Pope Leo XIV to diplomats: Peace and justice can be achieved by investing in the family
Vatican City, May 16, 2025 /
11:59 am
Pope Leo XIV on Friday said peaceful societies can be achieved if governments invested in families “founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman” in his first address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See.
Welcoming more than 100 ambassadors to an audience held inside the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, the Holy Father stated that resolving global inequalities as well as deep divisions between “continents, countries, and individual societies” starts in the home.
“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,’” he added, citing Rerum Novarum.
“Indeed, 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,” he remarked.
In his May 16 audience with the diplomatic corps, the Holy Father said peace, justice, and truth are the “three essential words” and pillars of the Church’s evangelical mission and outreach and “the aim of the Holy See’s diplomacy” with states and sovereignties.
“The first word is peace,” he said. “All too often we consider it a ‘negative’ word, indicative only of the absence of war and conflict, since opposition is a perennial part of human nature, frequently leading us to live in a constant ‘state of conflict’ at home, at work, and in society.”
Reiterating his message of peace on the day of his May 8 election, the Holy Father told the ambassadors present at the gathering that peace, “the first gift of Christ,” is an “active and demanding gift” necessary for building relationships.
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