Corrispondenza Romana
May 21, 2025
Two words recur frequently in Pope Leo XIV's speeches from the very beginning of his pontificate: “peace” and “unity.” Peace is what the Pontiff invokes in the face of an international scenario that in the Regina Caeli of May 12 he described as "dramatic." Unity is what the Church needs in order to face a fragmented world, as he explained in his May 18 enthronement speech.
The world is indeed torn apart by geopolitical conflicts, but Pope Leo knows well how even the Church, after the pontificate of Pope Francis, is deeply divided internally, and he would like instead “a united Church that becomes leaven for a reconciled world.”
“Peace be with you all!” exclaimed Leo XIV when he showed himself to the world from the Loggia of Benedictions on the evening of his election. But the Pope was keen to emphasize that it is the “peace of the Risen Christ,” “a disarmed peace and a disarming, humble and persevering peace,” coming from God.
Therefore, in his May 14 address to the Jubilee of the Eastern Churches, the Pontiff recalled that the peace of which he speaks is the peace of Christ, who specifies to his disciples, "I leave you peace, I give you my peace. Not as the world gives it, I give it to you" (Jn. 14:27). “The peace of Christ,” Pope Leo explained, "is not the silence of the tomb after conflict, it is not the result of being overwhelmed, but it is a gift that looks at people and reactivates their lives." “Who more than you,” the Pope added, "can sing words of hope in the abyss of violence? It is true: from the Holy Land to Ukraine, from Lebanon to Syria, from the Middle East to Tigray and the Caucasus, how much violence! And over all this horror, over the massacres of so many young lives, which should provoke outrage, because, in the name of military conquest, it is people who die, an appeal stands out: not that of the Pope, but of Christ, who repeats: peace be upon you!"
Similarly, the unity the Pope invokes is not that which the world gives, but that of Christ, as he reaffirmed May 18, at the Mass at the beginning of his pontificate: "We want to say to the world, with humility and with joy: look to Christ! Draw near to Him! Receive His Word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his proposal of love to become his one family: in the one Christ, we are one."
Pope Leo XIV's motto, “In the One Christ We Are One,” relates directly to that prayer of Jesus in the Gospel of St. John, which St. Pius X, in his Apostolic Letter Quoties animum of Feb. 2, 1911, commented on in these words: "As often as we think of the prayers addressed by Christ to the eternal Father, and recorded in chapter 17 of the Gospel of St. John, We are always intensely moved, and we feel an ardent desire to see the multitude of believers arrive at that degree of charity which would make them all ‘one heart and one soul’ (Acts 4:32). How much the divine Master desired this fraternal union is clearly shown by the prayers he made on behalf of the Apostles: ‘Father of Heaven, keep in thy name those whom thou have entrusted to me, so that they may be one as we are’ (Jn. 17:11)."
“These words,” St. Pius X continues, "do not refer only to the College of Apostles, but the unity spoken of in them must be that of all Christ's servants, as the following words well demonstrate: ‘Nor for these alone do I pray; but I pray also for those who will believe in me, by their word: that they may all be one, as you are in me, Father, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me’ (Jn. 17-20-21). How close this union is to be, these ardent words testify; ‘I in them and you in me; that they may be perfect in unity’ (Jn. 17:23)."
The Church is a universal society destined to unite all the peoples of the earth into one family. Its unity is that of one faith, one hope, and one charity, like that which united the apostles in the “Cor unum et anima una” of the early centuries.
Two important anniversaries in the history of the Church occur during 2025. The first is the promulgation of the encyclical Quas primas on December 11, 1925. In this document Pius XI, recalling Leo XIII, affirmed that the whole human race is under the power of Jesus Christ and “men, united in society, are no less under the power of Christ than are individual men.” He then added, "Oh, what happiness we could enjoy if individuals, families and society would allow themselves to be governed by Christ!" "Then truly, to use the words that Our Predecessor Leo XIII addressed twenty-five years ago to all the bishops of the Catholic orb (Enc. Annum sanctum, May 25, 1899), so many wounds could be healed, then every right would regain its ancient strength, the goods of peace would return, swords would fall from their hands, when all would willingly accept the empire of Christ, obey Him, and every tongue proclaim that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father."
"Christ Reigns! " the Pope concluded: "It is necessary that He reign in the mind of man, which with perfect submission, must give firm and constant assent to the revealed truths and doctrine of Christ; that He reign in the will, which must obey the divine laws and precepts; that He reign in the heart, which, less appreciating the natural affections, must love God more than anything and be united to Him alone; that He reign in the body and members, which, as instruments, or in the words of the Apostle Paul, as ‘weapons of righteousness’ (Rom 6:13) offered to God to serve the internal holiness of souls."
The second anniversary we commemorate this year is that of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea which, in 325, dogmatically defined the divinity of Christ against the Arian heresy. The voice of St. Athanasius, the fearless fighter against heretical bishops and priests, reaches from the fourth century to our own day: "It is not only from today that the order and laws of the Church date. They were handed down to us, perfectly and safely by the Fathers. Faith did not have its beginning today, but came to us from the Lord, through his disciples. Let us not, therefore, in our day, abandon that Tradition preserved in the Churches from the beginning; nor are we to be unfaithful to what has been entrusted to us! Brethren, You, as stewards of the Mysteries of God, let yourselves be shaken, seeing that everything is taken from us" (P.G., vol. 27, coll. 239-240).
If Pope Leo XIV wants to reconstitute the internal unity of the Church, there is no other way but to abrogate, correct, or ignore the March 19, 2016 Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, the Abu Dhabi Document on Human Brotherhood, of February 4, 2019, the letter Traditionis custodes, of July 16, 2021, the Declaration Fiducia supplicans, of December 18, 2023, which have created so many divisions among Catholics, facing all the persecution that this will entail: a martyrdom that will be certainly moral, if not bloody.
But did he not himself evoke the example of St. Ignatius of Antioch? “He, being led in chains to this city, the place of his impending sacrifice, wrote to the Christians there, 'Then I shall truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world does not see my body' (Letter to the Romans, IV, 1). He was referring to being devoured by the beasts in the circus -- and so it happened -- but his words recall in a more general sense an inalienable commitment for anyone in the Church who exercises a ministry of authority: to disappear so that Christ may remain, to make oneself small so that He may be known and glorified (cf. Jn. 3:30), to spend oneself to the utmost so that no one lacks the opportunity to know and love Him. May God give me this grace, today and always, with the help of the tender intercession of Mary Mother of the Church."
Our prayer is no different: that the Holy Father Leo XIV will receive this grace and that, with the help of Our Lady, he will respond to it heroically.
