Pope Leo said on Tuesday that threats against the population of Iran are “unacceptable,” in an unusual appeal hours after US President Donald Trump said “a whole civilisation will die tonight” in a social media post that shocked world leaders.
“Today, as we all know, there was this threat against the entire people of Iran, and this is truly unacceptable,” said the pope, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Iran war.
“There are certainly issues here of international law, but even more than that, it is a moral question for the good of the (world‘s) people,” he said.
It is rare for the pope, who leads 1.4 billion Catholics around the world, to respond directly to a world leader.
Leo, who is also known for choosing his words carefully, has been ramping up his criticism of the US-Israeli war against Iran in recent weeks.
The pope made his first direct appeal to Trump last week, urging him to find an “off-ramp” to end the conflict.
Speaking to journalists outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on Tuesday, Leo called on citizens across the world to contact their political representatives and ask them to bring the expanding regional conflict to an end.
“People want peace,” he said. “I would invite the citizens of all the countries involved to contact the authorities — political leaders, congressmen — to ask them to work for peace.”
Leo also said that many people have referred to the conflict as an “unjust war”, using terminology to indicate hostilities that go against the Catholic Church’s strong pro-life teachings.
He urged people to “remember especially the innocent children, the elderly, the sick, so many people who have already become or will become victims of this continued warfare”.
The pope also said that attacks on civilian infrastructure “are against international law”.
Trump has threatened to destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran.
Meanwhile, international leaders are reacting to Trump’s latest social media post:
FRANCE
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot says he hoped US President Donald Trump would not go ahead with his latest threats against Iran.
Barrot told France 2 television: “You can’t erase a civilisation… This ultimatum is not the first that President Trump has set since the war started.”
“Obviously I hope he does not go ahead with his threats that would push the region but also the world in a new escalation,” he adds.
UN
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “very troubled” by President Donald Trump’s statements on Iran. This is according to UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric at a media briefing at UN headquarters.
He says, “The Secretary-General is very troubled by the statements that we’ve heard, yesterday and again this morning, statements suggesting that an entire people or an entire civilization may be made to bear the consequences of political and military decisions,”
“There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale destruction of a society’s infrastructure or the deliberate infliction of suffering on civilian populations. The Secretary-General reiterates that conflicts end when leaders choose dialogue over destruction.”
Pakistan’s proposal
Trump is aware of Pakistan’s proposal for a two-week extension to a deadline he imposed on Iran, and a response will come soon, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
US Stocks
US stocks ended mixed on Tuesday amid signs of progress in negotiations as the minutes ticked down to President Trump’s deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.
All three major US stock indexes pared during the last hour of trading when Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on X that diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East were progressing steadily while he urged Trump to extend his Iran deadline for two weeks and requested that Iran open the Strait for the same timeframe as a goodwill gesture.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq snapped their respective winning streaks after four straight days of gains.
“Investors are calibrating as they try to read into the president’s messaging and predict the degree (to which) he will follow through with some of his rhetoric in terms of the ultimatum,” said Matthew Keator, managing partner in the Keator Group, a wealth management firm in Lenox, Massachusetts. “How much of it is posturing, and how much of it is telegraphing what he will actually do?”
