New Pope Insists: According to Pope Leo XIV, marriage is the union of a man and a woman.
According to Pope Leo XIV, conventional marriage and safeguarding the lives of the most vulnerable, including unborn infants, are essential to the development and upkeep of peaceful civil societies.
The American pope made his first significant signal that he would put an end to the Catholic Church’s theological ambiguity surrounding marriage in a speech to the Diplomatic Corps of the Holy See.
The Pope, who was born in Chicago, also made remarks that demonstrate how important marriage is to him in restoring troubled Western countries.
Pope St. John Paul II’s teachings, especially in his 1995 letter Evangelium Vitae, clearly opposed abortion, euthanasia, and other serious violations of the value of human life, and they seem to strongly support the Holy Father’s protection of the elderly and unborn child.
Pope Leo stated, “Building peaceful and harmonious civic societies is the duty of government leaders.
“Investing in the family, which is based on a man and woman’s stable union, a tiny but sincere society, and civic society, is the best way to achieve this.
Furthermore, everyone should work to uphold the dignity of all people, especially the weakest and most vulnerable—from the unborn to the aged, from the ill to the unemployed, and from citizens to foreigners.
Pope Leo XIV continued his topic of fostering peace by cautioning his listeners against considering the word “peace” as a “negative” concept that simply refers to the absence of conflict and war.
“Opposition is a perennial part of human nature, frequently leading us to live in a constant state of conflict’ at home, at work, and in society,” he remarked, referring to its negative use.
The Pope stated that, given tensions will always exist no matter how hard we try, “peace then appears simply as a respite, a pause between one dispute and another; it is like embers burning beneath the ashes, ready to ignite at any moment.”
According to Leo, “peace is first and foremost a gift,” which is true both in Christianity and other religions.
However, it is a demanding and active gift. Regardless of our cultural background or religious affiliation, it engages and challenges everyone of us, requiring us to first work on ourselves.
By shedding arrogance and retaliation, and using our words thoughtfully, we can cultivate peace from our hearts. Because words have the same power as weapons to injure and even kill.
According to the pope, religions and interfaith discussion may play a significant role in promoting a peaceful environment.
Leo stated: “Since religious experience is a fundamental aspect of the human condition, it follows that religious freedom must be fully respected in every nation.
“Without it, bringing about the purification of the heart required for establishing harmonious relationships is difficult, if not impossible.”
“This endeavor, in which we are all asked to participate,” he added, “may start to eradicate the underlying roots of all conflicts and every destructive desire for conquest. It necessitates a sincere desire to converse, motivated by a desire to communicate rather than to argue.
Therefore, it is necessary to revitalize multilateral diplomacy and those international organizations that were created largely to resolve future conflicts within the global community.
Since no peace is “possible without true disarmament [and] the requirement that every people provide for its own defense must not turn into a race to rearmament,” as Pope Francis stated in his most recent Urbi et Orbi Message, “there must naturally also be a resolve to stop the production of instruments of destruction and death.”
The pope cited the fact that he named himself after Leo XIII, the author of the first significant social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, and stated that fighting for peace necessitates acting justly.
In light of the numerous injustices and imbalances that contribute to, among other things, deplorable working conditions and increasingly divided and conflict-ridden society, the Pope stated: “The Holy See cannot fail to make its voice heard in this time of epochal change.”
“Every attempt should be made to address the global disparities between wealth and poverty that are causing severe divisions among nations, continents, and even within societies.”
“Truly peaceful relationships cannot be built, also within the international community, apart from truth,” Pope Leo said after discussing the concept of truth.
According to him, it is challenging to establish genuine connections when words acquire vague and conflicting meanings and the virtual world, with its distorted view of reality, takes over unchecked because there are insufficient objective and genuine communication grounds.
The Church must always tell the truth about people and the world, even if it means using direct language that could cause misunderstandings. However, charity, which always is concerned with the life and well-being of every man and woman at its core, and truth are inextricably linked,” the pope added.
He said, “From a Christian perspective, truth is an encounter with the person of Christ himself, alive in the community of believers, rather than the affirmation of abstract and disembodied principles.”
Leo asserted that rather than causing division, truth empowers people worldwide to face today’s issues with greater resolve. He brought up issues like migration, the moral application of artificial intelligence, and the preservation of the planet Earth.
“No one can imagine tackling these challenges alone, so everyone must be committed and cooperative,” the pope stated.
