The Pope: let us not resign ourselves to the logic of weapons, peacemakers the joy of the Church

"We must not resign ourselves to the prevailing logic of conflict and weapons". Pope Leo said this at the Angelus. On the feast of the Assumption he added: "Today we want to entrust our prayer for peace to the intercession of the Virgin Mary". The Pontiff quoted Pius XII who in the midst of the Second World War said: "Never again waste human lives!". "How timely are these words," commented Leo XIV. "Even today, unfortunately, we feel powerless before the spread in the world of violence that is increasingly deaf and insensitive to every movement of humanity. Yet we must not cease to hope: God is greater than the sin of the world'.

In the homily of the Mass celebrated at Castel Gandolfo in front of some 2,500 faithful, the Pope said: 'The poor and persecuted Christian communities, the witnesses of tenderness and forgiveness in places of conflict, the peacemakers and bridge-builders in a broken world are the joy of the Church'. "Many of them are women," he stressed. "Let us be converted by their witness!"

The Pope quoted Dante and in particular the last canto of Paradise, in the prayer put to St Bernard. Mary is "a living spring, gushing with hope. Sisters and brothers, this truth of our faith is perfectly in tune with the theme of the Jubilee we are living: 'Pilgrims of hope'. The pilgrim needs a destination to guide his journey: a beautiful, attractive destination that guides his steps and revives him when he is tired, that always revives desire and hope in his heart. On the path of existence this goal is God, infinite and eternal Love, fullness of life, of peace, of joy, of every good. The human heart is attracted by such beauty and is not happy until it finds it; and indeed it risks not finding it if it gets lost in the 'dark forest' of evil and sin," said Pope Leo.