Top photo caption: Pope Leo XVI and the Dalai Lama are pictured in a combination photo. After Pope Leo issued one of his strongest appeals to-date to lay down weapons and reject war in his Palm Sunday homily, the spiritual leader of Buddhists, the Dalai Lama on March 31 strongly supported the pope and his unwavering call for peace. OSV News Photo/Lola Gomez, CNS/Anushree Fadnavis, Reuters
By Paulina Guzik, OSV News
OSV News – After Pope Leo XIV issued one of his strongest appeals to-date to lay down weapons and reject war in his Palm Sunday homily, the spiritual leader of Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, on March 31 strongly supported the Pope and his unwavering call for peace.
“I wholeheartedly endorse the powerful appeal for peace made by the Holy Father, Pope Leo, during his Palm Sunday Mass,” said the Dalai Lama.
Pope Leo said March 29 in St. Peter’s Square: “Christ, King of Peace, cries out again from his cross: God is love! Have mercy! Lay down your weapons! Remember that you are brothers and sisters.”
In his first Palm Sunday homily, Pope Leo XIV proclaimed that Jesus, the King of Peace, embraces all suffering in human history and cries out from the cross against war.
“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” the Pope said.
In his March 31 statement, the Dalai Lama said the Pope’s “call for the laying down of arms and the renunciation of violence resonated profoundly with me, as it speaks to the very essence of what all major religions teach.”
The Buddhist leader said that “whether we look to Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism or any of the world’s great spiritual traditions, the message is fundamentally the same: love, compassion, tolerance, and self-discipline.”
Violence, he said, “finds no true home in any of these teachings. History has shown us time and again that violence only begets more violence and is never a lasting foundation for peace.”
Both Pope Leo’s call and Dalai Lama’s endorsement came amid escalation of war in the Middle East – with the U.S. and Israel-Iran war gaining new fronts, and claiming new victims daily.
The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem issued an annual Easter message, calling the war an “expanding wreckage” and its timing a “deep darkness” on March 27.
Over the last March weekend, about 2,500 U.S. Marines arrived in the region, The Associated Press reported. The war has threatened global supplies of oil and natural gas, and it has disrupted air travel.
“An enduring resolution to conflict,” the Dalai Lama said, “including the ones we see in the Middle East or between Russia and Ukraine, must be rooted in dialogue, diplomacy and mutual respect – approached with the understanding that, at the deepest level, we are all brothers and sisters,” he said.
Pope Leo said on Palm Sunday that Jesus, in allowing himself to be nailed to the cross embraced “every cross borne in every time and place throughout human history.” He mentioned today “we can see a crucified humanity” and “the hurts of so many women and men today,” the Pope said.
“In his last cry to the Father, we hear the weeping of those who are crushed, who have no hope, who are sick and who are alone. Above all, we hear the painful groans of all those who are oppressed by violence and are victims of war,” he emphasized.
The Dalai Lama echoed Pope Leo’s call for peace in the final lines of his statement: “I urge for and pray that the violence and conflicts may soon come to an end,” the Buddhist leader said.
Paulina Guzik is international editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @Guzik_Paulina. Courtney Mares, Vatican Editor for OSV News, contributed to this report.
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