Religion > Christianity

The Pope’s Easter Message About Peace

To understand a Christian’s obligation, it helps to examine whether conflicts sow hatred and division, or whether hatred and division sow conflicts.

M. E. Boyd | April 7, 2026

The Vatican, by a 1929 treaty, must remain neutral politically. Swept up in the Italian unification turmoil of the 19th century, and having lost the protection of French troops, the once-important Papal States came to an end. The Vatican’s military protection since 1970 is the ceremonial 16th-century Swiss Guard. The walls around the Vatican were built for protection from Muslim raids in 846-52 AD by Pope Leo IV.

This is the context, then, of the Pope’s Easter message of 2026. In summary, Pope Leo XIV said Jesus was about dialogue, where we recognize each other as brothers and sisters, regardless of faith. “Jesus gives us the silence of weapons.” He is the quintessential Prince of Peace. From this premise, with the required neutrality in mind, the Pope then called upon humanity to end the globalization of indifference toward conflict and war. “Let us abandon every desire for conflict...let those who have power to unleash wars choose peace.”

The early Christian writer Tertullian, 155/60-240 AD, would have agreed. When Jesus told Peter to put down his sword, Tertullian tells us, he is proclaiming Christian pacifism. So, where does this leave Christians today, caught up in a vicious live war with Iran, and cold wars with China, Russia, and North Korea, among others? In reality, we are on a moral tightrope. The Pope has declared war evil and said plainly that “we cannot be indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow.”

The question becomes, in trying to understand the nature of the tightrope, whether conflicts sow hatred and division, or whether hatred and division sow conflicts. If we decide it is the latter, this might lead us to a slightly different understanding of the notion of Christian pacifism than what the Pope is calling for in his Easter message. Perhaps we might call it Pragmatic Christian Pacifism. Ambrose of Milan, 340-397 AD, called it “just war.” To Ambrose, this meant defensive war as a last resort, with mercy shown to the defeated. He also posited that the failure to defend can be unjust.

A knowledge of relevant history might help us understand these fine distinctions. The moral tightrope we are on is frightening if we look down. On one side of the tightrope, if we fall, is the unrelenting hatred of Western Civilization and America in particular by Islamism, and on the other side is the deadening atheism and inhumanity of Marxism in its many forms. Behind us is Satan’s constant deception, attempting, as we try to gain our moral balance, to sever the very rope we are navigating. The following is a small example and does not include the many lost American lives because of our participation in putting Islamism in power in Iran in 1979.

Muhammad claims to have been called to be a prophet of Allah around 610 AD. Christianity was only 600 years old. For the years in Mecca when he struggled, he called for peace. After going to Medina, however, his views became more warlike. It is after his death in 632 AD that the unrelenting calls for conquest and brutality for non-believers began.

638 AD – Jerusalem surrenders to a Muslim army

711 AD – Muslims invade Spain

732 AD – Muslims invade France but are stopped by Charles Martel; Western Europe remains Christian

988 AD – Muslims invade Ukraine but are stopped by Vladimir of Kiev; Eastern Europe remains Christian

1091 AD – Muslims drive Christians out of Jerusalem; it was recaptured in 1099, but taken again by Muslims in 1187. Christians were subsequently forced out of the Holy Land altogether

1300 AD – the Muslim Ottoman Empire is formed; many countries are overrun

1524 AD – Muslims begin the siege of Vienna

1571 AD – the Holy League (Venice, Spain, the Papal States, Knights Hospitalier) defeat Muslims in an important naval battle; Europeans breathe a sigh of relief from Muslim terror

1736-1878 AD – Muslims wage war with Russia

1915 AD – Muslims slaughter Armenians

1924 AD – after WWI the Ottoman caliphate (one supreme religious/political leader) is ended; modern Israel is proposed and comes into being in 1948 AD; continuous war between Israel and its neighbors ensues

1979 AD – with the help of America, Shia Mullahs take over Iran and call for the death of the West and America in particular

1979–2026 AD – 47 years of appeasement, bribery, threats, more appeasement, then acceptance of Iran developing weapons of mass destruction in the hopes that after thirteen-hundred and eighty-eight years, Islamism will change its ambitions

Should one come to the conclusion that Islamism’s pattern of conquest and brutality is not going to end through dialogue, and that their hatred of Christianity has been unending since 632 AD, what is the “proper” response if, as the Pope says, Jesus calls us to put down the sword, love our enemies, and turn the other cheek from harm and abuse? Perhaps the Pope’s message can best be understood if applied to the person, not necessarily the state. Individual Christians should not be indifferent to suffering in war. Individual Christians should not resign themselves to evil. Individual Christians should not desire conflict.

A Christian state, however, with its governing responsibilities, has no duty to commit to its own demise. Fecklessness is not a Christian duty. If war is required to save what Jesus brought to us, we can only hope there emerges within our midst a Charles Martel, a Vladimir of Kiev, or a Philip II of Spain.

The defense of Christianity in general, and America in particular, if conducted with appropriate proportionality and mercy, can be within the moral boundaries enunciated by the Pope’s Easter message. There can never be a time in which the individual Christian can be relieved of the anxiety associated with navigating a moral tightrope. This is the very definition of a Pragmatic Christian Pacifist.

It might be wise, also, for Pope Leo XIV to remember he is protected only by some 16th-century spears and an easily scaled wall. America may need to exist to prevent his martyrdom.

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