Weekly Perspective

  The Vatican vs. Mar-a-Lago “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.” As thousands of believers filled St Peter’s Square in the Vatican for the rites of Palm Sunday this year, Pope Leo XIV chose to include in his homily these words that God speaks at the beginning of the Book of Isaiah. In the context of his brief homily, it was the last of several Bible verses Leo chose to illustrate the idea of “Jesus, King of Peace.” But in the context of the Trump administration’s ongoing war on Iran, it was immediately understood as a direct rebuke to a prayer service led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon a few days earlier, in which he had besought the Almighty for “overwhelming violence.” Leo may not have intended his words as a direct response to Hegseth — a pope hardly needs a special excuse to preach about peace at Easter time — but Leo did nothing to discourage that interpretation. A few days later, when asked about Donald Trum...