(OSV News): Pope Leo XIV issued a fervent appeal for the return of diplomacy in “these dramatic hours” in the Middle East and Iran, condemning the ongoing joint U.S. and Israeli assault on Iran and the use of weapons that cause “destruction, pain, and death.”
Pope Leo spoke roughly 12 hours after the United States and Israel revealed that Iran’s supreme leader, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was among the country’s senior leaders killed in their initial assault on Iran, which began in the early morning hours on February 28.
During his Sunday Angelus prayer on March 1, the pope said he was “following with profound concern” these events and warned of a potential “tragedy of enormous proportions.” He appealed for the warring parties to assume “the moral responsibility of halting the spiral of violence” before it becomes “an irreparable abyss.”
The pope insisted that the nations return to diplomacy.
“Stability and peace are not built through mutual threats, nor with weapons that sow destruction, pain, and death, but only through reasonable, authentic, and responsible dialogue,” he said.
The ongoing joint US and Israeli attack on Iran has targeted Tehran and cities across the country, with Gulf states caught in the crossfire as Iran launches retaliatory strikes.
“Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of enormous proportions, I address to the parties involved a heartfelt appeal to assume the moral responsibility of halting the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said.
“May diplomacy regain its role and promote the good of the peoples who yearn for peaceful coexistence based on justice,” he added, urging the world to “continue to pray for peace.”
What Pope Leo called a “spiral of violence” continued to unfold on March 1 as mutual attacks escalated hour by hour throughout the Middle East.
Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on 1 March, with the BBC reporting that Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said Tehran had been hit by 60 attacks in 24 hours, leaving 57 people dead — figures reportedly provided by the Tehran Province Red Crescent Society.
Stability and peace are not built through mutual threats, nor with weapons that sow destruction, pain, and death, but only through reasonable, authentic, and responsible dialogue
Pope Leo
Israel’s military said on X [formely Twitter] on March 1 that its strikes had killed 40 Iranian commanders, including Abdolrahim Mousavi, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces. Iranian state television confirmed the death.
In the conflict’s opening 24 hours, two people were killed in Tel Aviv when an Iranian missile hit a residential building, while 120 people in Israel were injured in Iran’s counterstrikes, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The Guardian reported Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was quoted as having called the killing of Iran’s supreme leader “an open war against Muslims” and having said that Iran “considers bloodshed and revenge against the perpetrators and commanders of this crime as its legitimate duty and right, and will fulfill this great responsibility and duty with all its might.”
Iran’s ally, Russia, condemned Khamenei’s killing, with its president, Vladimir Putin, saying that the “murder” of Khamenei was a “cynical violation of all norms of human morality.”
US president, Donald Trump, took to his Truth Social on March 1, warning Iran not to retaliate further.
“Iran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever hit before,” President Trump wrote on his social network. He added, “THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”
Pope Leo, during his Angelus appeal, reminded people that in recent days, “we have also received disturbing news of clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan.” He raised a “plea for an urgent return to dialogue.”
“Let us pray together that harmony may prevail in all the world’s conflicts,” he said, adding, “Only peace, a gift of God, can heal the wounds between peoples.”
