By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Leo XIV’s first World Peace Day message will expand on the prayer he expressed the night of his election when addressing the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican announced the theme of Pope Leo’s message for 2026 will be: “Peace be with you all: Towards an ‘unarmed and disarming’ peace.”
The Catholic Church celebrates a world day of prayer for peace each Jan. 1. The pope’s message for the day usually is released in early December and is shared with heads of state around the world by Vatican ambassadors. The pope also personally gives a copy of the message to visiting government leaders throughout the year.
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, which helps develop and promote the message, announced the theme Aug. 26, saying it was an invitation to all people “to reject the logic of violence and war, and to embrace an authentic peace based on love and justice.”
When he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica immediately after his election May 8, Pope Leo shared Christ’s greeting of peace with the crowd and said, “It is the peace of the risen Christ. A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.”
The dicastery’s announcement of the theme said that the peace people are praying for “must be unarmed, that is, not based on fear, threats or weapons. And it must be disarming, capable of resolving conflicts, opening hearts and generating mutual trust, empathy and hope.”
“It is not enough to call for peace; we must embody it in a way of life that rejects every form of violence, whether it be visible or systemic,” the announcement said.
Christ’s greeting of peace “is an invitation addressed to everyone — believers, nonbelievers, political leaders and citizens — to build the Kingdom of God and to work together to build a humane and peaceful future,” the dicastery said.
Also Aug. 26, the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican publishing house, announced it was releasing a book collecting Pope Leo’s first speeches. The volume is titled, “Peace Be With You: Words to the Church and the World.”
“At his first appearance before the whole world, Leo XIV expressed to everyone his hope for an ‘unarmed and disarming’ peace — the kind that (Trappist Father) Christian de Chergé, the prior of Tibhirine, once wrote about. May 8, the day of Robert Prevost’s election to the papal throne, also marked the liturgical commemoration of the martyrs of Algeria,” the publication announcement said.
The 19 martyrs, who included the seven Trappist monks of Tibhirine, were killed between 1993 and 1996 while Algeria was locked in a 10-year-long armed conflict between government forces and extremist Islamic rebel groups.
Pope Leo’s first speeches, the Vatican publishing house said, indicated some of the priorities of his papacy: “the primacy of God, communion in the church and the search for peace.”
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