Peace According to Leo

PEACE NOT AS A BALANCE OF POWER, BUT AS A CONVERSION OF HEART. This is the message that runs through Pope Leo XIV's speeches during his recent apostolic trip to Turkey and Lebanon, confirming a path clearly delineated from the beginning of his pontificate. In a region marked by armed conflict, religious tensions, and social fragility, the Pontiff reiterated that authentic peace does not arise from geopolitical strategies, but from profound interior and relational work.

DURING OFFICIAL SPEECHES and meetings with local communities, Pope Leo XIV repeatedly called for "disarming hearts and words." This expression sums up his vision well: without interior reconciliation, without overcoming fear, resentment, and identity-based rhetoric, every peace project risks remaining fragile and exploitative. It is a conviction that became the hallmark of the first Urbi et Orbi blessing from the central Loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, on the evening of May 8, 2025: "Peace be with you! This is the peace of the Risen Christ, a disarming, humble, and persevering peace. It comes from God, God who loves us all unconditionally." It is a theme that has accompanied the Pontiff since the first homilies of his mandate, and which has taken on a particularly incisive value in the Middle East. Precisely on the occasion of his first apostolic journey abroad, the Holy Father associated the reflection on peace in the evangelical sense with the "logic of smallness." In other words, for him, peace is not the fruit of the imposition of the strong, nor of numerical, economic, or military superiority. On the contrary, it grows through slow and often invisible processes, entrusted to credible communities, capable of bearing witness rather than making claims. In this sense, the Christian Churches of the Middle East, often a minority and prone to fearful self-absorption, are not called to defend themselves by closing themselves off, but to be a leaven of reconciliation in the social fabric.

THE THEME OF PEACE IS INEVITABLY INTERTWINED WITH THAT OF DIALOGUE. In Turkey, the land of the great ecumenical councils, and in Lebanon, a historic laboratory of religious coexistence, the Pope reiterated that ecumenical and interreligious dialogue is not a diplomatic strategy, but an essential dimension of lived faith. Religions, he stated on several occasions, betray their vocation when they become instruments of identity conflict; on the contrary, they contribute to peace when they become places of encounter, listening, and shared responsibility.

POPE LEO, ALSO WITH REFERENCE TO THIS THEME, also paid special attention to the most vulnerable. In references to refugees, migrants, and populations affected by war, a concept of peace emerges that is closely tied to justice and human dignity, in complete continuity with the teaching of Pope Francis. There can be no peace, Pope Prevost recalled, where social wounds are ignored or normalized. "Facade" peace, which fails to address the concrete suffering of people, remains a fragile construction, destined to collapse.
Finally, Pope Leo XIV placed the theme of peace in a broader perspective. Full peace is never completely achievable in history, but this does not exempt believers from the responsibility of building it day by day. It is a horizon that guides action, not an alibi for inaction. In this sense, peace becomes a vocation entrusted to Christian communities and to all men and women of good will. The trip to Turkey and Lebanon thus appears not as an isolated episode, but as a significant step in a magisterium that rejects any sacralization of violence and proposes a demanding peace, rooted in personal conversion, authentic dialogue, and care for the least privileged. A message that goes against the grain, but one more necessary than ever in a time marked by new and ancient divisions.


NP January 2026
Claudio Monge