Pope Leo calls for concessions to attain peace as Russia-Ukraine war drags on

• Pope Leo XIV urged negotiators to make concessions for peace in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, warning against rising military spending and emphasising dialogue over rearmament.
• He called on Europe to uphold EU founding values, support multiculturalism, and integrate migrants with opportunities and legal pathways.
• The Pope criticised declining international dialogue and stressed Europe’s role in promoting respect, rule of law, and humane treatment of migrants amid rising far-right influence.

METZ – Pope Leo XIV said on Sept 28 that negotiators seeking to end war in Europe must be willing to sacrifice some positions to achieve peace, as efforts to end Russia’s bloody war in Ukraine continue to fail.

The first American pope, speaking in the north-eastern French city of Metz, home town of Robert Schuman, a founding father of the European Union, lamented that “war has returned, even to Europe: a new senseless slaughter, claiming countless civilian lives every day”.

Offering his clearest political vision yet for Europe, Leo also praised integration and multiculturalism at a time when the far right is gaining strength across the region.

Speaking in French, he urged Europeans to recall the founding values that underpin the EU, including the rule of law and the equality of all people without distinction of race, colour, class or profession. His speech received a standing ovation and the public has welcomed him enthusiastically.

Leo began his four-day visit to France on Sept 25 with a warning that the United Nations and other multilateral bodies were in crisis and that international dialogue risked becoming a “charade”.

Call for dialogue to end war

On Sept 28 in Metz, he turned his attention to the war in Ukraine – without mentioning it directly.

“We need... to show courage in negotiation and to be willing to give up some positions for the greater good of peace,” he urged, invoking a similar 1917 appeal from Pope Benedict XV amid the carnage of World War I.

Leo also reiterated his opposition to rising European military spending, which grew in 2025 by the highest amount since the end of the Cold War amid pressure from US President Donald Trump and Russian assertiveness.

“We must also guard against the illusion that rearmament is the answer,” he said.

“Today we must ask whether we are truly making creative efforts to advance world peace, or whether we are simply seeking to ‘stem the tide of war’ and better prepare ourselves for wars that we assume are still to come.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week met Trump in New York to discuss ways to end the war, which Russia began in 2022 with a full-scale invasion that has seized a fifth of Ukraine. Neither side has shown any willingness to concede land.

Leo urges Europe to welcome migrants

Standing next to French President Emmanuel Macron, Leo called on European leaders to integrate migrants arriving on the continent and offer them opportunities as if they were family members.

The 71-year-old pope, who frequently urges world leaders to treat migrants more humanely, repeated his call for “legal and safe pathways” for immigration, and international cooperation to fight human trafficking.

“To welcome a person means to integrate them as if they were part of one’s own family, offering them the opportunity to develop their gifts, abilities and sensibilities,” he said.

Three migrants including one child died on Sept 28, hours before Leo spoke, attempting to cross the Channel from France to Britain.

Leo has also sharply criticised Trump’s hardline US anti-immigration policies.

He urged Europe to maintain the rule of law, and welcome multiculturalism.

“Europe has flourished and progressed when it has been able to draw on the best aspects of its past and reinvent them in new and creative ways through encounters with others,” he said, also stressing the continent’s Christian roots.

“Today, relations between individuals and states are becoming increasingly uncivilised. The value of keeping one’s word is dismissed; instead, people boast of lies and deceit. Europe can help to break this cycle through the respect for others that it has learnt to cultivate and preserve.”

In his own remarks, Macron, who attended Leo’s final mass in Metz after skipping other religious services, said Europe’s Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian foundations had helped crystallise the “primacy of the person” and the “free and rational individual”. He also praised the EU as a unique project founded on peace and equality.

The remarks were notable from the leader of a constitutionally secular state, in a country that regularly agonises over national identity, religion and the place of faith in public life. REUTERS