Pope Leo XIV: If you want peace, prepare institutions of peace
Speaking with participants in last year’s Arena of Peace, Pope Leo says the Gospel and the Church’s social doctrine are a constant source of support for Christians, and a compass for everyone in efforts to build peace.
Pope Leo on Friday received more than 300 representatives of associations and movements that took part in the 2024 “Arena of Peace” in the Italian city of Verona.
The encounter, which took place in the Vatican, marked a “return visit,” repaying Pope Francis’ participation in last year’s event, and aimed to relaunch the traditional Verona gatherings as a forum for discussions and proposals concerning the Church’s social doctrine.
Standing with victims
In his remarks to the group, Pope Leo XIV echoed Pope Francis, who said that “building peace starts by standing alongside victims and seeing things from their point of view.” “This approach is essential,” he said, “for disarming hearts, approaches, and mentalities, and for denouncing the injustices of a system that kills and is based on the throwaway culture.”
The pope highlighted the “courageous embrace” of an Israeli and a Palestinian, each of whom had had family members killed during the conflict in Gaza. “They are now friends and work with one another,” the Pope said, adding that their gesture “remains as a testimony and sign of hope.”
Pope Leo explained that “the path to peace requires hearts and minds trained and formed to be attentive to the other, and capable of recognizing the common good in today’s context.”
In this regard, he said that the commitment of those taking part in the Arena of Peace events “is particularly precious” because their concrete projects and actions “generate hope.”
Educating young people in peacebuilding
Lamenting the violence in our world and in our societies, Pope Leo said that young people need “to be able to experience the culture of life, dialogue and mutual respect,” especially through good examples. Those who “resist the temptation to seek revenge” after having suffered injustice and violence “become the most credible agents of non-violent peace-building processes.”
Non-violence, he said, “as a method and a style, must distinguish our decisions, our relationships, and our actions.”
The Holy Father said the Gospel and the Church’s social doctrine are “a constant source of support for Christians in this effort,” as well as a “compass for everyone” since peacebuilding is “a task entrusted to all.”
Preparing institutions of peace
Concluding his remarks, Pope Leo said, “If you want peace, prepare institutions of peace” — not just political institutions, but educational, economic, and social one’s as well. “For this reason,” he said, “I encourage you to remain committed and present: present within history as a leaven of unity, communion, and fraternity,” adding that “fraternity must be recovered, loved, experienced, proclaimed and witnessed, in the confident hope that it is indeed possible, thanks to the love of God ‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.’”
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