Pope Leo: “There Is No Such Thing as a Holy War”
Pope Leo XIV issued an unambiguous challenge Tuesday to every government, army and armed movement that wraps violence in the language of faith: “There is no such thing as a holy war. Only peace is holy.”
The pope delivered the declaration in a video message to Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and other religious leaders gathered in Assisi, Italy, for the 40th anniversary of the interfaith peace meeting convened there by Pope John Paul II in 1986. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, joined the assembly.
Leo did not name a single battlefield. He did something broader. He rejected the religious alibi used to turn conquest, bombardment and revenge into sacred duty.
“War can never be waged in the name of God,” he said. “We must rebuild peace everywhere, not prepare for more wars.”
A Direct Attack on the Theology of Power
The statement matters because war rarely sells itself as naked domination. States invoke civilization, destiny and divine protection. Militias declare their violence blessed. Political leaders turn grief into a weapon, divide the dead into the worthy and the disposable, then ask the faithful to salute.
Leo attacked that machinery at its moral source. He warned that faith becomes corrupted when people use it to support nationalism, ethnic supremacy or the “culture of power.” He also condemned an international order that treats military buildup as prudence while describing peace as naïve.
“The world is thirsting for peace,” the pope told the gathering. He called the accumulation of arms “dangerous” and insisted that religions must never give moral cover to violence, hatred or discrimination.
The argument reaches beyond theology. Weapons budgets, military alliances and permanent emergency laws shape material life. Every missile purchased represents public wealth denied to housing, health care, wages and climate protection. Every doctrine of endless war asks workers to finance violence whose political and economic rewards flow upward.
Assisi supplied the statement with historical weight. John Paul II’s 1986 gathering brought religious leaders together as Cold War blocs stockpiled nuclear weapons and proxy wars tore through the Global South. Four decades later, the institutions of war remain stronger than the institutions of peace. Nuclear arsenals are being modernized, military spending has surged and civilian populations again face siege, displacement and collective punishment.
A Moral Verdict Without Named Defendants
Leo’s refusal to identify specific governments or armed groups makes the message universal, but it also marks its limit. A principle becomes politically useful only when institutions apply it to real power: to occupations and invasions, to attacks on civilians, to blockades, hostage-taking, ethnic cleansing and the arms industries that profit from them.
Still, the sentence is difficult to evade. It denies rulers and fighters the right to convert God into a military asset. It strips sacred language from war and leaves the policy exposed to ordinary judgment: who is killed, who profits, who is dispossessed and whose security counts.
The pope spoke remotely while recovering from surgery for localized lung cancer. Vatican officials said doctors removed the lower lobe of one lung on October 13 and prescribed no further cancer treatment. He has resumed duties and is preparing for a November trip to South America.
His illness did not soften the message. Leo demanded more than ceremonial prayer. He called peace a common task and urged religious communities to resist public life organized around fear, weapons and domination.
That demand will mean little if political and religious leaders repeat it only at anniversaries. It acquires force when believers refuse to bless military expansion, when workers reject the transfer of social wealth into weapons, and when institutions defend the humanity of civilians regardless of flag or faith.
“Only peace is holy” is not a slogan of neutrality. It is a verdict on every effort to sanctify organized violence—and a test for anyone who claims moral authority while preparing the next war.
Sources and image credits
Associated Press via ABC News — Pope Leo says there is no such thing as a holy war, October 27, 2026
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