From the very first moments of his pontificate — when, on the evening of May 8, he appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica — Pope Leo XIV has made one word the unshakable center of his ministry: peace. Not peace as a slogan, not peace as a temporary cease-fire, but peace as the very architecture of the future.
That vision has just been sharpened with the announcement of the theme for the 2026 World Day of Peace: "Embrace an Authentic Peace." The statement released by the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development lays out the Pope's conviction: humanity must reject the logic of violence and war and embrace a peace rooted in love and justice.
This is not the weak peace of silence, but a peace that disarms. A peace that does not rest on fear. A peace that opens hearts, dissolves conflicts, and generates trust, empathy, and hope. But, as the Pope insists, invoking peace is not enough. "We must embody it in a lifestyle that rejects every form of violence, whether visible or structural."
Peace Is Not Just the Absence of War
The Pope's message lands like thunder in a world scarred by conflicts. In America, where defense budgets rise into the trillions while schools crumble and hospitals close, his words are especially searing. Peace, he says, is not merely the absence of bombs falling. It is a deliberate choice to disarm, to stop building weapons, and to start building communities.
"Peace be with you," said the Risen Christ to his disciples. Now his successor on earth repeats that greeting to believers and non-believers alike, to politicians and ordinary citizens. It is a universal invitation to abandon the addiction to violence and to construct a human future together.
Naming the Scars of Our Time
Pope Leo XIV never speaks of peace in the abstract. He insists on confronting the open wounds of the present moment: wars that drag on endlessly, economic systems that reward greed, an environment collapsing under exploitation, and a spiritual disconnection that leaves millions alienated.
Addressing the Ecumenical Week in Stockholm, he listed these wounds without hesitation: "Our world bears deep scars of conflict, inequality, environmental degradation, and a growing sense of spiritual disconnection."
Reconciliation, he argued, is not an abstract idea but something born in neighborhoods, cities, and local institutions. At the Arena of Peace gathering in Verona, he stressed that differences cannot be denied or erased. They must be acknowledged, carried, and crossed through dialogue and encounter. Only then can peace take root.
A New Motto: "If You Want Peace, Build Institutions of Peace"
Perhaps the boldest moment in his emerging papacy came when he turned an ancient maxim upside down. The Roman world once declared: Si vis pacem, para bellum — If you want peace, prepare for war. That toxic logic has survived into the modern age, becoming the unspoken creed of military-industrial complexes worldwide, particularly in the United States.
Pope Leo XIV rejects it outright. His counter-motto is simple and radical: "If you want peace, build institutions of peace."
Peace cannot be achieved by stockpiling weapons, he warns. It must be structured into society itself — into schools that teach reconciliation, courts that practice restorative justice, governments that prioritize dialogue over dominance. "From the bottom, in dialogue with all," he says. And he reminds the world of a truth that terrifies generals and arms manufacturers: "Without forgiveness, there will never be peace."
The Cry of the Young: "We Want Peace in the World!"
At the Jubilee Vigil for Youth in Tor Vergata, Pope Leo XIV looked into the eyes of the next generation and told them what few leaders dare to say: the world is starving for missionaries of justice and peace. Not soldiers of conquest, not pawns of political games, but young people willing to bear witness with their lives that peace is possible.
And then he gave them a tool so simple that it almost sounds subversive: friendship. "Friendship can truly change the world," he declared. "Friendship is a road toward peace."
During the closing Mass in St. Peter's Square, he called on the young to raise their voices together. What erupted was not a whisper but a shout that pierced the sky: "We want peace in the world!" That cry, entrusted to a new generation, is meant to echo in the ears of politicians, CEOs, and weapons manufacturers who profit from endless wars.
America, Are You Listening?
For the United States, this message is as uncomfortable as it is urgent. The nation that spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined must now face a spiritual question: can true security be built on fear and weapons? Or must it be built on justice, love, and forgiveness?
Pope Leo XIV is not naive. He knows the inertia of the status quo, the profit locked inside the engines of war, the political convenience of saber-rattling. Yet he insists that the responsibility to build peace grows precisely where pain is deepest.
His words ring like a prophetic challenge to America: stop preparing for war. Stop believing that peace can be purchased through violence. Stop sacrificing the young on the altar of geopolitics. Instead, prepare institutions of peace: schools, hospitals, treaties, communities of care.
The Light the World Is Waiting For
In the end, Pope Leo XIV's vision is not one of despair but of blazing hope. Peace is not a utopian dream; it is the most realistic path forward. It is the light the world is starving for, the light the young are demanding, the light that can disarm hearts as well as armies.
"Peace is the light of the world," he says. And if we dare to believe it, then the cry that rose from St. Peter's Square — "We want peace in the world!" — can become the anthem of a generation that refuses to accept war as inevitable.
A Shock to the System
The Pope's challenge is nothing less than revolutionary. It shakes the foundations of military logic, exposes the idolatry of weapons, and demands a new global imagination. His is not a comfortable message, but a necessary one.
The truth is simple, and it is shocking: the world will not survive on bombs. It will only survive on peace.
Marco Baratto
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