US-born Pope Leo urges peace in first Easter mass
The first US-born Pope Leo has called for an end to conflict in his first Easter mass as pontiff, urging peace through dialogue and calling for an end to conflicts worldwide.
Pope Leo has celebrated his first Easter Mass as pontiff with a call to lay down arms and seek peace, but he departed from a tradition of listing the worldâs conflicts by name in the Urbi et Orbi blessing from the loggia of St Peterâs Basilica.
Leo, the first US-born pope, emphasised Easterâs message of hope as a celebration of Jesusâ resurrection after being crucified.
âLet 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,â the pope said.
With the US-Israeli war on Iran in its second month and Russiaâs ongoing campaign in Ukraine, Leo acknowledged a sense of indifference âto the deaths of thousands of people ⌠to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow ⌠to the economic and social consequences they produce.â
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 âgreat thirst for death, for killing, we witness each dayâ.
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"Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace."
Francis, weakened by a long illness, died the next day on Easter Monday.
The Urbi et Orbi blessing, Latin for âto the city and the world,â has traditionally included a litany of the worldâs woes.
Leo followed that formula during his Christmas blessing. There was no immediate explanation for the shift.
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Earlier, Leo addressed some 50,000 faithful from an open-air altar in St Peterâs Square flanked with white roses while the steps leading down to the piazza where the faithful gathered were filled with spring perennials, symbolically resonating with the popeâs words.
He implored the faithful in his homily to keep their hope in the face of death, which lurks âin the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earthâs resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.â
Speaking from the loggia, the pope announced a prayer vigil for peace April 11 in the basilica.
Before retreating into the basilica, Leo stepped forward out of the loggiaâs shadow and waved to the cheering crowd below.
He later greeted people in the piazza from the popemobile that took him all the way down Via della Conciliazione toward the Tiber River and back.
During the marathon that is Holy Week, Leo also reclaimed the tradition of washing priestsâ feet on Holy Thursday, a gesture of encouragement toward clergy.
Francis had chosen a more inclusive path, travelling to prisons and homes for the disabled to wash the feet of women, non-Christians and prisoners.
The 70-year-old pontiff also became the first pope in decades to carry the light wooden cross for the entire 14 stations during the Way of the Cross on Good Friday.
â AP
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