🇮🇹 Versione italiana
Vatican City – This morning, 16 May 2025, Pope Leo XIV received the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy Seefor the first time. In a speech of profound pastoral intensity and cultural depth, the Pontiff outlined the fundamental directions of Vatican diplomacy for the new pontificate. It was a speech that stands as a genuine manifesto of spiritual geopolitical vision, structured around three central pillars: peace, justice, and truth.
A Diplomacy “from the Heart” for All Humanity
Right from the outset, Leo XIV adopted a personal, confiding, yet profoundly evangelical tone. His assertion that “Pontifical diplomacy is an expression of the very catholicity of the Church” marked a key point: the Church is universalnot through conquest, but through a vocation to communion. For this reason, he said, its diplomacy does not seek privilege but rather “fights indifference and constantly awakens consciences”. Throughout the address, it was evident that the new Pope envisions a diplomacy born of the Gospel – from the heart, from personal conversion, and rooted in dialogue, not confrontation. His statement “peace is built in the heart and from the heart” encapsulates an entire Christian anthropology: there can be no external peace without inner peace.
Peace: Not Merely the Absence of War, but an Active Gift
The first key word, peace, is also the most urgent. The Pontiff forcefully clarified that peace is not a truce or a passive state, but a demanding vocation that challenges all: “Peace is an active, engaging gift that concerns and involves each one of us.” Within this horizon, Leo XIV renewed the commitment to interreligious dialogue and respect for religious freedom as necessary preconditions for building peaceful relations. His appeal was clear-eyed and free from illusions: peace is impossible without “a sincere will for dialogue” and without a revival of multilateral diplomacy, now often stifled by self-interest and power-driven logics. In this context, the citation from Pope Francis’ Urbi et Orbi message on the urgency of disarmament resounded with particular force: “There is no peace without real disarmament.”
Justice: Against Inequality and for Human Dignity
If peace is the goal, justice is the path. Leo XIV explicitly linked the two concepts, quoting Leo XIII and the encyclical Rerum Novarum, from which he also drew inspiration in choosing his papal name. His denunciation of global inequalities, “undignified working conditions”, and “fragmented and conflict-ridden societies” was direct and unequivocal. Yet the Pope went beyond denunciation, offering a concrete proposal rooted in the centrality of the familyand the protection of human dignity at every stage of life, from the unborn child to the migrant. His vision is of an integral justice that embraces both structures and personal vulnerabilities. The phrase: “Each of us, over the course of life, may find ourselves healthy or ill, employed or unemployed, at home or in a foreign land – but our dignity always remains the same” distils a profoundly Christian view of the human person and society.
Truth: Against Ambiguity, for a Frank and Honest Language
The third key word, truth, may well be the boldest. Leo XIV clearly denounced “ambiguous and ambivalent words” and the distortion of perception of reality caused by the virtual world. In such a context, the Church cannot remain silent: it has the duty to “speak the truth about man and the world”, even through a “frank language” that may provoke misunderstanding but is born of charity. For Leo XIV, truth is not an abstract concept but a living person: Christ himself. This is why truth does not divide, but unites, as it enables us to face the great challenges of our time – migration, artificial intelligence, and care for creation – with clarity. These are complex issues that the Pope fully recognises he cannot address alone: they “require the commitment and collaboration of all.”
A Pontificate Rooted in Hope
In the heart of the Jubilee Year of Hope, Leo XIV chooses to ground his diplomatic mission – and with it his entire pontificate – on three spiritual and anthropological foundations: truth, justice, and peace. In today’s context, these three words are also deeply counter-revolutionary, as they reject all cynicism and power-driven logic. In a time of profound international divisions, institutional crises, and moral disorientation, the Pope, a son of Augustine, offers a proposal for unity founded on the heart and truth. He does so as a man, a pastor, and the Successor of Peter, aware that the only real diplomacy is that which does not fear reality, but allows itself to be moved by grace.
As he took his leave of the ambassadors, he said: “I hope this may come to pass in all contexts, starting with those most afflicted, such as Ukraine and the Holy Land.”
This hope becomes a programme for the pontificate – a pontificate that will not be neutral, but radically evangelical: committed to truth, for justice, in peace.
d.I.C.
Silere non possum