The new Pope: Peace without weapons!

The first words of Pope Leo XIV. were: ‘Peace’ – specifically, ‘an unarmed and disarming peace.’

This is far more and decidedly more demanding than what Putin, Trump or even Netanyahu have understood by peace thus far. Will the US citizen and new Pope Leo XIV. now become an anti-Trump? The US president wrote to the new pope saying he was looking forward to their first meeting: that should be interesting.

Before his election, the current pope sharply criticised both President Trump and his deputy Vance for their xenophobic policies. Pope Francis had already said of Trump’s wall on the border with Mexico: ‘Those who build walls instead of bridges are not Christians.’ In his inaugural speech, Pope Leo XIV made a similar call for Christians to be ‘bridge builders.’ This also applies to most parties in Germany today, including those with the letter ‘C’ in their name.

Leo XIV. seems to want to be a pope in the tradition of his predecessor. With his new name, he is linking himself to the turning point in the Catholic Church when Pope Leo XIII. wrote the first social encyclical ‘Rerum novarum’ (‘On the New Things’) in 1891, the first official Catholic document on the labour question, which became the Magna Carta of Catholic social teaching against the backdrop of the industrial revolution of the 19th century. At the same time, it was a necessary confrontation with the social upheavals of socialism and liberalism. Earlier, in 1848, when Karl Marx published his Communist Manifesto, the ‘peasant pastor’ Wilhelm Ferdinand von Ketteler had drawn attention to the social question at the first German Catholic Congress and as a member of parliament in the Frankfurt Pauskirche. In doing so, the Catholic Church sought reconciliation with the modern world.

Bismarck later passed his social legislation at the urging of the newly formed trade unions and the SPD: financial provision for old age, unemployment and illness. This was the basis of the social market economy. It was not until later that Norbert Blüm, greatly inspired by Catholic social teaching, added nursing care insurance in Germany. In ‘Rerum novarum’, Leo XIII rightly complained about the often slave-like conditions of the working class, but at the same time spoke out against ‘class struggle’ and called for social responsibility on the part of capital and fair wages and state protection for workers.

The Catholic social doctrine was now based on personality, solidarity, subsidiarity (politics from the bottom up, i.e. the opposite of the previous approach), justice and (later) democracy. Rerum novarum is the mother of all Catholic social encyclicals and the mother of Catholic social doctrine. Forty years later, in 1931, shortly before the Nazi era, Pope Pius XI. expanded and deepened this teaching with his encyclical ‘Quadragesimo anno’.

It is remarkable for the politicisation of the Catholic Church in the spirit of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that both Pope Francis and his current successor saw themselves as political popes in their choice of names. Francis named himself after Francis of Assisi, thereby professing his devotion to the saint of the poor and protector of nature, and Pope Leo XIV committed himself to the tradition of Catholic social teaching with his new name. Especially in his environmental encyclical Laudato si, Pope Francis emphasised climate and environmental policy in the spirit of Jesus and the preservation of creation, encouraging many governments to agree to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. It is good and important that the new pope continues to pursue this policy. Pope Francis on the current unjust capitalist world politics: ‘This economy kills.’ In Catholic social teaching, love of God, love of neighbour, love of the most distant and love of one’s enemies always belong together. This is its core essence. The current Pope also wrote this some time ago to US Vice President Vance.

Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV. were active at the same time in Argentina and Peru, working for the poor and in pastoral care for the poor. They demonstrated in a very concrete and practical way how helpful a theology of liberation can be for the marginalised and disenfranchised. For this reason alone, the new Pope wants to continue to promote liberation theology and Catholic social teaching and to work for peace.

He announced this immediately after his election, to great applause from the 150,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square. The era of Italian popes is probably over. At least for the time being. Both Francis and Leo XIV are global popes who will be a great asset in our politically turbulent times.

The emancipated and equal position of women in the Church will be a prerequisite for success. The future of the Church is female. The male-dominated Church of the past is becoming increasingly discredited, at least in Europe and the USA. Only through a fraternal Church could the new Pope become something like the voice of the world’s conscience.

Source

Franz Alt 2025 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator