Pope Leo XIV experienced his first meeting with the participants of the 47th Meeting for Friendship between Peoples, in Rimini, an event in which he became the second pontiff to participate personally after John Paul II.

Returning to this year’s motto – “The love that moves the sun and the other stars”, taken from the last verse of Dante’s Divine Comedy – the Pope recalled that in the face of wars, inequalities, polarization and the profound cultural and technological transformations that humanity is going through, the love of God continues to be the force capable of sustaining, attracting and transforming human life. “Before borders, definitions and institutions, there are always people,” he said.

The realism of mercy versus false realism

Leo He insisted that the redeeming love of Christ requires purifying from the roots what the culture of power has contaminated: thoughts, interests, relationships, projects and investments.

A conversion that begins with oneself

The Pontiff invited the participants to put their abilities at the service of a genuine personal and social conversion, leaving behind the search for glory or prestige to seek, instead, the humility that is manifested in Bethlehem and on the cross. This conversion, he said, must reach all areas: free coexistence from mistrust, education from ideologies, work from the idolatry of profit, and set limits on technological development when it becomes invasive or destructive.

Young people: the future as a promise, not a threat

The Pope dedicated a central part of his message to the young people present, many of them volunteers at the Meeting, whom he encouraged to see the future not as a threat but as a promise. He invited them to live an open catholicity, which does not close itself to one’s own group or movement, but rather goes out to meet all of humanity, especially the poorest.

Build the civilization of love

Leo He encouraged young people not to be ashamed of their faith or their belonging to the Church, remembering that even in highly secularized societies there is still a new generation willing to discover Christ freely.

Synodality as a way of listening

Finally, the Pope called on Christians to give a credible testimony of life despite their own limitations, and to live synodality as a real capacity to listen to each other: to listen to God, to the members of the Church and also to those who seek the truth outside of it. He asked Communion and Liberation and the other ecclesial realities to walk together, understanding authority as service and unity as a construction shared with the Church and the successor of Peter.

You can read the full speech in the original Vatican News note:

🔗 The love that moves the world, calls for conversion, peace and the civilization of love

Photography: @VaticanMedia