Amid escalating threats across the globe, Pope Leo XIV used an annual address on Friday to the diplomatic corps to the Vatican to forcefully condemn “a diplomacy based on force” and a “zeal for war.”
Nations must commit to work together to follow international laws and “cannot depend on mere circumstances and military or strategic interests,” Pope Leo told the diplomats in the speech, which amounts to a sort of annual papal foreign policy statement.
Leo did not mention any world leaders by name. But his remarks were pointed given the events of recent days, including the Trump administration’s military operation in Venezuela and threats against Greenland, and on a day when Russia said it had attacked Ukraine with a nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile.
Leo, whose mild manner and scripted delivery is in contrast to that of his predecessor, Pope Francis, has increasingly raised his voice to call for peace and to rebuke political leaders for what he sees as unjust treatment of migrants and the poor, including in his home country, the United States.
With President Trump telling The New York Times this week that he can brush aside international law and make decisions based on his “own morality,” the pope called on nations to work multilaterally. Leo asked that they rely on the United Nations to “play a key role in fostering dialogue and humanitarian support, helping to build a more just future.”
The pope also made allusions to the increasing tendency among authoritarian governments and others to use words designed to obscure meaning and expressed his concern that violence had replaced dialogue in resolving conflict.
“The meaning of words is ever more fluid, and the concepts they represent are increasingly ambiguous,” the pope said, implying that people of different parties and ideologies have distorted language.
“Language is becoming more and more a weapon with which to deceive, or to strike and offend opponents,” he added. “We need words once again to express distinct and clear realities unequivocally. Only in this way can authentic dialogue resume without misunderstandings. This should happen in our homes and public spaces, in politics, in the media and on social media.”
It is customary for the pope to address the diplomatic corps once a year, allowing the pontiff to reflect on the state of the world, which Leo described as “so troubled by a growing number of tensions and conflicts.” The Vatican, an independent state, has diplomatic relations with 184 countries; 93 have embassies in Rome.
Referring to the U.S. operation to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, Leo reiterated an appeal he made Sunday to “respect the will of the Venezuelan people, and to safeguard the human and civil rights of all, ensuring a future of stability and concord.”
He spoke of the ongoing “suffering inflicted on the civilian population” in Ukraine, and even as he called for an immediate cease-fire and dialogue, Leo also made “an urgent appeal to the international community not to waver in its commitment to pursuing just and lasting solutions that will protect the most vulnerable and restore hope to the afflicted peoples.”
Lamenting “an increase in violence in the West Bank against the Palestinian civilian population, which has the right to live in peace in its own land,” Leo repeated the Vatican’s call for a two-state solution. While a fragile cease-fire holds in Gaza, he insisted on the right of Palestinians to “a future of lasting peace and justice in their own land.”
Leo said the persecution of Christians around the world was “one of the most widespread human rights crises today,” affecting about 380 million Christians, or about one in seven. He said the persecution worsened in 2025 because of “ongoing conflicts, authoritarian regimes and religious extremism.”
He cited “religiously motivated violence” in Bangladesh, Nigeria, the Sahel, Syria and Mozambique but added that “a subtle form of religious discrimination against Christians” was also present in Europe and the Americas for political or ideological reasons, “especially when they defend the dignity of the weakest, the unborn, refugees and migrants, or promote the family.”
In commenting on divisive social issues, the pope reiterated the church’s opposition to abortion and euthanasia and expressed “deep concern about projects aimed at financing cross-border mobility for the purpose of accessing the so-called ‘right to safe abortion.’”
He also condemned the use of public resources “to suppress life, rather than being invested to support mothers and families.”
While calling for such support, the pope criticized the practice of surrogacy.
“By transforming gestation into a negotiable service, this violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a product, and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family,” he said.
Motoko Rich is the Times bureau chief in Rome, where she covers Italy, the Vatican and Greece.
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