“We must rebuild peace everywhere, not prepare for more wars. War can never be waged in the name of God,” Pope Leo XIV said in a video message to participants in the International Peace Meeting on “Unarmed and Disarming Peace” held in Assisi on Oct. 27. 

His words took on particular relevance at this moment in history when, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, over 130 armed conflicts are raging across the world, twice as many as 15 years ago. They involve roughly 60 countries and more than 120 non-state armed groups. Moreover, the committee said, wars are lasting longer, growing more complex and trapping entire generations in cycles of poverty and violence. Further, warring parties are challenging international humanitarian law or simply ignoring it, leading to persistent and widespread violations. 

The Augustinian pope said he very much wanted to be present in Assisi and “to see your faces and bear witness together to the fact that living as brothers and sisters is already possible,” but his doctors had advised against flying by helicopter to the event so soon after his surgery to remove a cancerous nodule from his right lung on Oct. 13.

This year’s event at the tomb of St. Francis marks the 40th anniversary of the first World Day of Prayer for Peace, initiated by St. John Paul II in Assisi in October 1986. 

Pope Leo recalled that St. John Paul II, in his address to the leaders of the world’s religions that year, called on those present to “continue to live the spirit of Assisi.” Leo thanked the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue and the Community of Sant’Egidio “for their commitment to continuing along the path laid out by my predecessors…which has borne much fruit.”

Sant’Egidio, with the assistance of various Vatican dicasteries, has kept “the spirit of Assisi” alive over the past 40 years by organizing this type of international meeting in various countries. Today’s gathering brought together 384 representatives from the main Christian denominations and major religions, as well as representatives from the world of culture, civil society and institutions from 53 countries.

Pope Leo reminded them that the 1986 meeting in Assisi took place “at the time of the Cold War,” which was “a very different situation from the one we face today.”

Alluding to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, he said, “After 1989, many believed that globalization would ensure lasting peace for the world.” 

“Unfortunately,” he said, “as I wrote in ‘Magnifica Humanitas,’ an almost blind faith was placed in the ability of the markets to generate prosperity, democracy and stability. In reality, rather than automatically generating unity and peace, globalization has provoked fundamentalist, identity-based and nationalistic reactions.”

Against this backdrop, Pope Leo said, “there has been a troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics” and “the accumulation of arms,” which “strikes many as a paradoxically suitable way of deterring potential adversaries from war.”

Indeed, according to a report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in April 2026, “World military expenditure reached $2887 billion in 2025, an increase of 2.9 per cent in real terms over 2024.”

Pope Leo said of those involved in this new arms race, “They see it as the most effective means of ensuring peace among nations,” but in this way “they are betraying the memory of the 20th century and the senseless slaughter of millions of human lives.” 

The first pope from the United States said that “precisely in these times marked by a ‘culture of power,’ there is a need to cultivate the spirit of Assisi, which entails a rejection of the religious justification of war, a spirit of mediation and dialogue, and contemplative reflection combined with creative action in the service of a future of peace.”

Addressing the hundreds present at the Assisi meeting as well as a much larger audience thanks to the presence of the international media, Pope Leo declared, “Yes, peace must once again become the common ideal of all peoples, the guiding star for all our choices, the standard that exposes injustice, and the shared horizon for all.”

Then, in words highly relevant for our day, he said, “We must rebuild peace everywhere, not prepare for more wars.”

He repeated yet again what he has said several times before: “War can never be waged in the name of God. For us believers, ‘to fight in the name of religion means attacking religion itself.’ There is no such thing as a holy war: Only peace is holy.”

He reminded the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and many others present that the journey begun in Assisi in 1986 “as a shared quest for peace is, first and foremost, the path of prayer.” He acknowledged that “prayer may seem weak in the face of the powers of the world, but it is the humble strength of believers.” He invited those listening: “Let us turn to God, the giver of peace, that he may touch the hearts of those who seek war and terrorism. Let us not forget that prayer is never in vain.”

He emphasized that “prayer is a school of dialogue with God, with people and with all creatures.” In this context, he reminded them that this year, the church commemorates the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis and recalled that the “path of Assisi calls religious leaders to foster a climate of dialogue amongst the faithful and within society, so that the language of arrogance may give way to the language of peace, negotiation and understanding. This will help to ‘gradually [lead] humanity away from the cycle of violence.’”

He concluded with these words: “Brothers and sisters, may our prayers obtain from God that peace for the world’s nations for which we long. May he make us unarmed instruments of his peace. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God’” (Mt 5:9).

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.