Pope Leo celebrated Mass and spoke at the opening session for the consistory today. He said that "war is never worthy of humanity, and it is never blessed by God."
"Therefore, in helping me in the exercise of the Petrine ministry, you will find in me one who asks, not commands. Moreover, the authority of primacy belongs to the one who listens and only then leads, to the one who learns and only then teaches, always following the one and only Teacher."
This was the conclusion of Pope Leo's homily this June 26, at the opening Mass of the gathering of the world's cardinals.
The Holy Father elaborated on three points: freedom of faith, gift of peace in unity, and harmony through obedience.
Here is the full text of the homily.
One of the issues on the cardinals' agenda is a discussion of the criteria for just war, criteria that were proposed precisely by Pope Leo's spiritual father, St. Augustine, in the 400s. In his encyclical released in March, the Pope suggested that the concept of just war is out of date, in a world of nuclear weapons and AI killing.
The homily this morning seemed to set the stage for this discussion, in the section on "gift of peace in unity."
The Pope said:
Second, we ask for the gift of peace in unity. Even as we invite all peoples to the faith in which we are truly free, international tensions and conflicts seriously wound the human family. At the same time, the Church and the world are not lacking initiatives and experiences that call for respect for human dignity, justice, the rule of law and simply for what is human. Indeed, there are many such examples. This is a source of hope, for it attests to the beauty of the work of God, who created us in his image and likeness as a sign of his glory in the world. Whenever this sign is wounded, we are all wounded. Whenever it is corrupted, we all suffer. Whenever it is destroyed, we all feel torn apart. Therefore, war is never worthy of humanity, and it is never blessed by God, because, even if we are equipped with high-tech weapons, the Creator has endowed us with intelligence and free will to resolve conflicts as human beings and not as beasts. That the unity of the human family takes precedence over individual peoples and states is not merely a biological fact; it is an ethical principle. Peace is a duty of justice because we are one human family, a magnifica humanitas that finds its head and redeemer in Christ.
As we reflect on the Encyclical that I promulgated on 15 May last, we must persevere along the path outlined by Saint Paul VI, for when he “coined the phrase ‘the civilization of love,’ the world was in the midst of the Cold War, an arms race and severe economic instability. In that context, the Church proposed an alternative path to that of ideological opposition between systems, and envisioned a social order in which justice and charity are intertwined” (Encyclical Letter Magnifica Humanitas, 186. Cf. Saint Paul VI, Regina Caeli, 17 May 1970). Indeed, this is how Christian witness becomes prophecy, evangelization and service for a new world, as well as a cultural and social project that promotes integral human development. As she proclaims the Gospel, amid both joys and persecutions, the Church is never partial, since she is for everyone, and to each she addresses the same message of conversion and salvation.
