From the Apostolic Palace balcony, Pope Leo XIV, the Chicago-born pontiff who ascended the throne of St Peter just six months ago, cast a sorrowful gaze over St Peter’s Square yesterday.
As thousands gathered for the midday Angelus, the 70-year-old Augustinian friar, the first American pope, issued a clarion call against the “rising tide of hatred” engulfing the globe, invoking prayers for the beleaguered faithful in war zones and tragedy’s wake.
“I think especially of Bangladesh, Nigeria, Mozambique, Sudan, and other countries from which we frequently hear of attacks on communities and places of worship,” Leo XIV said, his voice steady but laced with anguish.
The appeal came amid a week of unrelenting horror: Islamist militants from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) slaughtered around 20 civilians at a church-run hospital in Byambwe, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Friday night.
The assailants, believed backed by shadowy mineral trade networks, torched homes and looted the facility staffed by the Little Sisters of the Presentation, leaving the remote village in flames.
“Let us pray that all violence may cease and that believers may work together for the common good,” the pope urged, his words a rebuke to the “shameful silence” of the international community, as decried by local missionaries.
Leo XIV’s gaze turned east to Ukraine, where Russian drones and missiles battered Kyiv overnight, killing six and wounding dozens in a barrage that shredded apartment blocks and plunged neighbourhoods into blackout.
“We must not grow accustomed to war and destruction. Let us pray together for a just and lasting peace in war-torn Ukraine,” he implored, echoing his predecessor’s pleas while nodding to Kyiv’s defiant counterstrikes on Russian oil hubs.
The pontiff, whose Peruvian missionary roots infuse his diplomacy, has convened tech leaders on AI perils and canonised saints, yet here he channelled raw pastoral fire: “Hatred risks overflowing, spreading misery among brothers and sisters.”
Closer to home, the pope mourned a Peruvian bus catastrophe that claimed 37 lives on Wednesday, when a Llamosas coach from Chala veered off the treacherous Pan-American Highway into the Ocoña River ravine after colliding with a pickup truck.
“May the Lord welcome the deceased, sustain the injured, and comfort the grieving families,” he said, a poignant nod to his adopted homeland’s deadly roads, where speeding and shoddy infrastructure claim hundreds yearly. “Reflect on road safety and responsibility,” he added, his tone paternal yet pointed.
In a stirring coda, Leo XIV spotlighted Italy’s Day of Prayer for Victims and Survivors of Abuse, observed yesterday across dioceses, a solemn echo of Pope Francis’s 2016 global initiative, now woven into the Italian bishops’ assembly in Assisi.
“Let us grow a culture of respect to safeguard every person’s dignity, especially minors and the vulnerable,” he exhorted, aligning with his quiet push against “structural injustices” in a new anthology of his writings.
