Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“I arrived in Rome yesterday, not without regret and sorrow for our brothers and sisters in Iran, as part of the complete evacuation of the Italian embassy, ​​[where] the archdiocese [is located],” Cardinal Mathieu told a Belgian news agency on March 9. “Until I return there, pray for the conversion of hearts to inner peace.”

“No one knows where this war will lead,” Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako said in an interview with Vatican News. “We are afraid because we are neighbors with Iran, and many Iraqis are Shiite. There is a double concern.”

“We Christians are very worried, because if they start attacking the Nineveh Plains, where there are 50,000 Christians, these people will leave their homes—and this time, they will not return,” he said.

Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė of Lithuania met with Pope Leo XIV and thanked him for his support for Ukraine.

During a visit to the Church of Saint Maria della Presentazione in Rome, Pope Leo spoke with youth, with the sick and elderly, and with parish council members.

Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass at the Church of Saint Maria della Presentazione in Rome (video) and encouraged the faithful to review their relationship with God this Lent in light of Christ’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-42).

“The action of the Military Chaplain is often carried out in silence, in places of peace and in those of conflict, in military bases and in operational contexts, in chapels and in field tents,” Pope Leo said March 7, in an audience in Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace. “It is there that the care of the Lord’s flock is manifested through the witness of life, the proclamation of the Gospel, the celebration of the Eucharist and in the Sacraments, patient listening and spiritual accompaniment.”

Turning to the mission of the Christian soldier, the Pope added:

Defending the weak, protecting peaceful coexistence, intervening in disasters, operating in international missions to preserve peace and restore order. All this cannot be reduced to a mere profession: it is a vocation, a response to a call that challenges the conscience. The soldier’s identity is forged by generosity, a spirit of service, high aspirations and deep feelings.

But these values require a foundation, a gift of Grace capable of fostering charity to the point of total self-sacrifice. It is therefore necessary to inspire the codes, norms and missions of military life with the lifeblood of the Gospel so that, in the service of security and peace, the common good of peoples is always the first priority.