By Deborah Castellano Lubov

“Search always for peace and reject war.”

Pope Leo XIV renewed that appeal for peace in a brief statement on Tuesday evening to a group of journalists waiting for him outside Villa Barberini, the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo.

Against the backdrop of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the U.S. President’s threat to destroy “the whole Iranian civilisation” on Tuesday night if Tehran does not comply with a deadline set by the White House to reach a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the Pope said he wished simply to say, once again, what he had said in his Urbi et Orbi message on Sunday, “asking all people of goodwill to always search for peace and not violence, to reject war—especially a war which many people have said is unjust, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.”…

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Image credit: Vatican Media