Pope appeals for end to hostilities in Yemen and prays for Jordan attack victims
Pope Leo XIV appealed for an end to hostilities in Yemen and called for peace and humanitarian aid for people facing shortages in Taiz. He prayed for those killed and injured in an attack on worshippers at St George’s Orthodox Church in Jordan and expressed solidarity with the community and country. The Pope invited the faithful to pray for peace ahead of an Assisi gathering of Church and religious leaders marking 40 years since the 1986 interreligious prayer meeting. He warned that wars bring death and destruction and urged leaders to choose dialogue and peace.
about 10 hours ago
Pope Leo XIV appealed for an end to fighting in Yemen, highlighting severe shortages in the besieged city of Taiz, and prayed for victims of a deadly attack on worshippers in Jordan. He also urged prayer for peace ahead of an Assisi gathering marking 40 years since the interfaith meeting convened by Pope John Paul II. 1 2
After the Sunday Angelus on 25 October, Leo said he was concerned about Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, especially in Taiz, where residents face shortages of food, water and medical care. He called for hostilities to cease and for people in Yemen and across the region to be able to live in peace. 1 2
Reports described Taiz as effectively cut off from supplies as fighting and road closures disrupted access to essentials. Humanitarian observers warned that water was particularly scarce, while hospitals faced difficulty maintaining services amid dwindling medical supplies; one report said about 800,000 people lacked access to supplies. 1 2
The accounts described intensified clashes between Houthi forces and government forces around Taiz, including counterattacks by Saudi-backed forces. The city has been under siege for much of Yemen’s civil war, which began in 2014. 1 2
Leo also prayed for those killed and injured in a Friday attack on worshippers at St George’s Orthodox Church in Jordan. Reports said gunmen opened fire during a funeral in the Karak area, killing at least nine people and wounding dozens; no group had claimed responsibility, and authorities were searching for the attackers. 2
The Pope expressed solidarity with the church community and Jordan, praising the country’s peaceful coexistence and respect among religions. Jordan’s King Abdullah II said the authorities would confront the attack with the harshest penalties, according to one report. 2
Leo invited people to pray for peace in connection with a 27 October gathering in Assisi, marking the 40th anniversary of John Paul II’s 1986 meeting that brought together representatives of different religions. He said wars cause death and destruction while also impoverishing and damaging the world, and prayed that God would inspire dialogue and peace. 2
One report said Leo had planned to attend the gathering but would remain at the Vatican on doctors’ advice following surgery earlier in the month. 2
Catholic peace ethics unite dialogue, human dignity, and solidarity
Catholic peace ethics treats dialogue, human dignity, and solidarity as mutually reinforcing: dialogue helps people and peoples seek peaceful relations honestly; respect for each person sets the moral limit and purpose of those relations; and solidarity turns concern for others into practical commitment to justice and the common good. Peace, on this account, is more than the absence of armed conflict. It requires relationships and social arrangements that honor people’s worth and enable them to share in a common life.
Dialogue matters because people and communities may differ in culture, religion, interests, and experience. Rather than treating those differences as a reason for exclusion or hostility, the Church calls for reciprocal understanding and respectful engagement. John Paul II described dialogue as necessary for bringing people together across those differences, and said it must reach social, economic, and religious questions—not merely polite conversation.
Paul VI gives dialogue a demanding ethical meaning:
The mere fact that we are embarking upon a disinterested, objective and sincere dialogue is a circumstance in favor of a free and honorable peace. It positively excludes all pretence, rivalry, deceit and betrayal.
The point is that dialogue cannot be a disguise for coercion, manipulation, or domination. It calls participants to sincerity and a willingness to consider the other as a person, not merely an obstacle or instrument. Paul VI connects this kind of dialogue with rejecting aggression and imperialism and with fostering a responsibility to preserve peace at every level of human life.
Dialogue is therefore neither a guarantee that every conflict will be quickly resolved nor a demand to pretend that serious disagreements do not exist. It is a way to pursue peace without abandoning truth or respect for persons. The Church’s educational guidance likewise presents a culture of dialogue as important where people from different traditions and worldviews live together, and links misunderstandings and conflict with a lack of formation in “fraternal humanism.”
For Christians, the dignity of every person is rooted in God’s love, which is offered to each person without exception. That conviction means that peace cannot be built by treating some people as disposable, denying their humanity, or accepting the oppression of the weak.
Benedict XVI connects respect for human dignity with trust, cooperation, and honest engagement across cultural, social, and religious differences. He also stresses that violence—verbal as well as physical—wounds the dignity of both its perpetrator and its victim. Peace-building, accordingly, involves more than calming a dispute: it means shaping relationships and decisions around the worth of each person.
This gives dignity a practical role in judging proposed paths to peace. An agreement or policy cannot be called genuinely peaceful merely because it reduces open conflict if it depends on exclusion, exploitation, or disregard for those most in need. John Paul II warns that the “weapons of peace”—including respect for human dignity, justice, and solidarity—are cast aside when the weak are oppressed or the poor discriminated against.
Solidarity is more than sympathy or a momentary feeling. Pope Francis describes it as a firm, enduring commitment to the common good—the good of all and of each person—because people bear responsibility for one another. It resists reducing people or nations to statistics or treating them as useful only while they serve someone else’s purposes.
That commitment has both personal and social consequences. It asks people to recognize the claims of others, and it calls societies to oppose exclusion and support cooperation. John Paul II connects peace with overcoming exclusion, imperialism, and mutual distrust, and describes peace as the fruit of solidarity. Francis similarly says that peace cannot be separated from work for justice and for a more integral society: self-interested individual or group aims cannot provide a lasting basis for harmony.
Solidarity also widens the meaning of peace beyond relations between governments. Benedict XVI points to poverty, unemployment, corruption, exploitation, and trafficking as assaults on human life and potential, and calls for effective solidarity to support respect for every person and honest, just cooperation among peoples.
The three principles correct and strengthen one another. Dialogue without respect for dignity can become a tactic for managing or controlling others. Concern for dignity without dialogue may fail to hear how people understand their needs and circumstances. Both without solidarity can remain words without sustained action for the common good. This is a synthesis of the Church’s emphasis on sincere dialogue, the inviolable worth of each person, and solidarity as practical responsibility.
Together they offer a practical orientation for peace-building: engage opponents honestly; reject violence and dehumanization; hear the claims of people who are vulnerable or excluded; and pursue cooperation and decisions that serve justice and shared human development. Pope Francis summarizes the foundation in terms of relations of justice and solidarity, with people contributing according to their means to integral human development.
The claim that Catholic peace ethics unite dialogue, human dignity, and solidarity therefore describes a coherent moral vision, not three unrelated ideals. Dialogue shapes how people seek peace; dignity establishes whom peace must serve and what it may not violate; solidarity makes that commitment durable and concrete.