By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — During a meeting with Eastern Catholics, many of whom come from war-torn regions of the world, Pope Leo XIV pledged the Vatican’s full commitment to promoting peace and reconciliation.
“The peoples of our world desire peace, and to their leaders I appeal with all my heart: Let us meet, let us talk, let us negotiate!” the pope said May 14 during an audience in the Paul VI Hall with thousands of Eastern Catholics participating in their Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome.
“War is never inevitable,” the pope told them. “Weapons can and must be silenced, for they do not resolve problems but only increase them.”
The audience was the culmination of a multi-day Jubilee celebration that included liturgies in the diverse rites of the Eastern Catholic Churches — from the Syro-Malabar and Armenian traditions to the Byzantine and Coptic rites — held in Rome’s major basilicas.
Before the pope’s arrival, a vibrant atmosphere filled the hall as pilgrims waved flags from Ukraine, India, Iran, Lebanon and other nations; many were dressed in traditional attire — vividly expressing the Eastern churches’ global presence and the deep pride in the faith despite centuries of hardship and persecution.
“Who, better than you, can sing a song of hope even amid the abyss of violence?” Pope Leo asked them, citing the lived experience of communities from the Holy Land to Ukraine, from Syria and Lebanon to Tigray and the Caucasus.
On the stage alongside the pope were leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches, including: Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; Cardinal Louis Sako, the Iraq-based patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church; Indian Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, major archbishop of Trivandrum and head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church; as well as Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches.
Pope Leo offered strong support for peacebuilding efforts across the globe and reiterated the Vatican’s role as a neutral ground for diplomacy.
“The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve — the dignity of peace,” he said.
The pope also thanked Eastern Catholics for their perseverance and witness, referring to their churches as “martyr churches,” and affirming their importance to the universal church.
“You are precious in God’s eyes,” he said. “Truly, you have a unique and privileged role as the original setting where the church was born.”
The pope warned that war and migration have placed many Eastern Catholics at risk of losing not only their homes, but their identity, calling on the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches to work with Latin-rite bishops to support the faithful in the diaspora.
“There is a need to promote greater awareness among Latin Christians” of the Eastern Catholic communities, he said, asking bishops to help Eastern Catholics preserve their traditions and “enrich the communities in which they live.”
He also asked Eastern Catholic leaders to remain rooted in Gospel values and resist worldly temptations.
“Continue to be outstanding for your faith, hope and charity, and nothing else,” he urged them.
The universal church, the pope said, needs the traditions, liturgies and spiritualities of the Eastern Christians.
“We have great need to recover the sense of mystery that remains alive in your liturgies, liturgies that engage the human person in his or her entirety, that sing of the beauty of salvation and evoke a sense of wonder at how God’s majesty embraces our human frailty!”
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