Middle East

Among Christians monitoring the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran, there is clear and present concern for Christians imperilled by the ongoing explosive violence.

A Lebanese Maronite Catholic priest has been killed in southern Lebanon when an Israeli artillery tank fired on a house March 9, Catholic officials and media said -- reports that have since been confirmed by OSV News.

Pope Leo XIV called for an end to the war in Iran and warned that the conflict could drag more countries in the Middle East into instability.

The Assembly of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops in Lebanon issued a statement in which they called "for an immediate halt to the spiral of violence" currently taking place in the Middle East.

The Permanent Council of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has issued a Statement Calling the Catholic Faithful to Prayer for Peace in the Middle East.

The Vatican secretary of state appealed for peace and diplomacy on the fifth day of the U.S. and Israel-Iran war, warning that recognition of any country's right to wage "preventive war" according to their own criteria would risk the world "being set ablaze."

The Catholic community in northern Iraq has been shaken by the attack of an explosive drone hitting the Chaldean Catholic complex in Ankawa, outside of Irbil.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis told The Catholic Register that the Iranian diaspora in Canada has relayed that the interventions by the U.S. and Israel “are a source of joy and cautious optimism”.

As the scourge of war spreads across the Middle East, including Lebanon, the ones paying the ultimate price are the innocent men, women and children who want to live in peace, said Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Georges Iskandar of Tyre.

As the United States and Israel continued their campaign against Iran, bishops and Christian leaders appeal for peace before the conflict escalates any further.