By The Dominican theologian discussed Pope Leo XIVʼs reflection on the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his call for peace as President Donald Trump threatens Iran war escalation.
Father Thomas Petri, OP, a Dominican theologian, reflected on Pope Leo XIV’s call for peace in the Holy Father’s first Easter message to the faithful and warned against showing “indifference” toward violence.
“During his urbi et orbi message [on Easter], he mentioned the globalization of indifference, the indifference that we have, even good Christians and good Catholics have to violence,” Petri told anchor Veronica Dudo in an April 6 interview on “EWTN News Nightly.”
“We’ve been desensitized to it,” he said. “But if Christ has shown us anything, it is that power, the all-powerful God, wins the battle against sin and death not by violence or defeating it in some grand gesture of war against evil. Rather, he abandons himself, he gives himself in service, he dies for it, and then he rises for it without losing an ounce of his dignity, an ounce of his power.”
In his Easter message to the faithful, Leo reflected on the resurrection of Christ, saying Easter is “the victory of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred.”
He said: “The power with which Christ rose is entirely nonviolent” and compared it to “a human heart, which, wounded by an offense, rejects the instinct for revenge and, filled with compassion, prays for the one who has committed the offense.”
Leo called the Resurrection “the beginning of a new humanity” and “the entrance into the true promised land, where justice, freedom, and peace reign, where all recognize one another as brothers and sisters, children of the same Father who is love, life, and light.”
“We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent,” the pope said. “Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people. Indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow. Indifferent to the economic and social consequences they produce, which we all feel.”
Petri said during the interview that the Holy Father “challenged us to live in that sort of same grace, not to be disturbed by the problems of the world, but at the same time not to be indifferent to them, that we can coexist in peace and serenity and at the same time still be troubled and upset and concerned about what we see, not only in our own sinfulness and in our own lives, but in the Church and in the world.”
Pope urges laying weapons down
Petri also discussed Leo’s direct call for peace on Easter, in which the Holy Father said: “Let those who have weapons lay them down” and “let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace; not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue!”
In the interview, Petri said: “It might be easy to dismiss” Leo’s call for peace, because “popes always call for peace,” but he warned against downplaying the Holy Father’s role to simply being “a moral figure” and “a great teacher.”
“He is, in fact, we believe, the vicar of Christ on Earth,” Petri said. “And the teachings of the Church, the teachings of Jesus Christ himself, in fact, argue and maintain that peace and nonviolence is ultimately the way to everlasting peace.”
“Only in the grace of Jesus Christ will we find justice, peace, and forgiveness and love all coexisting and living in one reality,” Petri said. “And so this vigil for peace is certainly important and certainly it’s significant that the pope has called for it, but it’s also a real pleading, not simply that people will lay down arms and be peaceful with each other, although it is that, but that God himself will give peace to the world that is so desperately in need of it.”
Leo’s call for peace comes as President Donald Trump said he plans to escalate the conflict in Iran. The president said in a Truth Social post on Easter that April 7 “will be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day” while using profanities to demand Iran open the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump doubled down on April 7, threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” in a separate Truth Social post.
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The worst violence in the history of mankind costing at least billions of lives is ABORTION. That’s worse than all the wars from time immemorial. So stop all the papal posturing about a silly war against Iranian muslim terrorists and start doing something to end all abortions, Holy Father..
Some streetwise layman—in dialogue with theologians?—once clarified that while a person does have the right to non-violently offer his own neck to the knife of an assailant, he does not have the right to offer the necks of his wife and children…
Without either endorsing or condemning unfolding events or possibly strategies (Who am I to judge?), the path to Western notions of peace on earth is both more complicated and more simplified when we consider that, for Islamic jihad, the definition of a “just war” IS jihad.
Then comes the problematic calculus (not mere arithmetic) of where and when to draw the red line against, say, access to nuclear weapons and nuclear blackmail. In a complex world, linear thinkers sometimes miss something…
And yet, very true, bombastic words from a junkyard dog do leave something to be desired. But, if these words then are not acted upon, will anyone ever again challenge the ascendency of jihadi Iran onto the world stage? The Harris tribe? Vance? The nexus of Iran, China, and Putin? Maybe AI!
In general, even with respectable statesmanship (what’s that?), one does not assure peace by playing checkers on a chessboard. Still, we are reminded of the slippery slope from an assassination in Sarajevo into the 1914 Guns of August.
Mt 12 11. Since the time of John the Baptist, up to the present, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and the violent are taking it by storm.
Passive witness to Christ includes passive resistance to evil.
Fr Petri interprets Leo XIV accurately. Does that effort close the issue Christianity since the time Christ appeared and rose from the dead Christians have been in conflict with evil, evil from without and from within. To afflict oneself with self abnegation, fasting, like the Apostle’s willingness to accept beatings, whippings, incarceration, face death threats, actual attempts on his life is a glimmering example of storming heaven by violence and bearing it away. Christianity was built and remains alive with this kind of violence.
We also bear a responsibility to defend the weak, to defend our own. As noted here we may justly offer our lives as martyrs of the faith. Nevertheless, we have a responsibility to defend the weak. We cannot comply with the former if we’re in a requisite position to defend the weak. Violent resistance is not only warranted, it’s an obligation if the circumstances and conditions for that resistance are viable. A military action within those conditions is warranted and just.
This is mistakenly not addressed by Pope Leo nor Fr Petri since they’ve apparently judged the actions against Iran, implied in their commentaries, weren’t justified.