Every papal diplomat must let people know that the Church is always on the side of the marginalised and is ready to face everything “out of love”, Pope Leo XIV said yesterday. Source: CNS.
“I count on you so that everyone in the countries where you live may know that the Church is always ready for everything out of love, that she is always on the side of the least, the poor and that she will always defend the sacrosanct right to believe in God, to believe that this life is not at the mercy of the powers of this world, but is permeated by a mysterious meaning,” the Pope said.
As part of the Jubilee of the Holy See, Pope Leo met at the Vatican with apostolic nuncios and other papal diplomats, mostly archbishops, who represent the Pope to international institutions and national governments. There are more than 100 nunciatures around the world.
“Your role, your ministry, is irreplaceable,” the Pope told them, thanking them for their dedication and especially for their work in helping with the selection of candidates to become diocesan bishops.
A diplomatic corps as universal and united “as ours does not exist in any other country in the world”, he told the group of prelates who are chosen from around the world and usually sent to study at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome.
“Your, our, communion is not merely functional, nor an idea; we are united in Christ, and we are united in the Church,” he said. “The diplomacy of the Holy See constitutes in its very personnel a model – certainly not perfect, but very meaningful – of the message it proposes: that of human fraternity and peace among all peoples.”
As Pope, “the ministry of Peter is to create relationships, bridges: and a representative of the Pope, first and foremost, serves this invitation” to build relationships by looking at those they meet with the eyes of Peter, he said.
“Be men capable of building relationships where it is hardest to do,” the Pope told them. “But in doing so, preserve the same humility and the same realism of Peter, who is well aware that he does not have the solution to everything, but he knows he has what counts, namely Christ.”
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Papal diplomats must always defend poor, religious freedom, Pope says (By Carol Glatz, CNS)
