Pope Leo XIV denounced President Donald Trump‘s threat to Iranian civilization on Tuesday, telling reporters he thought the president’s words were “truly unacceptable.”
The pope’s words came hours after Trump posted to social media that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if the Iranian regime does not strike a deal with the U.S. ahead of Trump’s 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday deadline. The Vatican has maintained its anti-war stance throughout Operation Epic Fury, with the pope’s comments on Tuesday being the latest against the airstrikes in the Middle East region.
“Today, as we all know, there has also been this threat against the entire people of Iran,” the pope said, speaking to reporters in Italian. “And this is truly unacceptable. There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety.”
Ahead of Trump’s deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or make a deal with U.S. negotiators, the president threatened to end Iran’s civilization around 8 a.m. in a Truth Social post. On Monday evening, Trump threatened “complete demolition” of Iran’s power plants and bridges, adding that “the entire country can be taken out in one night.”
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote Tuesday morning. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
The pontiff has challenged the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran since the start of the airstrikes on Feb. 28, advocating peace and a stop to the aerial bombardments. He said on Tuesday that he sought to remind the world that “attacks on civilian infrastructure is against international law, but that it is also a sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction that human being is capable of.”
“We have a worldwide economic crisis, energy crisis, situation in the Middle East, of great instability, which is only provoking more hatred throughout the world. So come back to the table. Let’s talk. Let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way,” the pope said.
The pope joins Democratic lawmakers and several former allies of the president, including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, in denouncing Trump’s threat to Iranian civilization.
As Tuesday evening’s deadline looms, Pakistan is brokering peace talks between U.S. and Iranian negotiators.
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Despite Iran rejecting a proposal on Monday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote on X that he is calling for Trump to extend the deadline by two weeks and for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz for that two-week period as well.
“Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future,” Sharif wrote on X.
