As the cease-fire in Gaza held on Sunday, Oct. 12, Pope Leo XIV welcomed the peace agreement for giving “a spark of hope in the Holy Land.” He encouraged “the parties involved to courageously continue along the path mapped out, towards a just, lasting peace that respects the legitimate aspirations of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.”

The 20-point agreement that starts with the cease-fire and the exchange of hostages and prisoners is mainly attributable to the work of President Donald Trump, who pressured Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu into accepting the plan, with the assistance of officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, who pushed Hamas to do likewise.

The agreement is fragile, more of a truce than a peace accord. The pope’s words are meant to encourage all sides not to give up after the hostage-prisoner exchange. He spoke as efforts were underway in Gaza to hand over the remaining 48 Israeli hostages that Hamas and other armed groups took into captivity in Gaza two years ago, 20 of whom are believed to be alive. In Israel efforts continue to release some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 who had been condemned to life imprisonment.

Pope Leo recalled that the “two years of conflict” that started on Oct.7, 2023, “have left death and ruin everywhere, especially in the hearts of those who have brutally lost their children, parents, friends, everything.”

He was referring to the some 2,000 Israelis who have died, and hundreds more Israelis wounded in that conflict, and the more than 67,000 Palestinians who have been killed and over 167,000 wounded in these past two years. Most disturbing of all are the number of children who have been killed in the conflict, an estimated 18,000 of them, and the number of W.C.N.S.F.s—“wounded child, no surviving family”—compiled by U.N. officials.

In September, Unicef—using data from Gaza’s Ministry for Health—reported that 2,596 Palestinian children have lost both parents, while 47,804 have lost their fathers and 5,920 have lost their mothers. Compounding the suffering, an estimated 95 percent of the enclave’s 2.1 million people have been displaced.

Pope Leo was also referring to the terrible devastation and destruction that the Israeli bombing has inflicted on Gaza over these past two years, destroying Palestinian homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, universities—in all it’s estimated that 83 percent of all buildings in Gaza City and 78 percent across the strip have been either destroyed or badly damaged.

Pope Leo told the Palestinian and Israeli people: “With the whole Church I am close to your immense pain. Today, above all, the Lord’s caress is addressed to you, the certainty that, even in the blackest darkness, he always remains with us: ‘Dilexi te—I have loved you.’” The pope was speaking to the tens of thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square and an enormously greater global audience at the end of the Mass for the Jubilee of Marian Spirituality.

He urged all believers, “Let us ask God, the only Peace of humanity, to heal all wounds and to help with his grace to accomplish what humanly now seems impossible: to rediscover that the other is not an enemy, but a brother to whom we must look, forgive, offer the hope of reconciliation.”

Last evening, Oct. 11, Pope Leo spoke forcefully about peace during his homily at a prayer vigil and rosary for peace in St. Peter’s Square, attended by 30,000 pilgrims from 100 countries. Before the vigil started, the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima was brought in procession into the square and placed in front of the altar on the steps in front of St. Peter’s close to where the pope would speak.

It had been brought from Fatima in Portugal here for the Jubilee of Marian Spirituality. It was a powerful reminder that when Our Lady appeared to the three shepherd children at Fatima in Portugal in 1917, during the first World War, she had urged them to pray for peace in the world.

Standing close to the statue, Pope Leo issued a similar invitation to those present and to believers worldwide as war rages in Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar and as a cease-fire had just come into effect in Gaza that could herald the end of that two year war. “Let us all together, persevere tirelessly in praying for peace, a God-given gift that we must strive to receive and to which we must make a strong commitment,” he said.

He urged those present and his global audience to “look to the Mother of Jesus and the small group of courageous women at the foot of the cross” and “learn from them to stand beside the countless crosses of the world, where Christ is still crucified in his brothers and sisters, in order to bring them comfort, communion and help.”

He urged people to listen to Jesus’ words when he was being arrested in the Garden of Olives, when he told Peter, who had pulled out a sword to defend him, “Lay down your sword” (Jn 18:11).

The American born pope said Jesus’ message to people in the world today is this: “Disarm your hands and, even more importantly, your hearts.”

He reminded everyone, “Peace is unarmed and disarming. It is not deterrence, but fraternity; it is not an ultimatum, but dialogue. Peace will not come as the result of victories over the enemy, but as the fruit of sowing justice and courageous forgiveness.”

He said Jesus word’s “‘Lay down your sword’ is a message addressed to the powerful of this world, to those who guide the fate of peoples: have the courage to disarm!”

“At the same time,” he said,” it is an invitation to each one of us to recognize that no idea, faith or policy justifies killing. We must first disarm our hearts because unless we have peace within ourselves, we cannot give it to others.”

He urged Christians, “Let us listen once more to the words of Jesus: the leaders of this world build empires with power and money’” (Mt 20:25; Mk 10:42), “‘but not so with you’” (Lk 22:26).”

The Augustinian pope said the words of Jesus are “an invitation to adopt a different perspective, to look at the world from a lower position: through the eyes of those who suffer rather than the mighty; to view history through the eyes of the little ones, rather than through the perspective of the powerful; to interpret the events of history from the viewpoint of the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the wounded child, the exile and the fugitive; to see things through the eyes of the shipwrecked and of the poor man Lazarus lying at the rich man’s doorstep.

“Otherwise, nothing will ever change, and a new era, a kingdom of justice and peace, will never dawn.”

Pope Leo concluded by recalling the words Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount, when he told his followers: “Blessed are you, the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). He said, “God gives joy to those who spread love in the world and to those who choose to make peace with their enemies rather than defeat them.”

Gerard O’Connell is America’s senior Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.