{"id":14063,"date":"2026-01-09T16:23:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T23:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pope-condemns-nations-use-of-force\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:32:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:32:43","slug":"pope-condemns-nations-use-of-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pope-condemns-nations-use-of-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope condemns nations\u2019 use of force"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pope
Pope Leo XIV meets faithfuls at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Wednesday. (Alessandra Tarantino\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Alessandra Tarantino<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

VATICAN CITY \u2013 In his most substantial critique of U.S., Russian and other nations\u2019 military incursions into sovereign countries, Pope Leo XIV on Friday denounced the use of force to assert dominion worldwide, saying it is \u201ccompletely undermining\u201d peace and the post-World War II international legal order.<\/p>\n

\u201cWar is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading,\u201d Leo told ambassadors representing their countries at the Holy See.<\/p>\n

Leo didn\u2019t name individual countries using force in his lengthy speech, the bulk of which he delivered in English \u2013 a break from the Vatican\u2019s usual diplomatic protocol of Italian and French. But his remarks came amid recent U.S. military operations in Venezuela to remove Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from power, Russia\u2019s ongoing war in Ukraine and other conflicts.<\/p>\n

The occasion was the pope\u2019s annual audience with the Vatican diplomatic corps, which traditionally serves as his yearly foreign policy address.<\/p>\n

In his first such encounter, history\u2019s first U.S.-born pope delivered much more than the traditional roundup of global hotspots. In a speech that touched on threats to religious freedom and the Catholic Church\u2019s opposition to abortion and surrogacy, Leo lamented that the United Nations and multilateralism are increasingly under threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cA diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, whether by individuals or allied groups,\u201d he said. \u201cThe principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one\u2019s own dominion. This gravely threatens the rule of law, which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Pope
Pope Leo XIV waves faithfuls at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Wednesday. (Alessandra Tarantino\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Alessandra Tarantino<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
A geopolitical roundup of conflicts and suffering<\/div>\n

Leo did refer explicitly to tensions in Venezuela, calling for a peaceful political solution that keeps in mind the \u201ccommon good of the peoples and not the defense of partisan interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. military seized Maduro, the Venezuelan leader, in a surprise nighttime raid. The Trump administration is now seeking to control Venezuela\u2019s oil resources and its government. The U.S. government has insisted Maduro\u2019s capture was legal, saying drug cartels operating from Venezuela amounted to unlawful combatants and that the U.S. is now in an \u201carmed conflict\u201d with them.<\/p>\n

Analysts and some world leaders have condemned the Venezuela mission, warning that Maduro\u2019s ouster could pave the way for more military interventions and a further erosion of the global legal order.<\/p>\n

On Ukraine, Leo repeated his appeal for an immediate cease-fire and urgently called for the international community \u201cnot to waver in its commitment to pursuing just and lasting solutions that will protect the most vulnerable and restore hope to the afflicted peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Gaza, Leo repeated the Holy See\u2019s call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and insisted on the Palestinians\u2019 right to live in Gaza and the West Bank \u201cin their own land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comments about abortion, surrogacy and discrimination<\/div>\n

In other comments, Leo said the persecution of Christians around the world was \u201cone of the most widespread human rights crises today,\u201d affecting one in seven Christians globally. He cited religiously motivated violence in Bangladesh, Nigeria, the Sahel, Mozambique and Syria but said religious discrimination was also present in Europe and the Americas.<\/p>\n

There, Christians \u201care sometimes restricted in their ability to proclaim the truths of the Gospel for political or ideological reasons, especially when they defend the dignity of the weakest, the unborn, refugees and migrants, or promote the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo repeated the church\u2019s opposition to abortion and euthanasia and expressed \u201cdeep concern\u201d about projects to provide cross-border access to mothers seeking abortion.<\/p>\n

He also described surrogacy as a threat to life and dignity. \u201cBy transforming gestation into a negotiable service, this violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a product, and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

foreign policy address, Leo says violence undermines peace, legal order<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-14063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19307,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14063\/revisions\/19307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14063"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=14063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}