Pope Leo criticizes political nationalism and prays for reconciliation and dialogue
Pope Leo XIV criticized the surge of nationalist political movements in the world as he prayed Sunday for reconciliation and dialogue — a message in line with his pledges to make the Catholic Church a symbol of peace.
The pope celebrated Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square in front of tens of thousands faithful, and asked the Holy Spirit to 'break down barriers and tear down the walls of indifference and hatred.'
'Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for 'security' zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms,' the first American pontiff said.
He did not name any specific country or politician.
Leo also recalled the words of late Pope Francis, who — on the feast of Pentecost in May 2023 — observed that in our world 'we are all connected, yet find ourselves disconnected from one another, anaesthetized by indifference and overwhelmed by solitude.'
The pope also condemned wars, which 'are plaguing our world,' and asked the Holy Spirit for 'the gift of peace.'
'First of all, peace in our hearts, for only a peaceful heart can spread peace in the family, society and international relations,' Leo said, then prayed for reconciliation and dialogue wherever there is war in the world.
Soon after becoming pope, Leo pledged to work for unity and peace. His first message, 'Peace be with you all,' set the importance of peace as a pillar of his papacy.
He has also appealed for a genuine and just peace in Ukraine and a ceasefire in Gaza.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Can we still be Britain without the British? We'd rather you didn't ask
I couldn't care less about the burka debate. Not a tinker's. Why? Because it's a concession of defeat, a belated response by panicked politicians to a change that's already happened and that they largely encouraged. Last week, a meteor hit Britain with the publication of a demographic study by the queerly named Centre of Heterodox Social Science. By 2063, say the sociable hets, white Britons will be a minority; come the new century, almost one in five citizens will be Muslim. This forces us to consider a very politically incorrect question: will Britain still be Britain if it's no longer majority white British? The official answer is 'absolutely, yes'. Elite liberals believe nations are defined by values, and thus anyone, from anywhere in the world, can become British if they conform to them. It helps that these values are universal. Fairness, tolerance, kindness... this is a portable identity that is uncontroversial, because it demands nothing except to pay one's taxes and avoid murder. Keir Starmer warns that we are becoming an 'island of strangers', while promoting a vision of citizenship that is entirely passive. It's also based on a misreading of human nature. Liberals assume that values shape culture, such that we could pass a law – ban the burka, ban Islamophobia – and we'd become good neighbours overnight. But it's the other way around. Culture shapes values, and culture is the product of non-abstract, substantial qualities, such as climate, geography, religion, language and ethnicity. We can shorthand it as 'history'. Thus: we are democratic in Britain not because a committee decided it over one wild weekend, but following nearly a thousand years of revolution and reaction, baked into memory and expressed as temperament. Such a society is light-touch and self-governing, at least in theory, because we've been marinating in its ethics and customs since birth. The English, Welsh, Scots etc do exist as cultures – not superior to others, nor unaffected by migration, but really real – and if they undergo a profound change in composition, this is bound to change the nature of Britishness, too. Isn't that obvious? It's regarded as axiomatic elsewhere. We rush to recognise and cultivate the historical identity of First Nations people, just as we step back nervously from a Holy Land conflict shaped by competing ethnic claims over biblical territory. And even if you regard ethnic conflict as sinful, as I do, or based upon a category error, as academics insist, we have to accept that identity matters to a lot of people. In which case, I struggle to think of a society in history that has faced the scale of change happening to us without descending into violence or authoritarianism. Today, the liberal understanding of nationhood is already in retreat. Remigration is being trialled in the United States. Donald Trump is reducing inflows by banning travel from named countries, cutting asylum and militarising his border. He's also increasing outflows by expelling as many people as he can on any pretext he can find. For instance, when an Egyptian asylum-seeker assaulted protesters in Colorado, the administration not only arrested the attacker but detained and is seeking to deport his entire family – a 'sins of the father' policy that judges are resisting. Elsewhere, the BBC's Simon Reeve has caused a stir by highlighting the integrationist policies of Denmark, a country that offers people cash to go home and dismantles ghettos. That this is done by social democrats comes as no surprise. Scandinavia is historically conformist; a welfare state requires high levels of solidarity to function. Evidence of my 'history-shapes-identity' theory is offered by how countries respond to the immigration challenge in light of their own traditions. Here, when a Reform UK MP asked the PM for his views on the burka, the PM had no answer and his MPs sounded as shocked as a maiden aunt offered cocaine. Why doesn't Labour want to have this debate? A cynic will say: it offends their core constituency. A Tory will claim: they don't really care about immigration. And yet Labour's immigration White Paper looks tough, and it has already increased deportations compared with the last government. Historically, it was Labour that restricted Commonwealth immigration in the 1960s, and Boris Johnson, of Brexit fame, who threw the borders open. Boris, who liked to play both sides of the immigration game, infamously compared the burka to a letter box – yet did not wish to ban it. Do we not say 'an Englishman's home is his castle'? By extension, they are free to wear whatever they want in the street. The problem, reply nationalists, is that by clinging to a liberal vision, we open the door to illiberal attitudes that might, by strength of conviction, overwhelm us. If the culture goes, our old values will follow. We are not, however, as tolerant as many assume. It has been reported that Prevent now regards 'cultural nationalism' – the fear that society 'is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration' – as a 'sub-category of extreme Right-wing terrorist ideologies', and thus worthy of referral to the authorities. GB News is up in arms – admittedly a permanent condition – but I've yet to hear a guest point out that white Christians are merely experiencing what the security services have done to Muslim Britons since 9/11: slander and harassment. Between 2016 and 2019, over 2,000 children under the age of nine were referred to Prevent, including a four-year-old Muslim boy who talked about a violent computer game at an after-school club. Right and Left are chasing a mirage of British liberalism that, in an age when you can get 31 months for a social-media post, no longer reflects reality. Immigration is ultimately a numbers game. A democratic society can get along fine with any minority, so long as it remains small in number. But when a government fails to police its borders, and thus loses control over numbers, it will feel obliged to police society to maintain harmony: monitoring, deporting, rewriting history, and indoctrinating us in a strange new variant on national character, a parody of kindness best described as 'sinister twee'. If you want a vision of the future, it is a Dawn French-shaped woman, with a midlife-crisis fringe, talking to you about diversity and inclusion as if you were a baby. Then, when you raise an objection, ending the discussion with a disturbingly final 'NO'.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Time to face the harsh realities of spending orthodoxy
Labour came to power fatuously parroting the word 'change' and yet has shown itself to be the same old tax and spending party it has always been. What it meant was a change of party in office not a change of direction. Not only have taxes gone up but so-called protected spending is set to rise despite record debt levels. Yet if ever a public policy has been tested to destruction surely it is the notion that the NHS will improve if only more money is thrown at it. Even Sir Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, are on record as saying that higher health spending is not the answer to the endemic flaws in the health service and yet another £30 billion is to be announced for the next three years on top of the £22 billion handed over after last year's general election, much of which went on pay and showed nothing in the way of productivity improvement. No mainstream politician is prepared to acknowledge that the problem with the NHS is the fact it is a nationalised industry with all the inherent inefficiencies associated with such. Most other advanced economies in Europe and elsewhere have social insurance systems which work better. But the insistence in Britain of cleaving to the 1948 'founding principle' that treatment should be free at the point of delivery has become a quasi-religious doctrine that few dare challenge. Only Nigel Farage has questioned the wisdom of continuing with a system that patently fails to achieve what others manage to do but has been noticeably quiet on the subject recently because Labour will exploit it mercilessly to see off the Reform threat. Telling people that they will have to pay for something they have always had for free is even more difficult when political parties are prepared to see the health system get worse rather than reform it. The same is true of welfare. Taking benefits from people, even when they are payments introduced just a few years ago like the winter fuel allowance, is hard if the reasons are not explained and the issue is 'weaponised' by opponents. Yet unless the welfare budget is brought under control it will bankrupt the country. If change is to mean anything then we need politicians finally to understand the extent of the country's difficulties and make decisions accordingly. Will we see that from the Chancellor on Wednesday?
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy wants Trump to pressure Russia and help broker an end to the war
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told ABC This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz that he sees Donald Trump as a key figure who can end the war between his nation and Vladimir Putin 's Russia. In an interview that aired Sunday, the Ukrainian President noted that 'the majority of wars were finished with some kinds of agreements … [with] strong third parties involved who can put pressure on the aggressor,' Zelenskyy told Raddatz. 'Are there enough levers and powers to stop this in the United States? Yes, I am convinced that the president of the United States has all the powers and enough leverage to step up,' Zelenskyy continued. 'He can unite around him other partners like European leaders,' he concluded. 'They [are] all looking at the President Trump as a leader of the free world, a free, democratic world, and they are waiting for him,' Zelenskyy added. The Ukrainian President also called for America to pressure Russia via economic sanctions, noting that only the United States can actually make a difference. 'It doesn't matter who wants, apart from the United States, to apply sanctions against Russia,' Zelenskyy stated. 'If it's not the United States, there will be no real impact.' Ukrainian Pres. Zelenskyy told @MarthaRaddatz his country is ready for a ceasefire brokered by the Trump administration: "I am convinced that the president of the United States has all the powers and enough leverage to unite European leaders.' — This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 8, 2025 Some Washington, DC Republicans agree with the Ukrainian President's calls to be tougher on Russia. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Emeritus, Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told Fox News' Shannon Bream in a Sunday morning interview that he believes his House colleagues would support a bill by Senator Lindsey Graham to put extreme pressure on Russia. 'So, you have to put pressure. How do you do that? Secondary sanctions. Lindsey Graham has a bill. If he passes it tomorrow, we'll pass it in the House,' McCaul said. 'And secondly, keep the flow of weapons going into Ukraine to pressure Mr. Putin to act in good faith. I have little confidence in him,' McCaul added. Graham's bill would place a 500% tariff on any nation that purchases Russian oil, uranium, and petroleum products. The legislation presently has the support of a bipartisan group of 82 members of the United States Senate. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala) is one of the cosponsors of Graham's bill, but is at the same time no fan of Zelenskyy's. Tuberville told WABC 770 AM host John Catsimatidis in a Sunday morning interview that he views Zelenskyy as 'dictator'. 'He knows that if he had an election he'd get voted out … Back during World War II, we had elections. You can't stop your constitution just because there's a war going on.' 'That's when you really need to look into your constitution. Zelenskyy is a dictator, and he has created all sorts of problems,' Tuberville stated. 'We've got a lot of money that's been missing. No telling where it's gone … It's way out of control. But the Biden administration allowed it to happen. It really escalated the last couple of years.' 'My God! It would be like our Vietnam War. But it's probably three or four times worse than the Vietnam war, because we only lost 50,000. I think both of these [nations] have lost close to 500,000 to 700,000 people. It's devastating to the world,' Senator Tuberville added.
