The peace proposed by Pope Leo XIV is \u201cnot abstract, ideological, or naive\u201d but one that \u201cpasses through the pain, contradictions, and wounds of the world,\u201d according to Alessandro Banfi, communications director of the Oasis Foundation and coordinator of a new book collecting the pope\u2019s teachings on peace.<\/p>\n
\u201cDisarmed and Disarming: Peace Is a Gift\u201d is the first anthology to bring together the pontiff\u2019s principal texts on peace since his election May 8, 2025.<\/p>\n
Published last week in Italian by the Vatican Publishing House, the volume contains speeches, messages, and other interventions on one of the central themes of Leo\u2019s pontificate. It also includes a previously unpublished foreword<\/a> written by the pope.<\/p>\n An English-language edition is expected soon.<\/p>\n In an interview with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, Banfi said the project was intended to provide \u201can agile volume, accessible to everyone, that would bring together the great teaching of the first year of this pope\u2019s pontificate on the subject of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Banfi said the book\u2019s introduction offers one of the principal keys to understanding Leo\u2019s thought.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we carefully reread the opening lines of his introduction, we see something very significant,\u201d Banfi said. \u201cHe says that he began his ministry by proclaiming to the world the risen Christ, the Prince of Peace. But he immediately recalls that the peace of Christ passes through suffering, through the Passion and through the cross.\u201d<\/p>\n That statement, Banfi said, reveals the depth and scope of the pontiff\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe peace proposed by the pope is not the abstract, naive, or ideological concept of the hippies,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a peace that passes through the pain, contradictions, and wounds of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Responding to those who dismiss pacifism as unrealistic or merely idealistic, Banfi said the Christian vision of peace is grounded in a concrete experience.<\/p>\n \u201cPacifism is often ridiculed because it is considered utopian or unrealistic, incapable of confronting the complexity of reality,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the peace proposed by the Church is born of a concrete experience. Before anything else, it is the proclamation of a gift that precedes us. Peace is a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n Building peace therefore requires both personal and collective responsibility, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the responsibility to build it, to pray for it, to promote interreligious dialogue and to ask the powerful of the earth to work for it,\u201d Banfi said. \u201cWe must act concretely to influence societies and states. But it is equally important not to forget interior peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Banfi said Leo\u2019s positions on peace did not begin with his election as pope but form part of a personal journey shaped by Augustinian spirituality and his missionary experience in Peru.<\/p>\n Banfi situated Leo\u2019s thinking within the Augustinian tradition, pointing in particular to the pope\u2019s reference to \u201cThe City of God\u201d in his address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See.<\/p>\n St. Augustine contrasts the earthly city, directed toward power, wealth, and pleasure, with the city of God, made up of those who live in hope, Banfi explained.<\/p>\n \u201cLeo XIV bears witness to a man of great interior freedom in the face of the pressures of the world, the problems of the Church and even its internal divisions,\u201d he said. \u201cAmid the noise of the Church and the world, this pope conveys extraordinary serenity and interior freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n Banfi also recalled that during the years of terrorism by Peru\u2019s Shining Path guerrilla movement, the then-missionary priest Robert Prevost refused to go into hiding or accept a security escort despite threats against members of the clergy.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we often assume that a commitment to peace is limited to opposition to war, but he was also a great witness in the face of terrorism,\u201d Banfi said.<\/p>\n He also cited a photograph from the 1980s showing the young Augustinian taking part in a peace demonstration in Comiso, Sicily, against the deployment of NATO missiles. Prevost appears alongside other priests holding a banner reading \u201cYoung Augustinians for Peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Banfi cautioned, however, against confusing the Church\u2019s mission with the promotion of a merely pacifist movement.<\/p>\n The Church, he said, is \u201cthe bearer of a proposal for peace that is born of faith in Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n Banfi said Leo\u2019s message has particular relevance amid a global increase in armed conflicts.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, more than 100 countries are involved in some way in wars or conflicts,\u201d he said. \u201cIt gives the impression that the pope is almost the only voice that continues to call for peace, that still believes in the possibility of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n In the book\u2019s unpublished introduction, Leo refers to the Global Peace Index 2026, an annual assessment of peace levels around the world produced by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace.<\/p>\n Banfi said the pontiff is challenging the growing conviction that war is inevitable and that rearmament is the only way to guarantee security.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is happening today is that the idea seems to have taken hold that war is inevitable, even necessary, and that rearmament is indispensable,\u201d he said. \u201cThe pope is fighting precisely against this dominant mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n Banfi also highlighted the pope\u2019s reference in the introduction to a Bob Dylan song against nuclear war, written in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a moment of enormous risk for humanity, but it was also a time when there was a widespread sense that peace could be built, nuclear arsenals could be reduced, and negotiated disarmament could advance even in the midst of the Cold War,\u201d Banfi said.<\/p>\n Against today\u2019s backdrop of prolonged conflicts and growing international tensions, Leo takes up Pope Francis\u2019 warning about \u201ca third world war fought piecemeal\u201d and points to the increasing difficulty of bringing contemporary wars to an end.<\/p>\n One passage that particularly struck Banfi was the pope\u2019s reference to Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov, who in 1983 helped prevent a possible nuclear war after suspecting that a warning of an American attack was a false alarm.<\/p>\n The pope writes that \u201cthe conscience of one man can be worth as much as the entire world,\u201d Banfi noted.<\/p>\n For Banfi, the statement expresses \u201ca truth that applies to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSociety is mistaken when it stops believing that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Banfi linked that idea to another major theme of the papal text: a radical confidence in the human person\u2019s capacity to choose what is good.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the same message as his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas<\/em>: an irreducible optimism about humanity,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is like when he asks in another passage of the introduction: \u2018Is humanity really seriously considering destroying itself?\u2019 It is a profoundly prophetic question.\u201d<\/p>\n The book also addresses disarmament, the importance of dialogue, international law, and the role of multilateralism.<\/p>\nChrist\u2019s peace passes through suffering<\/h2>\n
A pope shaped by St. Augustine<\/h2>\n
A message for an age marked by war<\/h2>\n
The conscience that can change history<\/h2>\n