Vatican City (TDI): The Vatican announced Wednesday that Pope Leo XIV will not join President Donald Trump’s newly created “Board of Peace,” a political coalition to address international conflicts starting with the reconstruction of Gaza.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State and its highest diplomatic official, told reporters the Holy See “will not participate in the Board of Peace because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States.”
He underscored a broader concern among Vatican diplomats that international crises should be managed by the United Nations, not ad hoc groups led by individual governments.
“One concern,” he said, “is that at the international level it should above all be the UN that manages these crisis situations. This is one of the points on which we have insisted.”
Pope Leo, the first US-born pontiff and a known critic of parts of Trump’s domestic and foreign policies, was formally invited to participate in January.
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But his decision to decline reflects both the Vatican’s long-standing commitment to multilateral diplomacy and broader unease among Western powers about the structure and intent of Trump’s project.
The “Board of Peace” was initially established under the United States’ Gaza peace plan that helped broker a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in late 2025.
Trump has pitched the board as a new platform for global conflict resolution, with him as its indefinite chair and its first meeting set to take place in Washington on Thursday, to discuss Gaza’s reconstruction.
However, the initiative has drawn skepticism from diplomats and rights experts who warn it risks undermining the authority of the United Nations.
The Vatican’s position echoes the cautious approach of several European nations. While some countries, especially in the Middle East, have agreed to join Trump’s board, key Western powers such as Italy and the EU have limited their involvement to observer status, or declined entirely.
