Pope Francis on Thursday urged
the U.S. and Iran to avoid es-
calation and pursue “dialogue
and self-restraint” to avert a
wider conflict in the Middle East.
The Pope’s appeal was his first di-
rect comment on the current crisis in
a yearly speech that has come to be
known as his “State of the World” ad-
dress to ambassadors accredited to the
Vatican.
Speaking for nearly 50 minutes in
the Vatican’s frescoed Sala Regia, the
83-year-old Roman Catholic leader of-
fered a mostly grim overview of 2019,
speaking of wars, global warming, xen-
ophobia toward migrants and the dan-
ger of nuclear weapons.
“Particularly troubling are the sig-
nals coming from the entire region
following the heightening of tensions
between Iran and the U.S.,” Francis
told the diplomats from more than 180
states.
He said the tensions risked “com-
promising the gradual process of re-
building in Iraq, as well as setting the
groundwork for a vaster conflict that
all of us would want to avert”.
“I, therefore, renew my appeal that all
the interested parties avoid an escala-
tion of the conflict and keep alive the
flame of dialogue and self-restraint,
in full respect of international law,” he
said.
U.S. President Donald Trump has
suggested Iran was “standing down”
after it fired missiles at U.S. forces in
Iraq on Wednesday, itself an act of re-
taliation for the Jan. 3 U.S. strike that
killed Iranian commander Qassem
Soleimani.
“Our human family is scarred and
wounded by a succession of increasing-
ly destructive wars that especially affect
the poor and those most vulnerable,”
Francis said.
“Sadly, the New Year does not seem
to be marked by encouraging signs, as
much as by heightened tensions and
acts of violence,” he said.
Recent tensions could likely make
it impossible for Francis to visit Iraq,
which he has said he would like to do
this year.
Wars and conflicts have led to an ex-
odus of Christians from Iraq and some
other countries in the Middle East.
Iraq’s small Christian population of
several hundred thousand suffered
particular hardships when Islamic
State controlled large parts of the coun-
try, but have recovered freedoms since
the jihadists were pushed out.
Iraq is home to many different east-
ern rite churches, both Catholic and
Orthodox.
Francis said he still hoped to make
a visit this year to mostly Christian
South Sudan, which is emerging from
civil war.
The pope wove his speech around the
foreign trips he made in 2019, which
included a visit to Abu Dhabi in the
United Arab Emirates.
There, he became the first pontiff to
set foot on the Arabian peninsula.
Speaking of climate change, he said
it was sad that the urgency to tackle it
“seems not to have been grasped by in-
ternational politics”.
He said last December’s UN confer-
ence in Spain raised “serious concern
about the will of the international com-
munity to confront” the issue.
