- Two diplomatic approaches, one shared charity
- The Moscow Mass and the Vatican audience as a single gesture
- The fallen human condition as a theological diagnosis
- The small gesture as a theological grammar of disarmament
- Disarming kindness, between the Gospel and the diplomacy of brotherhood
- The priestly prayer of John 17 as the foundation of the unity sought
- The Viking legacy in the service of renewed brotherhood
- Saint Olav and Saint Sunniva, patrons of a reconciliation that denies nothing
- The papal motto "In illo uno unum" as a key to understanding
- Young Erik, from the generation that questions the Church
- A theology of the threshold for a fractured world
- Lectio divina
- ✝ Biblical references
On the same day that a Vatican cardinal celebrated a Mass for peace in Moscow's only Catholic cathedral, thousands of kilometers away, in the small hall of the Aula Paolo VI, fourteen bishops from the Scandinavian cold bowed before Leo XIV. Two gestures, one week, two opposing diplomatic approaches: one driven by major state negotiations, the "red Mass" of Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher before Sergey Lavrov and Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk; the other, almost whispered, that of a pope welcoming Lutheran bishops from Norway to speak not of treaties, but of fraternity. This contrast is not insignificant. It reveals two complementary faces of the same Church, which refuses to choose between grand politics and small acts of charity, between the clamor of chancelleries and the silence of private audiences.
Two diplomatic approaches, one shared charity
The Moscow Mass and the Vatican audience as a single gesture
There is a profound coherence in the fact that, in the same week of August 2026, the Holy See carried out two peace missions of such different character. In Moscow, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, made the first visit of his diplomatic rank since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There, he met with Sergey Lavrov, presidential advisor Yuri Ushakov, and on August 27, celebrated a Mass for peace in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, one of the few Catholic churches in the country. This approach falls under the category of what is known as multilateral diplomacy: patient, almost clandestine, based on the active neutrality of the Holy See and the unwavering refusal to break off dialogue, even with the warring parties.
The day after his arrival in Moscow, another scene unfolded in Rome, less spectacular but just as significant. On August 26, Leo XIV received a group of fourteen bishops from the Lutheran Church of Norway, as part of a visit initiated by the Apostolic Nuncio to the Nordic countries, Archbishop Julio Murat. The discussion here was not about territorial negotiations, ceasefires, or humanitarian corridors. It concerned something more modest, yet in some respects more radical: the possibility that kindness might disarm what force can never unravel.
The Pope chose precise words, almost austere in their simplicity. He evoked a «particularly turbulent» period, marked by «growing animosity between peoples,» visible not only in «international conflicts and disputes,» but also «within each country,» through «the acrimony that often characterizes political and social discourse.» This dual interpretation, geopolitical and societal, deserves closer examination. The Pope does not separate the war in Ukraine from the polarization that pervades Western democracies. He considers them together, as two symptoms of the same malaise in human relations.
The fallen human condition as a theological diagnosis
What is striking about this speech, delivered in English before the Norwegian bishops, is the anthropological diagnosis that underpins it. Leo XIV did not seek a sociological or political explanation for the rise of contemporary acrimony. He preferred a theological, almost Augustinian term: "our fallen human condition." In his own words, "given our fallen human condition, it is all too easy to adopt an attitude of hostility toward those with whom we disagree." The ease of conflict, he essentially said, is not an accident of history nor solely the product of social media algorithms or partisan rhetoric: it is rooted in original sin, in this inclination of the human will to prefer confrontation to reconciliation, because confrontation requires less effort than forgiveness.
This is where the message transcends the strictly ecumenical framework to encompass a universal moral theology, addressed as much to Catholics as to Lutherans, as much to believers as to non-believers who might follow this discourse. Recognizing one's own inclination toward hostility is not an admission of weakness, but the very condition of conversion. Saint Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, already described this inner struggle between the law of good willed by the Spirit and the contrary inclination of the flesh. Leo XIV, without explicitly citing this text in his speech, nevertheless applies its logic: since hostility is our natural inclination, peace can only be an active choice, a "concerted" effort, to use his expression, and not a spontaneous state.
The small gesture as a theological grammar of disarmament
Disarming kindness, between the Gospel and the diplomacy of brotherhood
The central phrase of the papal address, the one immediately seized upon by the Catholic press, deserves close examination: «Goodness and charity have the power to disarm.» The verb chosen is not insignificant. To disarm does not mean to convince, nor to conquer, nor even to persuade. To disarm is to remove from the adversary, or from the one who might be perceived as such, the very necessity of fighting. It is a category that belongs as much to the vocabulary of the military as to that of Christian mysticism, and Leo XIV uses it as a bridge between the two worlds he inhabits simultaneously that week: that of the geopolitical peace negotiated by Bishop Gallagher, and that of the inner and fraternal peace he offers to the Norwegian Lutherans.
The Apostle Peter, in his first epistle, offers a striking image for understanding this dynamic of fraternal building through small steps: «You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ» (1 Peter 2:4-5). This metaphor of the living stone, embedded in a larger structure, precisely illuminates what the Pope meant when he spoke of «small steps»: no single stone makes a building, but each stone, properly placed, makes the building possible. The audience of August 26 was not, in itself, an act of doctrinal reunification between Catholics and Lutherans. It was a stone. And it is precisely this deliberate modesty that gives it its strength.
Leo XIV explicitly told the Norwegian bishops: «I am sincerely grateful for your presence here and for your shared desire to seek ways to build communion. Indeed, even small gestures can inspire and guide us on the path of reconciliation.» This sentence alone constitutes a veritable theology of minimal action, where grace is not measured by the magnitude of the gesture but by its sincerity, its direction, and its fidelity to the very movement of the Gospel.
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The priestly prayer of John 17 as the foundation of the unity sought
To give his approach a scriptural basis, the Pope quoted a central verse from the theology of Christian unity, taken from Jesus' great priestly prayer: "That they may attain to perfect unity, so that the world may know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (Jn 17:23). This choice was not accidental. This passage, less readily cited than other, more frequently used Johannine verses, articulates an essential truth: Christian unity is not an internal objective of the Church, a mere institutional convenience, or a strategy for ecumenical communication. It is a sign given to the world. "So that the world may know," the text says: the very credibility of Christian witness before the nations depends on the ability of Christ's disciples to overcome their historical divisions.
Yet this text, published at the end of August 2026, arrives in a context where the world is precisely filled with doubt. Doubt about the capacity of religious institutions to transcend their own internal disputes, doubt about the very possibility of dialogue between traditions separated for five centuries by the Reformation. By reciting this verse before bishops whose Church has been ordaining women since 1961 and celebrating same-sex marriages since 2017, Leo XIV takes a risky theological gamble: that of defining unity as a path, not as an immediate agreement on all doctrinal and moral questions. He implicitly reiterated this point by grounding this sought-after unity not on a doctrinal consensus that has yet to be reached, but on "our common baptism and our shared mission in the world"—two objective, sacramental, and missionary realities that precede and transcend disciplinary disagreements.
The Viking legacy in the service of renewed brotherhood
Saint Olav and Saint Sunniva, patrons of a reconciliation that denies nothing
The choice to conclude his speech with the evocation of Saint Olav and Saint Sunniva was not merely a folkloric tribute to Norwegian national history. Saint Olav, King of Norway who died a martyr in 1030, and Saint Sunniva, patron saint of Western Norway, represent a shared Christian memory, predating the schism of the Reformation, which Catholics and Lutherans can equally claim without either tradition needing to renounce its own identity. Leo XIV praised lives "consecrated to God and neighbor," which "helped to unite peoples" and which left "a lasting testimony to the transformative power of charity.".
This reference takes on particular significance as we approach the millennium of the death of Saint Olav, whose celebrations are being actively prepared in Norway. Olav Fykse Tveit, Bishop and President of the Church of Norway, took advantage of this audience to formally invite Leo XIV to attend these upcoming celebrations. This is a concrete example of what the Pope calls a small gesture: an invitation, a possible trip, a shared presence around a figure of holiness who belongs to the common heritage even before belonging to a particular denomination. Here we see how the memory of saints can become a more fruitful space for encounter, in some respects, than joint theological commissions, precisely because it touches on popular affection, national identity, and concrete piety rather than doctrinal abstraction.
The papal motto "In illo uno unum" as a key to understanding
It is worth noting, in the welcoming address delivered by Olav Fykse Tveit, a remark that sheds light on the very theology of this pontificate. The president of the Church of Norway recalled how the episcopal motto chosen by Leo XIV, "In illo uno unum" — "In the One, we are but one" — borrowed from Saint Augustine, resonated with Christ's prayer "Ut unum sint" — "That they may be one." This convergence is not a mere coincidence. It reveals that Leo XIV's very style of governance, even in the choice of his coat of arms, is structured around the conviction that Christian unity is not built through the merging of identities, but through a shared rootedness in Christ, the sole source of all true communion.
This emphasis on unity founded in God, rather than negotiated between human institutions, helps explain why the Pope did not shy away from the question of doctrinal unity in other meetings during his pontificate. The previous month, when receiving Catholicos Aram I of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Leo XIV had stated unequivocally that ’there can be no restoration of communion between our Churches without unity in faith.« The relative silence in his address to the Norwegians on the doctrinal and moral issues that currently divide the Catholic Church and the Church of Norway—the ordination of women, the blessing of same-sex couples—should therefore not be interpreted as a renunciation of doctrinal truth, but rather as a deliberate choice of pastoral priority for this particular meeting: to name first what unites before what divides, without one ever overshadowing the other.
Young Erik, from the generation that questions the Church
The context of this study trip, the first organized abroad by the Norwegian Lutheran bishops in several years, revolves around a shared concern: the place of young adults in the Church. After their visit to Rome, the Norwegian bishops traveled to the Sant'Egidio community and then planned to continue their pilgrimage to Taizé, the ecumenical center founded by Brother Roger Schutz, where generations of young Europeans—Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox—have gathered for decades in silent prayer. This choice of itinerary is significant: it reveals that the unity sought by these bishops concerns not only the scholarly theology of the Roman dicasteries, but also the concrete transmission of faith to a generation that, in Norway as elsewhere in Europe, is increasingly turning away from established religious practice.
This generational dimension echoes a passage from the Epistle to the Ephesians which, though not quoted by the Pope, nevertheless illuminates the scope of his approach: «Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace» (Ephesians 4:3). This bond of peace, precisely, is not forged in grand conciliar declarations, but in the patient, repeated, almost invisible efforts represented by a thirty-minute audience, an invitation to a millennium celebration, a shared pilgrimage to Taizé. It is precisely this same logic that animates, a few thousand kilometers away, the Mass for Peace celebrated by Archbishop Gallagher in Moscow's Catholic Cathedral: a tiny gesture in light of the scale of the Ukrainian conflict, but a gesture that refuses to let silence and rupture have the final word.
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What ultimately links these two papal gestures at the end of August 2026—the diplomatic mission to Moscow and the ecumenical audience in Rome—is a shared fundamental theological conviction: peace never descends fully formed from the heavens of international negotiations. It is built through the accumulation of faithful acts, often disproportionate to the magnitude of the evil they confront, but whose consistency, repeated over time, eventually charts a course. The prophet Zechariah, in a rarely quoted but strikingly relevant passage, already questioned this temptation to scorn humble beginnings: «Who has despised the day of small things?» (Zechariah 4:10). It is precisely this question that the pontificate of Leo XIV poses, without explicitly stating it, in the face of a world that expects nothing more than spectacular solutions, peace agreements signed overnight, diplomatic ruptures, or resounding reconciliations.
The Church, for its part, continues to believe that the day of small things is not to be despised. An audience of fourteen Lutheran bishops from the Far North, a mass said in an isolated cathedral in Moscow, an invitation passed on for a millennium to come: these are the living stones of which Saint Peter speaks, patiently assembled, without certainty of immediate result, but with the certainty that charity, for its part, knows no definitive failure.
Lectio divina
«You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.» 1 Peter 2:4-5
You, who carry within you so many unhealed wounds from those you can no longer understand, what tiny stone could you lay today without waiting for the other to lay theirs? Do you remember the last time you chose kindness over being right? What would remain of your most enduring conflicts if you were to stop, just for one day, trying to disarm the other with the force of your argument rather than with the gentleness of your presence?.
Lord, you build your Church with stones that the world would deem too small for such a grand edifice. Teach me to lay my stone without demanding to see its foundation immediately. Disarm within me this reflex of hostility that my wounded condition makes so natural. Make my humblest gestures steps toward the fraternity I dare not hope for. May I become, quietly, a living stone among other living stones.
A bare stone placed upon another bare stone, and between them, unseen, the charity that holds them.
✝ Biblical references
3 passages · 3 books
Cast all your anxieties on him, for you are precious in his eyes. (1 Peter 5:7)
Encouragement to persecuted Christians: hope, baptism and conduct in society.
→ Explore Codex 1 Stone- Leo XIV and the gesture of Saint Ignatius of Antioch: when Rome learned to sing with one voice with the East
- Norway 2030: When a king killed by the sword becomes the seed of a Church
- These Russian Catholics whom Rome calls upon to become living bridges
- When American charity meets the memory of Hippo: Leo XIV's words to the Vincentians
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. (John 3:16)
The Gospel of the Word: a profound theology of the Incarnation and the signs of Jesus.
→ Explore the Codex John- Be vigilant! The soul awake in the heart of the world
- «I pray for them» — The intercession of Christ, the beating heart of our salvation
- The Son who came from the Father: when God speaks before creating
- Given to the Lord: the vertigo of being chosen by God
- «"Amen, Amen" — When the Definitive Word Opens a New World
- The small remnant of Moscow: when a mass for a few hundred worshippers becomes the true center of Vatican diplomacy
- Two calendars, one Mother: what August 28th reveals about the wound and the hope between Rome and Moscow
- Moscow versus Constantinople: when religious war weakens the Catholic Church without a pastor
- The unity that is built and the one that is broken: Leo XIV, Bartholomew and the shadow of Écône
Here is your king coming to you, humble, riding on a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)
Night visions and messianic oracles foreshadowing Christ.
→ Explore the Zachariah Codex
🌍 4 countries involved
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