Pope Leo XIV calls for weapons to fall silent at All Souls Mass in Rome's Verano Cemetery

A Mass for the dead in Rome

Pope Leo XIV celebrated a Mass for All Souls' Day on Monday, 2 November 2026, at the Verano Cemetery in Rome. Hundreds of people had gathered at the cemetery gate before dusk, and Rome's mayor Roberto Gualtieri attended the service. Before the Mass the Pope prayed briefly at one grave and laid a bouquet of white and yellow flowers, the colours of the Vatican City State flag. The service was held in the entrance square despite the threat of rain.

An appeal to silence the weapons

In his homily the Pope asked the faithful to pray for those who had recently lost a loved one, especially those whose relatives died in what he called the senseless violence of war. He said war tears children from their mothers and leaves behind human tragedy and a loss that cannot be borne. He then turned to those who hold power over the fighting and asked them to end the violence and silence the weapons.

“May the tears of so many mothers, children, and elderly people touch the consciences of those who have the power to silence the weapons!”

The Pope also reflected on the Gospel of Matthew, choosing the Beatitude about those who mourn being comforted, and cited the phrase 'our sister, bodily death' from St Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Creatures. He said the tears of victims and their families should stir the conscience of the world and move everyone to work for an end to wars and for peace.

Context: the hospital return and Oleshky

The Mass was the first the Pope has presided over since leaving hospital after an October operation to remove a lung tumour. Ukraine's human rights commissioner Dimitro Lubinets announced on Saturday, 31 October, that residents held in the Ukrainian city of Oleshky had left without incident in a humanitarian operation mediated by the United States. The operation involved a local truce, and on Sunday, 1 November, the Pope said he hoped it would open the way to dialogue and new concrete initiatives for peace. The sequence of these developments is shown below.

The Verano Cemetery and its Polish graves

The Verano was established in the early 19th century and for nearly 200 years was the main burial place for almost all Romans. Many Poles are buried there, among them the painter Aleksander Gierymski (1850-1901), the sculptor Antoni Madeyski (1862-1939) and Janina Zofia Umiastowska (1860-1941), who left her estate to a foundation supporting Polish-Italian cooperation in culture and art. The historian Karolina Lanckorońska (1898-2002), co-founder of the Polish Historical Institute and of the Lanckoroński Foundations, is also buried there. Her foundation backs Polish researchers, and her grave sits among those of many compatriots in a cemetery that once received nearly all of the city's dead.