‘Children have the right to an authentic, just, and lasting peace,’ Pope writes in letter
July 10, 2025
Responding to a letter from a mother expressing anguish at the lack of peace, Pope Leo XIV called for prayer and dialogue and said that “children have the right to an authentic, just, and lasting peace.”
The exchange was published in Piazza San Pietro, a magazine published under the Vatican basilica’s auspices. Pope Leo has continued his predecessor’s custom of answering one letter in each issue.
“Yours is a cry that reaches the heart of God,” Pope Leo wrote. “And God always reaches us in even the most difficult and tragic places where we find ourselves ... The fire of God’s love, through the encounter with Jesus Christ alive in the Eucharist, continually calls us to act for the good and unity of the human family.”
The Pope recalled that in a May address to the diplomatic corps, “I highlighted the fundamental contribution of religions to fostering, through dialogue, contexts of peace. Of course, to answer your question, the situation sometimes appears hopeless, with the consequent risk of worsening, but this is why we are all urgently called to undertake that purification of the heart to build peaceful relationships.”
Pope Leo added:
We must strengthen our prayer to the God of peace. How much time do we dedicate to communal and personal prayer to invoke peace every day?
At the same time, we insist on dialogue at every level, to promote a true culture of encounter and not conflict, and also of limiting power, as my beloved predecessor Pope Francis always urged. The challenge is knowing how to combine prayer with the necessary courageous gestures and the painstaking patience of small steps.
War will not prevail. And children have the right to authentic, just, and lasting peace.
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Further information:
- «I bambini hanno il diritto a una pace autentica, giusta e durevole» (L'Osservatore Romano)
- Pope Leo responds to a mother’s reminder that peace is a fundamental right (Vatican News)
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