdrop of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and President Trump’s threat to destroy “the whole Iranian civilization” if Tehran did not comply with a deadline set by the White House to reach a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the pope said he wished to, once again, ask “all people of goodwill to always search for peace and not violence, to reject war — especially a war which many people have said is unjust, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.”
Speaking in Italian, he said, “Today, as we all know, there has also been this threat against the entire people of Iran. And this is truly unacceptable! There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety.”
He called in all people to “do their part.”
“I would invite the citizens of all the countries involved,” Pope Leo concluded, “to contact the authorities — political leaders, congressmen — to ask them, to tell them, to work for peace and to reject war and violence.”