"On December 18, 2025, Pope Leo published his first major peace message themed "Peace be with you," in preparation for his and the Catholic Church's annual January 1st exhortation on World Peace. Pope Leo's December message urged the faithful to not surrender to the idea that fear and darkness are normal, but to see peace as not only possible but necessary."
""When we treat peace as a distant ideal, we cease to be scandalized when it is denied, or even when war is waged in its name... and to justify violence and armed struggle in the name of religion." Pope Leo called on believers of all religions to guard against the temptation to weaponize words and religion to commit violence in its name."
The 59th World Day of Peace theme "Peace be with you" frames peace as a lived reality grounded in justice, trust, dialogue, forgiveness, and shared humanity. A December message preceding the January 1 observance urged the faithful not to accept fear and darkness as normal and insisted that peace is both possible and necessary. The message warned that treating peace as a distant ideal enables denial of peace and the justification of violence, including when war is waged in its name. It called on believers of all religions to resist weaponizing words or religion to commit violence and closed with eyewitness accounts of the Bosnian war and Italy's domestic terrorism.
Read at The Cipher Brief
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