ANKARA: Pope Leo lamented that the world was seeing an unusual number of bloody conflicts during his first trip outside Italy as Catholic leader on Thursday, and he warned that a third world war was being "fought piecemeal" with humanity's future at risk.
In his first speech given overseas since his election in May to lead the 1.4 billion-member Church, Leo, the first US pope, said "ambitions and choices that trample on justice and peace" were destabilising the world.
He told political leaders in Türkiye that the world was experiencing "a heightened level of conflict on the global level, fuelled by prevailing strategies of economic and military power".
"We must in no way give in to this," he pleaded at an event with President Tayyip Erdogan after they held a private meeting. "The future of humanity is at stake."
Speaking before the pope, Erdogan said that he welcomed the pope's "astute stance" on the Palestinian issue, and hoped the visit would be beneficial for humanity at a time of tension and uncertainty.
In September, Leo met Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the Vatican and raised the "tragic situation" in Gaza with him.
The first US pope chose Türkiye as his first overseas destination to mark the 1,700th anniversary of a landmark early Church council there that produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world's Christians today.
Speaking to journalists aboard the papal flight from Rome, Leo said he wanted to use his first overseas trip to urge peace for the world, and to encourage people of different backgrounds to live together in harmony.
"We hope to... announce, transmit, proclaim how important peace is throughout the world," the pope said at the beginning of the three-hour flight. "And to invite all people to come together, to search for greater unity, greater harmony."
"It's a very important trip because we do not know much yet about Leo's geopolitical views, and this is the first big chance for him to make them clear," Massimo Faggioli, an Italian academic who follows the Vatican, said.
Francis had been planning to visit Türkiye and Lebanon but was unable to go because of his worsening health.
Francis, who led the global Church for 12 years, often said the conflicts raging across the globe reflected a new "piecemeal" world war and pleaded for the end of wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and across Africa, among others.
He will fly on Thursday evening to Istanbul, home to Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's 260 million Orthodox Christians.
Orthodox and Catholic Christians split in the East-West Schism of 1054, but have generally sought in recent decades to build closer ties.
Leo and Bartholomew travel on Friday to Iznik, 140 km southeast of Istanbul and once called Nicaea, where early churchmen formulated the Nicene Creed, which lays out what remain the core beliefs of most Christians today.
On the flight to Ankara, two journalists presented the American pope with pumpkin pies, a staple of the US Thanksgiving holiday that was also taking place on Thursday. - Reuters
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