This morning the Pope met with participants of the Orthodox-Catholic Ecumenical Pilgrimage from the United States.
The meeting took place at the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo. To all of them, he offered these words in favor of unity:
POPE LEO XIV
Rome, Constantinople and all the other Sees, are not called to vie for primacy, lest we risk finding ourselves like the disciples who along the way, even as Jesus was announcing his coming passion, argued about which of them was the greatest.
Then, addressing those present, he encouraged them to continue in the search for hope, especially in the midst of suffering and war.
POPE LEO XIV
This inspires us with great hope, for we know that no cry of the innocent victims of violence, no lament of mothers mourning their children will go unheard. Our hope is in God, yet precisely because we constantly draw from the inexhaustible source of his grace, we are called to be witnesses and bearers of hope.
Finally, Pope Leo expressed his hope to reunite with all of them “in a few months,” as part of the ecumenical commemoration of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.
These celebrations could take place in Turkey, and in fact, the Vatican had been preparing this trip for months. However, the trip has never officially been confirmed. Pope Leo XIV’s words once again reopen this possibility.
BAM
Trans. CRT
