Pope Leo XIV and Peace
The first public words of Pope Leo XIV were pronounced at his urbi et orbi blessing, May 8, 2025 in the Vatican. He opened his message with ‘Peace be with you all!’ When he delivered his message for the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2026, he used the similar words ‘Peace be with you’, and reiterated words from his first urbi et orbi:
…this is the peace of the risen Christ – a peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. It comes from God who loves us all unconditionally.
Pope Leo identified peace as more than just a goal: ‘it is a presence and a journey’. He points out that global spending on arms is increasing, precipitated by fear of attacks in the current climate of aggression. Leo counters this by calling for dialogue and trust between nations. He rejects the spurious and dangerous use of religion and religious language to justify violence and armed struggle. He quotes Pope John XXIII who advocated integral disarmament, which ultimately aims for the abolition of arms. Interestingly, Pope Leo included peace in his amendments to the Global Compact on Education of Pope Francis (Congregatio De Institutione Catholica, 2021). The Global Compact was addressed to all of humankind, and Pope Francis outlined seven commitments. These were all deeply rooted in Catholic Social Teaching: to make human persons the centre; to listen to the voices of children and young people; to advance women; to empower the family; to welcome; to find new ways of understanding economy and politics; and to safeguard our common home.
In Drawing New Maps of Hope (2025), an Apostolic Letter to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Vatican II Declaration on Christian Education, Pope Leo proposed changing the name of the seven commitments to seven paths and added three new priorities. These are (1) the inner life; (2) the judicious use of technology and AI; and (3) peace:
The third regards unarmed and disarming peace: let us educate in non-violent languages, reconciliation, bridges and not walls. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9) becomes the method and content of learning (paragraph 10.3).
Even at this early stage of his papacy, Pope Leo has strongly opposed violence and war and emphasised peace. In his Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See (January 9, 2026), Pope Leo drew attention to ongoing wars and armed conflicts, including the war between Russia and Ukraine and the war in Gaza. In the next section we will discuss the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Peace in Gaza?
Despite a ceasefire announced in October 2025, the people in Gaza are still experiencing continued attacks by Israeli forces. They are struggling to recover from the long-term effects of a brutal and savage war inflicted upon them and these continued attacks are direct violations of the agreed ceasefire. This means that the people of Gaza still live in fear and there is no real peace. Prior to the fragile ceasefire, there was constant terror and murder wreaked on the people of Gaza, and deliberate and devastating damage caused to the infrastructure of the cities and towns, including the schools and universities. The United Nations has described the actions of the Israeli government as genocide. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on the 21 November 2024 for Mohammed Deif of Hamas, held responsible for the original attack on Jewish people on the seventh of October 2023, the president of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. They were all accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Hamas eventually confirmed that Mohammed Deif had been killed in July 2024 and the proceedings against him were terminated by the ICC. The leaders of the Israeli government have strenuously disputed the legitimacy of referring to their strategy, decisions and actions in the war against Gaza as genocide and reject the accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed.
The remainder of this article examines the consequences of war for higher education in Gaza, the destruction of the educational infrastructure and the attempts to rebuild. From the outset, we wish to make a sharp distinction between the war mongering of the Israeli government on the one hand, and the people of Israel and the world-wide Jewish community on the other.
Scholasticide: Effects of war on education
In recent years, there has been a strong focus on the havoc caused by deliberate attacks on buildings and urban infrastructure during armed conflict and war. There are serious consequences of this damage for normal civil life and for the health and wellbeing of citizens. This damage has been termed urbicide, a term that came into use for the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, and constitutes the intentional destruction of the working, living and recreational spaces for daily life (Coward, M. Urbicide. The Politics of Urban Destruction, London: Routledge, 2009). Further, it involves the destruction of the unique architectural and cultural heritage of an urban location. It can be viewed as contributing to the process of eradicating the culture of a group of people and their collective memory.
One of the serious and debilitating effects of armed conflict and war is, of course, the impact on the education of children and young people. Damage or destruction of the educational infrastructure through attacks on schools, colleges and universities disrupts the learning of children and young people. The intentional systematic attacks on education have become known as scholasticide, a term attributed to Palestinian scholar Karma Nabulsi following the 2008–2009 war on Gaza.
A helpful way to understand scholasticide is to examine the different manifestations of scholasticide and the effects of the attacks on education on teachers, staff and students. First, scholasticide refers to the destruction or damage of the physical infrastructure of education. This includes the buildings and the equipment and learning resources contained in the buildings. Second, it refers to the impact on the people in education, the teachers, pupils and students. They experience the crippling effects of war and are sometimes targeted for intimidation, arrest and even murder. Thirdly, it refers to attempts to erase local knowledge about the distinctive history, the culture and the collective memory of the people being targeted. Any narrative about the war that would challenge the official narrative of an invading, or an occupying force, is suppressed. For example, the children in the parts of Ukraine currently occupied by the Russians are taught that they are free because they were ‘liberated’ by the Russians.
All these forms of attacks on education affect the current and future generations of pupils and students. Pupils and students face physical dangers and serious disruption to their educational progress; future generations face the prospect of rebuilding a severely damaged education infrastructure. These attacks on education constitute clear violations of the human right to education and are proscribed as one of the six grave violations against children in times of war: Attacks against schools and hospitals (UNICEF, 2024). UNICEF insists that schools should be safe spaces for children even in times of conflict or war. Similarly, colleges and universities should be safe spaces for learning.
War in Gaza and the effects on education
There is ample evidence of urbicide in Gaza and a clear indication of extreme forms of scholasticide since October 2023. Within a short period of time, the Israeli military destroyed the Islamic University of Gaza. By early 2024, all of the higher education institutions had been destroyed or severely damaged. In late 2025, UNESCO reported on the damage caused to the 38 campuses of the 21 higher education institutions in Gaza. They found that 95 percent of campuses had been destroyed (22 campuses) or damaged (14 campuses). This intentional attack on higher education cannot be interpreted as part of the collateral damage of warfare. Apart from the consequences of scholasticide for their daily engagement, students and lecturers have also experienced high levels of stress and trauma caused by the brutality of war. This has had a serious impact on the mental health and well-being of students and their capacity to attend to their studies. It is also important to note the deprivation caused by the attacks on food and water provision in Gaza, the related supply chains, and the refusal of the Israeli government to allow adequate aid to be distributed and accessed by the people of the besieged Gaza. This resulted in the United Nations formally declaring a famine in Gaza city on August 22, 2025.
The vast majority of students and academics in Gaza are in the three largest public universities. These are Al-Aqsa University, Al-Azhar University, and the Islamic University of Gaza. These three universities and the affiliated colleges account for between 80-85 percent of the students in the universities in Gaza. In 2024, the three universities formed the Emergency Committee of Universities in Gaza to represent themselves. The aim of this Committee was to resist the attempts to eradicate higher education in Gaza and to provide a unified voice for the academic community. In July 2025, the presidents of the three universities published an open letter decrying the genocidal war and the deliberate attacks on higher education. They argued that the work of the universities continued to exist despite the destruction of university facilities and the murder of staff and students, commenting: ‘Israeli occupation forces have demolished our buildings, but our universities live on’. The passion and drive for education continues. Desai et al. (2025) describe it as follows:
What we are witnessing in Gaza is not just resilience and resistance, it is a radical redefinition of what education is and what it means to teach and learn under the most extreme and difficult conditions imaginable. Palestinian educators and students are continuing to teach and learn, exhibiting levels of resilience and innovation that defy comprehension.
The universities have persisted in educating students in online learning despite the challenges of living under the strain of the daily conditions of war, starvation, power cuts and limited internet access. Lecturers have adapted to the situation and become more creative in their use of the internet and in adopting different forms of communication with students, such as WhatsApp groups. The three presidents called for a sustainable and lasting ceasefire, international support to help rebuild and sustain higher education in Gaza and a recognition of scholasticide in Gaza and the effects of this destruction. Universities across Europe and the UK have offered scholarships to some students from Gaza.
Concluding remarks
It has become abundantly clear that peace in the world is going to be one of the main themes of the papacy of Leo XIV. He understands the devastating effects of violence and war and that violence begets violence. Some contemporary psychologists argue further that hate can be understood to be contagious, in other words, hate begets hate. This can entail chronic conformity and a limit on critical thinking and is a prominent health issue that requires attention on a global scale (Auelaish et. al., 2025). As the people of Gaza rebuild their lives and their homes, restore their social connections and return to some form of normal life, the schools will be restored, and the Higher Education sector infrastructure will be rebuilt. However, for the rebuilding to be successful, a lasting peace will be necessary. In the words of Pope Leo, a peace that is ‘a presence and a journey’.