{"id":207030,"date":"2026-04-09T06:36:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T06:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/pope-leo-praises-iran-truce-invites-world-to-prayer-vigil-in-vatican-city-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T06:36:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T06:36:25","slug":"pope-leo-praises-iran-truce-invites-world-to-prayer-vigil-in-vatican-city-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/pope-leo-praises-iran-truce-invites-world-to-prayer-vigil-in-vatican-city-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo praises Iran 'truce', invites world to prayer vigil in Vatican City – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hours after after President Donald Trump<\/a> announced a two-week ceasefire\u00a0between the United States and Iran<\/a> amid global calls for diplomacy,\u00a0Pope Leo XIV<\/a> praised what he called “a truce” between the countries and invited the world to a prayer vigil set for April 11.
“In the wake of these hours of great tension for the\u00a0#MiddleEast\u00a0and the entire world, I welcome with satisfaction \u2212 and as a sign of living hope \u2212 the announcement of an immediate two-week truce,” the pope, who oversees more than a billion Catholics across the globe, wrote on X<\/a> the morning of April 8. “Only by returning to negotiations can the war come to an end.”
The American-born pope, who\u00a0has emerged as an outspoken critic of the war, asked the world to join him in “this moment of delicate diplomacy<\/a>\u00a0with prayer, in hopes that a willingness to dialogue may become the means to resolve other conflict situations in the world as well.”
The pope announced a vigil is set for 6 p.m. local time on April 11 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.
In a separate earlier post April 8, the pope said God can redeem all human experience.
“When lived in union with the passion of the Lord, even suffering can become a path to holiness,” the post reads. “The grace that converts and transforms life strengthens us in every trial. It does not point us towards a distant ideal, but towards the encounter with God, who became man out of love.”
A day earlier, the pope called threats \u200bagainst the population of Iran “unacceptable” in an unusual appeal hours \u200cafter Trump threatened to\u00a0wipe out a “whole civilization”<\/a>\u00a0if Iran did not meet the demands of the U.S.
“Today, as we all know, there was this threat against the entire \u200bpeople of Iran, and this is truly unacceptable,” the pope wrote in a post on X.
Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Hours after after President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire\u00a0between the United States and Iran amid global calls for diplomacy,\u00a0Pope Leo XIV praised what he called “a truce” between the countries and invited the world to a prayer vigil set for April 11.“In the wake of these hours of great tension for the\u00a0#MiddleEast\u00a0and the entire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-207030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}