Holy See and diplomats echo Pope Leo’s call for an ‘unarmed’ peace

Against a backdrop of escalating conflict and a renewed reliance on the “logic of brute force,” the Holy See’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, led by Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See, hosted its 17th Annual Interreligious Service for Peace on Wednesday, bringing together around 300 diplomats, ambassadors, and religious leaders.

Held at the Church of St. Nicolas de Flüe and co-organised with the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg, the service centred on Pope Leo XIV’s 2026  “Peace be with you all: Towards an ‘unarmed and disarming’ peace.”

In his welcoming remarks, Archbishop Balestrero described the service as a counter-narrative to the logic of violence and conflict.

“An ‘unarmed and disarming’ peace conquers without conquest, and trains not for battle, but for reconciliation and cooperation,” he said, urging diplomats to resist the “weaponisation” of thoughts and words and calling believers to “refute these forms of blasphemy” in which faith is manipulated to justify violence.