Pope Francis: A bridge-builder for peace

Since Pope Francis became head of the Catholic Church in 2013, he has repeatedly echoed calls for peace in countries going through conflicts.

He played a key role in the reopening of the US-Cuba diplomatic relations that froze after former President Fidel Castro and Cuban revolutionaries overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista and established a socialist state in 1959. 

This prompted the US to impose an embargo against Cuba that was formalized by former President John F. Kennedy in 1962, restricting US business entities from making commercial and trade transactions with this Caribbean country.

An Aljazeera report in 2015 estimated the embargo has cost the Cuban economy $1.1 trillion since the time it was enforced 60 years ago.

An American Journal of Public Health report in January 1997 said nutritional levels in Cuba declined, the rates of infectious diseases rose, and public health infrastructure deteriorated as a result of the sanction.

The UN voted for the lifting of the sanction several times, but the US kept the economic blockade on Cuba enforced.

The economic blockade on Cuba has been longer than the US has on any other country.

In 2014, a year after he became pontiff, Pope Francis appealed in a letter to former President Barack Obama and Cuban leaders to reconsider the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The Vatican hosted talks between US and Cuban diplomats in October 2014. 

Three years later, in 2017, the Obama administration eased the sanctions on Cuba. Direct flights between the two countries were authorized, and the restrictions on Americans engaging in business with Cuba were lifted.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump put Cuba back on the US list of state sponsors of international terrorism during his first term as president, enforcing the embargo anew as a result.

As early as 2013, Pope Francis has been calling for peace in Syria, ravaged by a multi-sided conflict that broke out in 2011 from discontent over Bashar al-Assad's 24-year regime.

He led prayers, wrote to world leaders, and appealed to the international community for peace in Syria.

On December 8, 2024, Bashar al-Assad fled Syria to Moscow as his reign collapsed. 

On December 11, Pope Francis appealed to the Syrian rebels who overthrew the al-Assad regime to rebuild and reunite the country.

"I hope they find political solutions that, without other conflicts or divisions, responsibly promote the stability and unity of the country," Pope Francis said at the weekly General Audience at the Vatican.

Pope Francis has also called for peace in Myanmar many times and asked for an end to violence and a start to a dialogue to address the conflict.

In 2017, he addressed an audience of government leaders, civil society leaders, military officials, religious leaders, and laypeople at the International Convention Centre in Nay Pyi Taw, the modern capital of Myanmar.

“The future of Myanmar must be peace,” he told his audience.

Pope Francis also said, “It must be a peace based on respect for the dignity and rights of each member of society, respect for each ethnic group and its identity, respect for the rule of law, and respect for a democratic order that enables each individual and every group—none excluded—to offer its legitimate contribution to the common good.”

Since the 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military junta has displaced 3.5 million people, killed more than 6,000 people, and detained 20,000 people.

Pope Francis has also repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine after Russia attacked it in 2022 and appealed to the parties involved to address the conflict through negotiations. He always expressed solidarity with the victims of the war.

"I would like to appeal to those who have political responsibility so that they may make a serious examination of conscience before God, who is the God of peace and not of war,” he said at the weekly General Audience in the Vatican in February 2023.

In October 2024, Pope Francis met Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Vatican for the fourth time. He assured the Ukrainian leader that the universal church was continuously praying for peace in his country.

Since the war in Ukraine broke out in 2022, Pope Francis has been using his general audiences and Angelus addresses at the Vatican to express his solidarity with the victims of the conflict and to call for humanitarian interventions for people trapped in the war.

On February 23, 2025, while being treated at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for a respiratory condition, Pope Francis called for peace in Ukraine.

He marked Sunday’s “painful and shameful occasion” of the third year of the large-scale Russian war against Ukraine.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported more than 41,000 civilian casualties as of January 2025 since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Pope Francis has also been outspoken against the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In June 2014, just a year after he became head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis welcomed former Israeli President Shimon Peres and incumbent Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Vatican for an unprecedented prayer meeting.

In January of this year, Pope Francis escalated his stance against the war in Gaza, calling the situation in the wartorn Palestinian enclave "very serious and shameful."

"We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians," Pope Francis said through his aide.

As of February 2025, more than 48,900 Palestinians and 1,700 Israelis have died in the conflict in Gaza, according to the official figures of the Gaza Health Ministry.