Letter of the Holy Father Leo XIV to the Cardinals, 14.04.2026
The following is the Letter sent by the Holy Father Leo XIV to the cardinals:
Letter of the Holy Father
Your Eminence,
During this holy season of Easter, I wish to convey to you my heartfelt and fraternal greetings, in the hope that the peace of the risen Lord may sustain and renew our suffering world.
I likewise renew my gratitude for your participation in the Consistory last January. I greatly appreciate the work carried out in the groups, which facilitated free, concrete and spiritually fruitful exchanges, as well as the notable quality of the interventions made during the plenary. The compiled contributions constitute a resource of lasting value, which I hope will be reflected on further, and will mature through ecclesial discernment.
In my concluding remarks in January, I already referred to some elements regarding synodality that emerged from the groups. Now, I wish to focus in particular on what emerged from the groups regarding Evangelii Gaudium, especially concerning mission and the transmission of the faith.
Your contributions make it clear that this Exhortation continues to be a significant point of reference. In addition to introducing new content, it refocuses everything on the kerygma as the heart of our Christian and ecclesial identity. It was recognized as a “breath of fresh air,” capable of initiating processes of pastoral and missionary conversion — rather than producing immediate structural reforms — and thus profoundly guiding the Church’s journey.
Indeed, you emphasized how this perspective challenges the Church at every level. On a personal level, it calls every baptized person to renew their encounter with Christ, moving from a faith merely received to a faith truly lived and experienced. This journey affects the very quality of spiritual life, expressed in the primacy of prayer, in the witness that precedes words, and in the coherence between faith and life. At the community level, it calls for a shift from a pastoral approach of maintenance to one of mission. This requires communities to be living agents of the proclamation — welcoming communities that use accessible language, attentive to the quality of relationships, and capable of offering places for listening, accompaniment and healing. At the diocesan level, the responsibility of Pastors to resolutely support missionary boldness emerges clearly, ensuring that such boldness is not weighed down or stifled by organizational excesses, but is guided by a discernment that helps us to recognize what is essential.
From all this flows a profoundly unified understanding of mission, which is Christ-centered and kerygmatic. It is born of an encounter with Christ that is capable of transforming lives and spreading through attraction rather than conquest. It is an integral mission, holding in balance explicit proclamation, witness, commitment and dialogue, and yielding neither to the temptation of proselytism nor to a merely institutional mentality of preservation or expansion. Even when the Church finds herself in a minority, she is called to live with confident courage, as a small flock bringing hope to all, mindful that the aim of mission is not its own survival, but the communication of the love with which God loves the world.
Among the specific suggestions that emerged, the following deserve to be welcomed and reflected on further: the need to relaunch Evangelii Gaudium through an honest assessment of what has actually been embraced over the years and what, by contrast, remains unfamiliar or unimplemented, with particular attention to the necessary reforms of the processes of Christian initiation; the importance of valuing apostolic and pastoral visits as authentic opportunities for kerygmatic proclamation and for a growth in the quality of relationships; and the similar need to reassess the effectiveness of ecclesial communication, including at the level of the Holy See, from a more explicitly missionary perspective.
With a grateful heart, I renew my thanks for your service and contribution to the life of the Church. In regard to the forthcoming Consistory, which will take place from 26 to 27 June, more detailed information will be provided in due course to assist with the necessary preparations.
In the risen Lord, source of our hope, I send you my warmest Easter greetings.
With fraternal esteem in Christ,
From the Vatican, 12 April 2026
6 comments:
Then don’t meet with leftwing political operatives like David Axelrod and send the 3 Stooges on to 60 Minutes, leftwing central
Stop being anti Catholic like Trump and using his God damn talking points. The pope can meet with whoever he wants and whenever! Get over it. Focus on Trump and his diabolical rhetoric. Certainly you were taught about in your prezVatican II upbringing????
Have you seen Pope Leo's other message from today, on power and democracy?
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/pont-messages/2026/documents/20260401-messaggio-pass.html
Trump's bound to take this one personally too, even though it was probably written weeks ago.
James: Thank you. I did read that other important message too, and I hope others will as well.
All: We now see that Trump gaslights us again by claiming he thought the "blasphemous" image of himself he posted on Truth Social (an image originated months ago by an Australian influencer but altered in disturbing ways by the White House in Trump's post on Truth Social) was of himself as a doctor. If he is not gaslighting us, he is an extremely stupid and unaware man. Of course, both things can be true at the same time!
And we also see where Catholic J.D. Vance's loyaties lie as he propagates the notion that the whole thing was intended as a joke and opines that the Pope should stick to matters of morality, not public policy--as if killing thousands of innocent men, women, and children and subjecting undocumented immigrants to appalling conditions in which they are treated worse than animals were not matters of morality. Good grief! One can only assume he will do and say anything for his master in pursuit of power and the presidency.
Imagine if Biden or Obama had posted such an image. Just imagine it!
Mark J.
“Stop being anti Catholic like Trump and using his God damn talking points. The pope can meet with whoever he wants and whenever! Get over it. Focus on Trump and his diabolical rhetoric. Certainly you were taught about in your prezVatican II upbringing????“
Stay with that, Father. I just wish someone had warned you about Trump but I guess there’s no reaching you. Like any number of criminal clients I’ve represented, invincible in ignorance…. Until now?
Jesus preaches love and mercy, of course, but that is not a warrant for pacifism.
The great Christian thinkers St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas gave us just war theory, reconciling Christian ethics with the existence of evil in the world and the necessity of warfare.
According to this view, which is embraced by the Catholic Church, a war can only be fought for a just cause and has to be waged in keeping with moral standards minimizing harm to civilians.
Leo has wrongly made it sound as though no war can possibly be just — and regardless, his opposition to the Iran war isn’t dispositive or binding on anyone else.
The pontiff might consider that Trump first talked of attacking Iran when the regime was in the midst of slaughtering thousands of protesters in the streets.
And if the current government fell and gave way to one with more respect for the rights of its people, it would be a boon to Iranians and a large step toward a safer and more peaceful region.
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