A Rabbi Takes On Pope Leo

Jesus Christ, stabbed in the back by a fellow Chicagoan! No respect for the tribe. I bet he's a Cub's fan.

Oh, that sounded very wrong. Sorry, I have several friends who attend Cubs games.

A Rabbi Takes On Pope Leo

A rejoinder to the pontiff’s simplistic condemnation of the war against Iran.

By Avi Shafran

Updated April 29, 2026 5:27 pm ET

Celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Palm Sunday amid the Iran war, Pope Leo XIV declared that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” He also recalled the prophet Isaiah’s words: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.”

Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s official day of remembrance for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, came a few weeks later, on April 20. Warren Goldstein, chief rabbi of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa, used the occasion to deliver a stern reply to Pope Leo.

On Yom HaZikaron, he said, we note how “our soldiers who fell in battle” are “holy and pure.” He declared that “the wars that Israel has fought since its inception are just wars,” something that must be said in this “world of moral confusion.”

But the pope, Rabbi Goldstein said, “had the audacity and the brazenness and the cruelty to say that all of those who wage war will be turned away by God.”

“How dare he?” the rabbi asked, speaking softly but holding back none of his outrage. “His hands,” he said of the pope, “are dripping with blood.” Pope Leo “makes no distinction between good and evil,” the rabbi said. “He makes no distinction between the barbarians of Hamas, the genocidal maniacs of Tehran, and the noble and brave soldiers of the state of Israel, who are defending civilization itself.” He added, “only a religious leader who has lost his soul can say such a thing.”

Rabbi Goldstein is no radical, but he gave a remarkable, even shocking, speech in a historical era in which popes have condemned antisemitism without reservation.

In 1993 Pope John Paul II formally recognized Israel, and in 2000 he placed a letter of apology for past Jewish suffering in a Western Wall crevice.

Popes Benedict XIV and Francis both visited the Holy Land, strengthening ties with Israeli leaders. A prominent Jewish leader lambasting a sitting pope is without recent precedent.

But Rabbi Goldstein isn’t alone in worrying that Pope Leo may be turning the clock back. Perhaps Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, its bombing of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the current U.S.-Israeli war against Iran have changed the Vatican’s views. But Israel has always been besieged and threatened and has always used its military might to counter mortal enemies.

The rabbi’s final words were poignant. Jews “pray each day for the end of war,” he noted. Isaiah foretold that a day will come when “one nation would not lift up sword against another” and that “death will vanish in life eternal,” and on that day, “God will wipe away tears from all faces.” But, the rabbi concluded, “that day has not yet arrived. And that is why we cry on Yom HaZikaron.”

Pope Leo’s sermon and Rabbi Goldstein’s response may be simply a blip in the relations of Catholics and Jews that have improved so much over the past 60 years. But they may mark a more lasting and more dangerous turn toward enmity.

Mr. Shafran is a columnist for Ami Magazine.