“Peace be with you!”. “Thank you for all the work you are doing.” These were the opening and closing words of Pope Leo XIV’s first address to members of the Diplomatic Corps, a traditional occasion for a global overview of the international situation. For the Pope, three words encapsulate the mission of pontifical diplomacy: peace, justice, and truth. Those three pillars provide the foundation for addressing the significant challenges facing the world today:
“Migration, the ethical use of artificial intelligence and the protection of our beloved planet Earth.”
The first image chosen by the Holy Father in the Clementine Hall portrays the Holy See’s diplomatic community as a family that “represents the entire family of peoples, resisting all forms of indifference, it appeals to consciences, as witnessed by the constant efforts of my venerable predecessor, ever attentive to the cry of the poor, the needy and the marginalized, as well as to contemporary challenges, ranging from the protection of creation to artificial intelligence.”
“Your presence here today is a gift for me”,
the Pope’s tribute. “In a certain sense, my own life experience, which has spanned North America, South America and Europe, has been marked by this aspiration to transcend borders in order to encounter different peoples and cultures”, he said. The first word is peace, mentioned and invoked repeatedly ever since he first appeared at the Balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica. It is not a “negative” word, indicative only of the absence of war and conflict”: “it is an active and demanding gift. It engages and challenges each of us, regardless of our cultural background or religious affiliation, demanding first of all that we work on ourselves”:
“Peace is built in the heart and from the heart, by eliminating pride and vindictiveness and carefully choosing our words. For words too, not only weapons, can wound and even kill”,
the words inspired by Augustinian spirituality.
“Eliminate the root causes of all conflicts and every destructive urge for conquest.”
It is a task that not only religions, but each one of us is called to carry out: “It demands a genuine willingness to engage in dialogue, inspired by the desire to communicate rather than clash. At an international level,
“There is a need to give new life to multilateral diplomacy”
and to those international institutions conceived and designed to remedy eventual disputes. “Naturally, there must also be a resolve to halt the production of instruments of destruction and death, since, as Pope Francis noted in his last Urbi et Orbi Message, no peace is possible without true disarmament [and] the requirement that every people provide for its own defence must not turn into a race to rearmament.” Moreover, working for peace “requires acting justly.” As he did at his first Mass with the cardinals, Pope Leo XIV returned to explain his choice of papal name in his address to the ambassadors. “I chose my name thinking first of all of Leo XIII, the Pope of the first great social Encyclical, Rerum Novarum.” “In this time of epochal change,
the Holy See cannot fail to make its voice heard in the face of the many imbalances and injustices that lead, not least, to unworthy working conditions and increasingly fragmented and conflict-ridden societies,” the way forward: Every effort should be made to overcome the global inequalities – between opulence and destitution – that are carving deep divides between continents, countries and even within individual societies.”
“It is the responsibility of government leaders to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil societies”, his appeal to the powerful of the world. “This can be achieved above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman, “a small but genuine society, and prior to all civil society.” In addition, for Leo XIV, “no one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike.”
“My own story is that of a citizen, the descendant of immigrants, who in turn chose to emigrate”,
he said, adding a personal note: “All of us, in the course of our lives, can find ourselves healthy or sick, employed or unemployed, living in our native land or in a foreign country, yet our dignity always remains unchanged: it is the dignity of a creature willed and loved by God.” “Truly peaceful relationships cannot be built, also within the international community, apart from truth”, the Pope said with regard the third key word, addressing the issue of communication once more, as he had done in the first public audience granted to journalists.
“Where words take on ambiguous and ambivalent connotations, and the virtual world, with its altered perception of reality, takes over unchecked, it is difficult to build authentic relationships, since the objective and real premises of communication are lacking”, remarked the Holy Father
“For her part,
the Church can never be exempted from speaking the truth about humanity and the world, resorting whenever necessary to blunt language that may initially create misunderstanding.
Yet truth can never be separated from charity, which always has at its root a concern for the life and well-being of every man and woman.” “leave conflicts behind and embark on a new path, confident that, by working together, each of us in accordance with his or her own sensibilities and responsibilities, can build a world in which everyone can lead an authentically human life in truth, justice and peace”. The Pope concluded with a final message:
“It is my hope that this will be the case everywhere, starting with those places that suffer most grievously, like Ukraine and the Holy Land.”
