In November, the United Nations Security Council approved Resolution 2803, a U.S.-led plan to conclude the Israel-Hamas War. It outlined disarmament benchmarks, an Israeli withdrawal timeline, and a peacekeeping force, and called for a Board of Peace, chaired by President Donald Trump, to oversee Gaza’s transition.
This month at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the President formally ratified the Board and named an executive group of Trump Administration officials, global leaders, and technocrats. Sixty countries were invited; twenty have accepted. Among those states still mulling the proposal is the Vatican, with the Vatican Secretary of State telling reporters that “the Pope has seen it, and we are deciding what to do.”
Despite his somewhat obscure religious beliefs, Trump has long considered the Papacy a viable diplomatic asset, despite conventional wisdom. Trump held his first in-person meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at St. Peter’s in advance of Pope Francis’s funeral mass. Last summer, Trump floated the Vatican as a neutral ground for negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war, an idea the Russians firmly rejected, with Foreign Minister Lavrov calling the plan “a bit inelegant,” given Russia and Ukraine’s shared Orthodox majorities.
The Pope himself has expressed a marked interest in international diplomacy. Perhaps more directly than his predecessors, Pope Leo has positioned the Vatican as a force to maintain the rules-based order of the last century. As he warned his Diplomatic Corps, “the principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined.” Leo has not shied away from criticizing inconsistent Western policy on Ukraine, draconian censorship in Europe, and American provocations towards Greenland. Despite his support of international cooperation, Leo has expressed dismay at heritage institutions like the United Nations, which he described as “[having] lost its ability to bring people together on multilateral issues.”
The Pope’s interest in being on the cutting edge of international cooperation places him in a long tradition at St. Peter’s. The first major international organization of the liberal-democratic West, the League of Nations was quickly engaged by the Papacy following its formation in 1920. In 1921 and 1922, the Pope wrote to the League, expressing his interest in collaboration on international peace and aid initiatives. Even non-Catholic delegates at the League warmly received this overture, like the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen, who described the Pope as a “great guardian of souls” and cited the Holy Father’s interest in the League as a vindication of its key principles.
The Papal diplomatic tradition continued after the Second World War, even though it was bitterly resisted by the world’s Communist powers. In a famous, and perhaps apocryphal scene, Winston Churchill raised the idea of the Pope’s inclusion in negotiations over the postwar situation at the Tehran Conference, to which Stalin reportedly replied, “The Pope? How many divisions has he?” By the 1960s, the Papacy would enter a formal role in the United Nations as a permanent observer, with Paul VI giving his iconic speech to the General Assembly in 1965, where he implored the nations of the world, “never again war, never again war! It is peace, peace, that has to guide the destiny of the nations of all mankind!”
Pope Leo, by entering into this venerable tradition of papal diplomatic engagement, has the potential to bring the “work of peace,” which has always been central to the Pope’s mission, into the 21st century. By joining the Board of Peace, Pope Leo can be a firm moral voice in support of human dignity, social justice, and accord among nations.
Of course, there is always the possibility that the Board of Peace is merely a publicity stunt for the President and will bear no real fruit. In that case, the Pope has little to lose by joining as an advisor. Yet if this ambitious foreign policy gambit pays off, the Pope has the world to gain: the opportunity to help ensure a just and humane future for the more than two million people who call the Gaza Strip home.
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Comment by Glenn Wheeler on January 28, 2026 at 7:46 pm
The Board of Peace is way more than a publicity stunt. It is an evil, disgusting, guise to dispossess Gazans from their land and turn it over to the Israelis. The very idea of this is revolting and frankly makes me sick.
If there is anything Christian about the Pope, he will keep his distance from that demonic charade.
Comment by Qohelet on January 29, 2026 at 10:43 pm
I agree with Glenn.
Comment by Wilson R. on January 30, 2026 at 2:20 pm
I agree with Glenn, too. His very strong language was, if anything, not strong enough.