VATICAN CITY, August 28, 2025 (Diane Montagna’s Substack) — Pope Leo XIV today called on Catholic politicians to strengthen their knowledge of Catholic doctrine, defend the natural law, and have the courage to say “no” to “party directives” when the truth is at stake.
Speaking to a delegation of French Catholic political figures on pilgrimage in Rome during the Holy Year, the Pope insisted that “there is no division” within the personality of a public figure who is Catholic but only “a politician who, under the gaze of God and of his conscience, lives out his commitments and his responsibilities in a Christian manner!”
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Here are two excerpts from the Holy Father’s address:
The salvation that Jesus won through His death and resurrection encompasses every dimension of human life—such as culture, economy and labor, family and marriage, the respect for human dignity and life, health, as well as communication, education, and politics. Christianity cannot be reduced to a simple private devotion, for it entails a way of life in society imbued with the love of God and of neighbor, who in Christ is no longer an enemy but a brother.
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Now then, Monsignor Blanchet asked me to give you some advice. The first—and the only—that I shall give you is this: unite yourselves ever more closely to Jesus, live from Him, and bear witness to Him. There is no division within the personality of a public figure: there is not on one side the politician, and on the other the Christian. Rather, there is the politician who, under the gaze of God and of his conscience, lives out his commitments and his responsibilities in a Christian manner!
You are therefore called to strengthen yourselves in faith, to deepen your knowledge of doctrine—particularly of social doctrine—which Jesus taught to the world, and to put it into practice in the exercise of your responsibilities and in the drafting of laws. Its foundations are fundamentally in harmony with human nature, with the natural law that all can recognize, even non-Christians, even non-believers. You must not therefore fear to propose it and to defend it with conviction: it is a doctrine of salvation that seeks the good of every human being, the building of societies that are peaceful, harmonious, prosperous, and reconciled.
I am well aware that the openly Christian commitment of a public official is not easy, especially in certain Western societies where Christ and His Church are marginalized, often ignored, sometimes ridiculed. Nor am I unaware of the pressures, the party directives, the “ideological colonization”—to borrow an expression of Pope Francis—to which politicians are subjected. They need courage: the courage at times to say, “No, I cannot!” when the truth is at stake. Once again, only union with Jesus—Jesus crucified!—will give you the courage to suffer for His name. He said to His disciples: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage! I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
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