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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The realism of mercy versus false realism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A conversion that begins with oneself<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n