At the start of Holy Week, a prayer vigil for peace at Rome’s Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme became a platform for a stark but simple appeal: End the war in the Gulf and reject the cycle of retaliation.
Archbishop Dominique Joseph Mathieu of Tehran-Isfahan, recently forced to leave Iran, delivered the message with urgency. Echoing words of St. John Paul II from 1991, he warned against war as “a spiral of mourning and violence” with no real end.
“Stop the logic of retaliation and revenge,” he prayed, urging instead “generous and honourable gestures” and patient dialogue. His words came amid escalating tensions in the Gulf and continued instability across the Middle East.
Christians in Iran
- Majority: Armenian and Assyrian communities
- Legal status: Recognized minorities, but restricted
- Converts from Islam: Face persecution risks
- Catholic presence: Small Latin-rite community in Tehran-Isfahan
The vigil, part of the “Mission of Peace – A Journey in the Spirit” initiative, gathered clergy and faithful under the leadership of Cardinal Baldassarre Reina, the Pope's vicar of Rome. Organized with groups including Pax Christi and the Community of Sant’Egidio, the event also drew attention to overlooked conflicts in places like Sudan and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Yet the Holy Land remained at the heart of the evening’s concern. While Israeli authorities ultimately allowed Holy Week celebrations in Jerusalem, restrictions highlighted the fragility of peace. Only days earlier, access to the Holy Sepulchre had been denied to senior Catholic leaders, underscoring the tension surrounding Christian worship in the region.
Cardinal Reina framed the moment in stark spiritual terms. Standing in a basilica that preserves relics associated with the Cross, he drew a parallel between Christ’s suffering and today’s conflicts. “There are so many innocent people being crucified,” he said, describing the present as “a dramatic moment for all humanity.”
His meditation returned to a simple but often ignored truth: violence breeds more violence. The world, he warned, risks drifting toward “the absurd” through rearmament and hardened positions. For Christians, however, “peace is not the result of strategy,” Reina said, “but is Christ himself.” In that conviction lies both a challenge and a hope: that amid war, believers are called to witness to a different path.
As Holy Week begins, the Church’s plea is clear — not only for an end to specific conflicts, but for a deeper conversion away from vengeance and toward reconciliation.
