On Thursday, after Leo called for peace in his first public address as pope without mentioning Gaza, Rabbi Noam Marans, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious and intergroup relations, emphasized that such calls are standard fare from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. “All popes want peace,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Monday called for the release of imprisoned journalists and affirmed the “precious gift of free speech and the press” in an audience with some of the 6,000 journalists who descended on Rome to cover his election as the first American pontiff.

Amid global conflicts, the new pope will need to forge new bonds. Experts say he has the background and the skills that will demonstrate that he's up to the task.

The Catholic office overseeing the Gaza church with which the late Pope Francis communicated daily has shared with Newsweek a message following the selection of a new pontiff in the midst of the ongoing war.