Pope Francis prayed for peace from St. Peter’s Square. “War only brings death and destruction,” he said. “I call on all parties to keep alive the flame of dialogue and self-control and avoid the shadow of enmity.”

If the U.S. were to directly bomb Iran, it could spark a war and lead to region-wide violence, potentially drawing other countries into a global conflict.

Christians have just begun to trickle back to communities that had been devastated first by ISIS then by the Iraqi and U.S. coalition forces that drove out ISIS. Those forces include the Shiite militia that have been targeted by the Trump administration over the last week.

"The wounds of the Islamic State have not been healed yet, together with the ongoing violence, poverty, unemployment and poor services that have pushed thousands of people, especially youth, to demonstrate peacefully, demanding the right to live with dignity and freedom in a stable, secure and strong independent homeland," Cardinal Louis Sako, patriarch of Chaldean Catholics, said of anti-government protests.

Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, decries the sectarianism that is prevalent in his country.

Amid deadly protests in Iraq, a people's uprising in Lebanon and continued suffering in Syria, Catholic leaders of the Middle East called upon officials of their homelands to "ensure safety, peace and tranquility and stability for their citizens."