Pope Leo appears to have taken a jab at United States President Donald Trump, condemning a global “obsession with weaponry” over human welfare.
While not mentioning the U.S President by name, the Pontiff’s rhetoric regarding “isolationist vanity” and “billion-dollar ego trips” left little doubt among diplomats and observers as to the intended target of his message.
The pontiff blasted those he said had manipulated “the very name of God” for their own gain during his ongoing visit to Cameroon.
The jab comes just days after a high-profile spat between Trump and Pope Leo.
Trump had posted a lengthy attack on the Pope, a vocal critic of the U.S-Israeli military operation in Iran.
The Pope had voiced his concern about Trump’s threat that “a whole civilisation will die” if Iran did not agree to U.S demands to end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz.
Re-echoing his initial stance, the Pope, speaking in Cameroon, criticised leaders who “turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education and restoration are nowhere to be found”.
“The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild,” he said on Thursday.
The Pope also condemned “an endless cycle of destabilisation and death” in a “bloodstained” region of Cameroon that has been gripped by insurgency for nearly a decade.
“Those who rob your land of its resources generally invest much of the profit in weapons, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of destabilisation and death,” he told those gathered at a cathedral in the north-western city of Bamenda – the centre of the violence that has left at least 6,000 people dead and displaced many more.
“Peace is not something we must invent: it is something we must embrace by accepting our neighbour as a brother and as our sister,” the Pope said.
Separatist insurgents in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions have been fighting the predominantly Francophone government since 2017.
Following Leo’s address, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, said that she stood with the Pope in his “courageous call for a kingdom of peace”.
The war in Iran has increasingly placed the Pope and the Trump administration at odds.
During a Palm Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square, the Pope said the conflict between Iran, Israel, and the U.S was “atrocious” and that Jesus could not be used to justify war.
“This is our God: Jesus, king of peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” he told tens of thousands of worshippers gathered in Vatican City.
“He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”
The pontiff also quoted the Bible passage Isaiah 1:15: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.”
Earlier this week, Trump launched a scathing attack on the Pope on social media, in which he described the leader of the Catholic Church as “WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy” while portraying himself as a Jesus-like figure.
He later doubled down on his criticism and refused to apologise – but deleted the AI-generated image of himself.
