Pope Leo XIV on Saturday called on Jerusalem and Tehran to “see reason” in the wake of Israel’s preemptive attack on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and military facilities, adding that it is a duty for countries to engage in reconciliation.
“The situation in Iran and Israel has seriously deteriorated, and at such a delicate moment, I wish to strongly renew an appeal to responsibility and reason,” the head of the Catholic Church said during an Audience for the Jubilee of Sport at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, according to Vatican News.
“No one should ever threaten another’s existence,” he said.
“Building a safer world, free from the nuclear threat must be pursued through respectful encounters and sincere dialogue, in order to build a lasting peace founded on justice, fraternity and the common good,” the pope went on to say, in an apparent appeal to the Jewish state.
“It is the duty of all countries to support the cause of peace by initiating paths of reconciliation and promoting solutions that guarantee security and dignity for all,” Leo concluded, per Vatican News.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, 69, a Chicago native, was elected as pope on May 8, after Pope Francis died.
The first U.S.-born pontiff, who is also a Peruvian citizen and was previously an archbishop of Peru, took the papal name of Leo XIV.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated him at the time, tweeting that “I wish the first pope from the United States success in fostering hope and reconciliation among all faiths.”
The Jewish state’s relationship with the previous pontiff was tumultuous, with one of Pope Francis’s latest wishes before his death being to bequeath one of his popemobiles to the Gaza Strip.
The popemobile, which was used by the pontiff during his visit to the Palestinian Authority territories in Judea and Samaria in 2014, was to be repurposed to a mobile health clinic for children, Vatican media reported in early May.
Francis voiced scathing criticism of Israel during the Swords of Iron war in Gaza, which was initiated by thousands of Hamas-led terrorists who invaded the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023, murdered 1,200 people and abducted 251 more into the Palestinian enclave.
“And with pain, I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty,” the pontiff said after a prayer service in December 2024.