‘The Pope’s voice carries great weight,’ Austrian president says following papal audience

March 06, 2026

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen met with Pope Leo XIV and said that the Pope’s voice carries “great weight.”

The president’s March 5 audience with the Pontiff was “an encounter marked by dialogue, respect, and shared responsibility for coexistence and peace in our world,” Van der Bellen said following the meeting.

He added:

The Pope’s voice carries great weight. It can serve as a counterbalance to hatred and discrimination, to war and violence. We all have weighty voices as well. Together, we ensure that the scales tip toward peace, freedom, and justice.

President Van der Bellen subsequently met Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of His Holiness, and Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations.

The parties, according to a Holy See Press Office statement, discussed Church-state relations, migration, interreligious dialogue, and “current international issues, especially regarding situations of conflict, expressing the hope for a greater role to be played by the international community in the search for peaceful solutions.”

Austria, a nation of 9.2 million in Central Europe (map), is 67% Christian (58% Catholic) and 8% Muslim.

 

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Further information:

• Social media post (X, @vanderbellen, 3/5/26)
• Holy See Press Office Press Release: Audience with the President of the Republic of Austria, 05.03.2026 (3/5/26)