Pope Leo XIV issued one of the strongest foreign policy warnings of his young papacy on Friday, cautioning global leaders that diplomacy is increasingly being replaced by coercion and military power, as wars multiply and international institutions struggle to restrain them.
Addressing Vatican-accredited ambassadors in his annual diplomatic speech, the first US-born pope said the world was witnessing a dangerous shift away from dialogue toward confrontation, arguing that the credibility of multilateral bodies had been badly eroded by their inability to prevent or resolve conflicts.
Without naming specific countries, Leo said the growing acceptance of war as a policy tool should alarm governments and societies alike, warning that a renewed "enthusiasm for conflict" was spreading across regions already strained by instability.
Turning to Latin America, the pope urged international actors to respect the will of the Venezuelan people following last weekend's overthrow of President Nicolás Maduro by US forces. He stressed that political change must be accompanied by firm guarantees of civil liberties and human rights.
Pope Leo in Friday's 43-minute address:
"A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force... War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading... A new Orwellian-style language is developing which, in an attempt to be increasingly inclusive, ends up excluding those who do not conform to the ideologies that are fueling it."