Pope Leo XIV said on Sunday that unity in the Catholic Church “is nourished by forgiveness and mutual trust,” after bestowing the pallium on 54 new metropolitan archbishops on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, patrons of the city of Rome.
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“If Jesus trusts us, then we too can trust one another, in his name,” the pontiff said, extending his call to unity to all Christian denominations.
Speaking before he led those gathered in St. Peter’s Square in praying the Angelus, the pope also recalled the witness of the apostles who were martyred.
“Today is the great feast of the Church of Rome, born from the witness of the Apostles Peter and Paul and made fruitful by their blood and that of many other martyrs,” he said, emphasizing that even today, “throughout the world there are Christians whom the Gospel makes generous and bold, even at the cost of their lives.”
In an ecumenical appeal, the pope emphasized that this shared sacrifice creates a “profound and invisible unity among Christian churches,” which he called, echoing Pope Francis, an “ecumenism of blood.”
Present during the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday morning was Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, heading the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate sent to Rome by Bartholomew I for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul — a celebration rich with ecumenical significance.
In his remarks prior to the Marian prayer, the pope reaffirmed: “My episcopal service is a service to unity, and the Church of Rome is committed, by the blood of Saints Peter and Paul, to serving communion among all Churches.”
Quoting the Gospel, the pope reminded that “the stone from which Peter also receives his name is Christ. A stone rejected by men that God has made the cornerstone.” The basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul, he pointed out, are located “outside the walls,” signifying that “what seems to us great and glorious was once rejected and cast out for being in conflict with worldly thinking.” Leo invited all to walk “the path of the Beatitudes,” where poverty of spirit, meekness, mercy, and the thirst for justice often meet with “opposition and even persecution.” Yet, he affirmed, “the glory of God shines in his friends and along the way he shapes them, from conversion to conversion.”
At the tombs of the apostles, “a millennial destination for pilgrimage,” the pope encouraged everyone to discover that “we too can live from conversion to conversion.” The New Testament, he recalled, does not hide the apostles’ faults and sins, “because their greatness was shaped by forgiveness.” Jesus, he said, “never calls only once. That’s why we can always have hope, as the Jubilee also reminds us.”
After the Angelus, Pope Leo XIV expressed his closeness with Barthélémy Boganda high school in Bangui, Central African Republic, “in mourning after the tragic accident that caused many deaths and injuries among students.” Twenty-nine students died and more than 250 were injured in a stampede on Wednesday prompted by an accidental electrical explosion.
The pope also expressed “a heartfelt thought for the parish priests and all the priests working in Roman parishes, with gratitude and encouragement for their service.”
Leo recalled that the day’s feast marks the annual Peter’s Pence Collection, “a sign of communion with the pope and of participation in his apostolic ministry,” and thanked “those who, through their contributions, support my first steps as the successor of Peter.”
