Leo XIV: 'No more wars, we cannot resign ourselves to images of death'

"What a beautiful day, how many blessings, I feel first blessed to be able to come here, to the shrine on the day of supplication and this anniversary". These are the words spoken by Pope Leo, referring both to the shrine of Pompeii where he is visiting, and to his first anniversary of pontificate. On 8 May last year, as soon as he was elected, introducing himself to the world from the Loggia of Blessings at St Peter's, Leo had evoked the very day of the supplication written by Bartolo Longo that falls on 8 May.

"Exactly one year ago, when I was entrusted with the ministry of Successor of Peter, it was the day of the Supplication to the Virgin of the Holy Rosary of Pompeii. So I had to come here, to place my service under the protection of the Holy Virgin," Prevost said.

Pope Leo arrived by helicopter in the meeting area of the Shrine of Pompeii where he is making a pastoral visit that will also touch Naples in the afternoon on the first anniversary of his pontificate. The mass celebrated by Pope Leo in Piazza Bartolo Longo in Pompeii was attended by some 20,000 faithful.

From the sanctuary of Pompeii, Leo launched a new appeal for peace. "Two intentions remain of pressing relevance: the family, which suffers from the weakening of the conjugal bond, and peace, jeopardised by international tensions and an economy that prefers the arms trade to respect for human life". "The wars that are still being fought in so many regions of the world," the pontiff added, "call for a renewed commitment, not only economic and political, but also spiritual and religious. Peace is born within the heart", "we cannot resign ourselves to the images of death that the chronicles propose to us every day".

In his first speech in Pompeii, evoking the figure of the founder of the city and of the shrine, that Bartolo Longo whom he canonised on 19 October in St Peter's Square, Leo XIV said: 'When St Bartolo first came to the Valley of Pompeii, he found there a land afflicted by so much misery, inhabited by a few very poor peasants, afflicted by malaria and by brigands. He was able, however, to see the face of Christ in everyone: in the great and the small, and especially in the orphans and the children of the imprisoned, to whom he made them feel, with his tenderness, the beating of God's heart. To those who then told him that his young people were destined to the same fate as their parents, he replied that love can drive even the most difficult children to goodness and that, in every field of action, only charity ensures certain, great and definitive victories". pope Leo