In a striking scene last Friday, the new American pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, carried the cross through all 14 stations of the Via Crucis at the Colosseum. This historic event occurs every Good Friday, with each station representing a moment along Christ’s path to Calvary. Each moment is recounted prayerfully by the faithful as they hold candles outside the historic edifice where early Christians were martyred. Christ exhorted his followers that if they truly want to follow him, they need to pick up their cross, too. The “Way of the Cross” reminds them.

What was further striking about this year’s Via Crucis is that the pope himself carried the cross through all 14 stations. The last time a pope had that physical stamina was John Paul II in 1994, before his decline from Parkinson’s.

Personally, I’ve watched Leo XIV every step of his pontificate. I just released the first major biography of the new American pontiff. I’ve done dozens of interviews. A question I’m getting repeatedly, often asked with hostility by Trump supporters, is why the pope is speaking out so much against the war in the Middle East. My answer is that popes pray for peace. That’s what they do. It doesn’t matter who’s in the White House. That has been especially so with this pope.

When American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost stepped onto the Loggia on May 8, 2025, after being announced the next head of the Catholic Church, his literal first word was “peace.” He said: “Peace be with all of you!” He urged that these words resound “in every nation and throughout the world.” His opening statement echoed the word “peace” 10 times. It’s a word that has reigned throughout his pontificate, from Russia’s war on Ukraine to the latest Middle East blowup. Moreover, this pope calls himself a “son of Augustine,” the fifth century saint known for “just war” doctrine.

When I’ve noted these facts to Trump supporters, they’ve responded defensively, sometimes angrily. Some even insist Leo should make the moral case for the American intervention in Iran. They say he should condemn the decades of terrorism by the Iranian mullahs and other Islamist extremists — a fair point.

But that said, the job of the pope is not to devote his Easter Sunday message to making a moral case for a country’s war effort. Instead, Leo called upon “those who have weapons (to) lay them down” and for a prayer vigil for peace April 11.

Most certainly, the pope would never speak in the egregious, vulgar way Donald Trump did on Easter Sunday, when an unhinged Trump declared: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” He exploded: “Open the (expletive) Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH!” Two days later, Trump ratcheted up the Richter scale, despicably threatening: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Pope Leo promptly condemned “this threat against the entire people of Iran” as “truly unacceptable.”

The Iranians capitulated and agreed to a deal with Trump, praise God. The world and the pope breathed a huge sigh of relief.

The duty of the pope is to push for peace, not war. Just as the Prince of Peace did. Following the way of the cross means just that.