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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........

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