“Your Hands Are Full of Blood” — Pope Leo XIV’s Palm Sunday Message to Warmakers

On the first day of Holy Week, the pope invoked Isaiah to declare that God rejects the prayers of those who wage war — with the U.S.-Israeli bombing of Iran entering its second month.

Dear friends,

Holy Week begins today with a pope standing in St. Peter’s Square and telling the warmakers of the world that God will not hear them.

While American bombs fall on Iran and Russia’s grinding assault on Ukraine enters its fourth year, Pope Leo XIV opened the most sacred week of the Christian calendar by invoking the prophet Isaiah: “Even thou…