Overview
- Senior U.S. and Iranian officials met in Pakistan to discuss a ceasefire after six weeks of fighting.
- At a prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Leo urged leaders to stop the “madness of war” and choose dialogue and mediation.
- He condemned the use of religious language to justify violence and said God rejects the prayers of leaders who start wars.
- The pope denounced repeated violations of international law, saying strikes on civilian infrastructure break those rules.
- Reuters says Leo has become an unusually outspoken critic of the Iran war, and some conservative Catholic commentators read his remarks as a rebuke to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.