Pope Leo XIV Pleads for Ukraine Peace as Trump-Putin Summit Opens in Alaska

Pope Leo XIV marked the Catholic feast of the Assumption on Friday with a call for an end to what he described as the “increasingly deafening violence” of wars worldwide. Celebrating Mass at Castel Gandolfo, the first American pontiff urged the faithful not to “resign ourselves to the prevalence of the logic of armed conflict,” recalling that the feast was proclaimed dogma in 1950 amid World War II. The appeal coincided with a high-stakes summit in Anchorage between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at easing the war in Ukraine. While the Pope did not explicitly mention the meeting, his remarks echoed earlier private exhortations to both leaders and to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to seek dialogue and a cease-fire. Similar prayers were offered by other religious figures, including Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, underscoring the clerical pressure for a diplomatic breakthrough as the conflict in Ukraine drags into its fourth year.