Comments on current affairs

Pope Leo XIV challenges

In his apostolic journey to France, the Holy Father Pope Leo XIV offered a threefold challenge to the Culture of Power (cf. Chapter 5 in his Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas) as practiced by American President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and also Chinese President Xi Jinping. The three have in common their imperialist designs, dictatorial rule, their immorality and their dehumanizing warfare.

The first challenge: The visit to UNESCO on the first day of his visit. America’s Trump withdrew American membership in the name of ” America First” immediately upon taking office. The Pope underlined the importance of multilateral cooperation and quoted from the UNESCO’S founding principle: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. UNESCO and the three dictators offer two contrasting approaches to human coexistence: a unity that does not erase diversity against unity imposed through domination.

 The second challenge: the Pope’s address to a meeting in the Robert Schuman Congress Center in Metz on” The Roots of Europe for Peace and Unity”. Contrary to those who consider the European Union weak and unable to defend herself, the Pope underlined Europe as a cultural and historical reality, called upon to build peace and unity beyond the Union. Robert Schuman and De Gasperi drew from Europe’s Christian roots the values of equality, the dignity of work, the primacy of inner values and fraternal charity; the dignity of the human person and their personal responsibility, respect for law, love and beauty and a commitment to truth and justice. Among the deep roots of European civilization he highlighted the much earlier founding father of Europe, St. Benedict, rightly made Patron of Europe by Pope Paul VI.

I like to compare Pope Leo’s apostolic journey to France with Pope John-Paul II’s  pilgrimage to Poland in 1979, the starting point towards the peaceful end of Soviet domination and the division of Europe. (cf. my book: Contrasts and Contradiction).

The Third Challenge came on the flight back from Metz to Rome in which the Pope, in line with Saint Augustine, rejected the concept of just war as a fiction; even as a claim to be a means of securing peace.