Pope's Easter Message Urges Turning Away From War

Pope Leo XIV celebrated the first Easter Mass of his tenure on Sunday with a call to lay down arms and seek peace to global conflicts through dialogue, but he departed from a tradition of listing the world's woes by name in the Urbi et Orbi blessing from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica. Leo emphasized Easter's message of hope as a celebration of Jesus' resurrection after being crucified, in both the blessing and his homily, the AP reports. "Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!" the pope implored.

Leo greeted the global faithful in 10 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Latin, reviving a past practice. With the US-Israeli war on Iran in its second month and Russia's assault on Ukraine continuing, Leo acknowledged a sense of indifference "to the deaths of thousands of people ... to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow … to the economic and social consequences they produce." Without mentioning the wars by name, Leo quoted his predecessor, Pope Francis, who during his last public appearance from the same loggia last Easter reminded the faithful of the "great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day." Francis, weakened by a long illness, died the next day, Easter Monday.

The Urbi et Orbi blessing, Latin for "to the city and the world," has traditionally included a litany of the world's woes. Leo followed that formula in his Christmas blessing. There was no immediate explanation for the shift. Earlier, Leo addressed some 50,000 faithful from an open-air altar in St. Peter's Square flanked with white roses, while the steps leading down to the piazza were filled with spring perennials, symbolically resonating with the pope's words. He implored the faithful to keep hope in the face of death, which lurks "in the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth's resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys." Speaking from the loggia, the pope announced a prayer vigil for peace April 11 in the basilica.