Shafaqna English- In a video message to participants in an Italian charity event, Pope Leo XIV calls for the importance of promoting dialogue and peace in a world plagued by divisions.
Pope Leo XIV has highlighted the urgency of coming together for peace and the importance of promoting unity through sports, politics, music, and more.
In a video message published on July 15, the Pope addressed the participants in a charity match organized by the Holy See’s Children’s Hospital Bambino Gesù and the Italian Caritas.
“Our humanity is at stake. Let this match that speaks of peace mark a point in its favor,” the Pope said.
In his message, the Pope expressed his hope that all who participate in the event may “look into the eyes of children and learn from them” how to “find the courage to welcome” others, how to be “men and women” that promote encounter, and how to “find the strength to believe and to ask that a truce may come, a time to stop the buildup to hatred.”
“It is still possible, it is always possible, to come together, even in a time of divisions, falling bombs, and war. It is necessary to create the opportunities to do this,” he emphasized. “Challenge divisions and recognize that the greatest challenge is to come together.”
The Pope then underlined the important role that sports, music, television, and politics have to play in promoting unity and overcoming divisions.
“Sports—when lived well by those who practice and those who cheer—have this great thing about them, that they transform confrontation into encounter, division into inclusion, and solitude into community,” he explained.
He added that television can play a larger role than just connecting people, as it can help promote communion amongst all with “love rather than with hate.”
Similarly, Pope Leo insists that politics can “unite instead of divide, if it doesn’t settle with the propaganda that feeds on building enemies.”
Politics should work towards “the difficult and necessary art of constructive dialogue, which searches for the common good.”
Lastly, the Pope underlined the importance of music that “enriches with meaning our words and our memories, ever since we started speaking and remembering as children.”
“Children know these things. They have the purity of heart that enables them to see God,” the Pope concluded.
Source: Vatican News