Praise be Jesus Christ. Welcome to this live broadcast of Pope Leo XIV's meeting in the French city of Metz with representatives of various religions. My name is Devon Watkins and I'll be providing the commentary and translation for this papal event.
As we go live, we see the Holy Father has arrived in Metz. He came here after he flew here this morning from Lourdes in the papal plane chartered by Air France. We see the Holy Father is getting out now from his car.
For more of you joining us, I'd like to welcome you to this live event. Some of you may be joining us through our various Vatican media channels, perhaps the Vatican News app, the Vatican News web portal, our Vatican News English YouTube channel, or our Facebook live feed. We also welcome all of you who are joining us through our partner broadcasting stations, including EWTN TV and Catholic Faith Network in America.
The Holy Father is greeting the participants who have come here to be with him at this interreligious event.
Those here include Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, the president of the French Catholic Bishops' Conference, and Bishop Benoît Bertrand, the vice president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference.
Representing other Christian denominations are Mr. Christian Kieffer, the president of the Protestant Federation of France, Isabelle Belette, the vice president of the Protestant Federation of France, and Valérie Duval-Pujol, also another vice president of the Protestant Federation of France.
The Jewish faith is represented by Haïm Corsia, the Grand Rabbi.
The Buddhists are represented by Anthony Busima and Fabien Fier.
The Orthodox Church is represented by Monsignor Dimitri Ploumis, president of the Orthodox Bishops' Assembly of France, and Bishop Carol Sabah, the spokesperson for the Orthodox Bishops' Assembly of France.
The Muslim faith is represented by Shemseddine Hafiz, director of the Grand Mosque of Paris, and Professor Sadek Berus, a member of the Forum of Islam of France.
We hear and see, for those of you following on television, the musical accompaniment for this event, which is taking place at the Robert Schuman Center in Metz.
The Robert Schuman Congress Center — Conference Center, excuse me.
Metz is located in the Grand Est, the northeastern region, and is the capital of the Moselle department of France. The city stands at the confluence of the Moselle and Seille rivers.
This Robert Schuman Conference Center was designed by the architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, and it combines elegant materials and a vertical layout to enhance the experience of those attending events.
We recall that Robert Schuman was one of the founders of what became the European Union, and is considered a venerable in the Catholic Church. His cause for canonization is currently underway.
This is a border town that's close to the neighbors between Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and France.
And we hear applause for the performance, the opera performance here in the conference center, which will welcome the Pope.
Pope Leo yesterday spent the day in Lourdes, where he met with the bishops of France and celebrated mass in Lourdes, met with those assisted by the Accueil Notre-Dame Pilgrim Center in Lourdes, and with the sick pilgrims and representatives of organizations that serve them at the Marian sanctuary, which is a very important place of pilgrimage for the Catholic Church.
During his mass, the Holy Father invited everyone to pray the rosary for peace, especially during the month of October, and for an end to conflict.
We prayed that everyone may accompany our prayer for peace with concrete acts of penance and mercy, committing ourselves always to fostering dialogue and reconciliation.
Then in the evening, the Holy Father participated in a rosary prayer there in a torchlit procession and rosary prayer that ended in the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in the mid-19th century.
And as we wait for the Holy Father to arrive in the venue, we can enjoy the opera and the performance that is here to welcome the Holy Father and the other representatives of various religions in France.
And the presenter invites everyone to stand to welcome the Pope and the representatives of religions in France.
Pope Leo and the religious leaders are making their way onto the stage here in the Robert Schuman Conference Center.
And now we will read the appeal — the Metz appeal is what it's known as — that's just been prepared by these religious leaders and is being proclaimed today for the first time.
Since the Assisi appeal 40 years ago, the world has changed profoundly. Humanity now finds itself at a new turning point. Rising levels of conflict threaten international law, particularly humanitarian law. Wars and violence are multiplying. Inequalities are widening. Our planet's equilibrium, particularly its ecological balance, is being undermined. And technological transformations are disrupting our societies, offending our universal and fundamental values and our ways of life.
These upheavals concern us, but even more, they call us to action. In a world that suffers and too often becomes divided, our religious traditions call us to act. Our religious traditions call us to keep watch, attentive to the dignity of every person and to caring for others. They invite us not to resign ourselves to violence, injustice, or indifference, but to act together in the spirit of peace, fraternity, and reconciliation to preserve our humanity amid these transformations.
We religious leaders in France gathered today in Metz with His Holiness Pope Leo XIV affirm our determination to serve the whole human family together, conscious of our profound interdependence and the responsibility each of us bears towards everyone else.
Faithful to our respective traditions and respectful of every person here in Lorraine, a land scarred by so many wars, we are convinced that religions bear a particular responsibility for building and sustaining peace in the world and especially here in Europe. Aware of this shared responsibility, we solemnly issue an appeal for dialogue and fraternity, reconciliation and peace.
We are convinced that within and across our communities and in our cities, education and dialogue is more important than ever for building peace. We attest that the pursuit of peace, nonviolence, and concern for others are deeply rooted in ways specific to each of all our religious traditions.
We note with great concern, however, that new outbreaks of violence and war are constantly flaring up in our world. Yet peace is not merely the absence of war. It cannot endure without justice, respect for human dignity, solidarity among peoples and generations, or a shared concern for the preservation of our common home.
We recognize with grave concern that our societies are themselves not spared the divisions, discrimination, and patterns of exclusion that weaken cohesion between individuals and peoples.
In France, we express our indignation in particular at the resurgence of acts targeting people or places of worship because of their origins or faith, and we condemn all forms of discrimination and all hate speech. We seek to act as bulwarks protecting humanity against oppressive or corrupt powers.
We oppose in particular the poison of totalitarianism, from which this land of Lorraine suffered so much. We affirm together that neither the name of God nor any religious truth or spiritual tradition may ever be invoked to justify violence and hatred.
We know from experience that dialogue, prayer, meditation, and different forms of spiritual practice open paths to peace. For peace is also built deep within each of us through our ability to recognize and disarm within ourselves whatever fuels rejection of others, fear and hatred.
We believe indeed that every human person is endowed with inalienable dignity. Our respective traditions invite us to welcome others not as a threat but as brothers and sisters in humanity. As believers of different religions, we call on our communities to develop a culture of welcome and fraternity.
Through mutual listening, service to the common good, and persevering dialogue rooted in our lives and spiritual practices, we seek to take practical action in the service of justice and peace.
We know how deeply the wounds of history, violence, ignorance, and misunderstandings continue to inhabit the memories of people, individuals, and peoples. We humbly wish to help open paths of reconciliation, rejecting the logic of revenge, exclusion, and humiliation.
We believe that religions offer a privileged path towards the unarmed and disarming peace to which His Holiness Pope Leo XIV calls us. And we desire with all our hearts, together with all men and women of goodwill, to be agents of reconciliation.
We wish to cultivate in a polarized world a true culture of education for peace, founded on the promotion of human dignity, mutual respect, justice, and trust. It requires both courageous personal commitment and determined collective effort.
Indeed, it calls for contributions from families, schools, recreational and sporting organizations, as well as each of our traditions and communities. This work is fully in keeping with the constitutional principles that guarantee freedom of conscience and freedom of worship, sustained by our shared desire to meet and engage in dialogue. We can stand side by side today in the service of peace.
We wish to pass on to everyone, especially the younger generations, this desire for the justice and peace that we must continually help to build together with all men and women of goodwill.
Indeed, peace is not an unattainable dream. It is built each day through respect for others, their culture and their religion, and through forming friendships in which each person can be recognized for who they are.
May this meeting today in Metz, in the presence of Pope Leo XIV, awaken consciences and bear lasting fruit. We differ in our religious convictions, but we are united by our responsibility to work together for peace in the world and respect for the dignity of every human person.
We therefore make three concrete commitments today: to pursue sustained and rigorous dialogue with one another, to continue teaching our younger generations about one another's traditions, and to stand together, even in adversity, to work for the promotion of justice and peace.
May this appeal from Metz, which we issue this morning, become for everyone a compass of hope and remind us that no lasting peace can be built without others or against them. This is our commitment.
And now Pope Leo XIV will address the interreligious leaders.
And the Holy Father is taking his speech and preparing to address the religious leaders.
Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends and representatives of various religious traditions, it is with joy but also with a keen sense of spiritual responsibility that I stand among you today in Metz, a city of borders and crossroads, at the Robert Schuman Center, named after one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
This man of faith and conviction knew how to transform old dividing lines into bridges of hope for all of Europe, becoming a true ambassador of unity and diversity. Following his example, our shared responsibility as men and women of faith is to bear witness that beyond all borders it is always possible to meet one another, forge friendships and seek peace.
Dialogue does not diminish our identity, but expresses it with simplicity and truth by opening it to the diversity of the other. As my predecessor, Pope Francis, wrote, dialogue between the followers of different religions does not take place simply for the sake of diplomacy, consideration or tolerance. The goal of dialogue is to establish friendship, peace and harmony.
Beforehand, St. John Paul II regarded dialogue as an intrinsic requirement of human nature itself. According to Paul, this is the path through which we recognize otherness as a promise rather than a threat. It is the art of encounter that our world sorely needs. And it is the very opposite of aggression and violence.
Indeed, to invoke God's name in order to justify violence or oppression is to profane that name. Nothing that disfigures human dignity can claim to be inspired by God.
Religious discourse must constantly call for the disarmament of hearts and words. This places a direct responsibility on each of us as guardians of our respective traditions.
Moreover, if the fruitfulness of religious traditions is seen above all in their service of peace and fraternity, it is also expressed in their ability to protect, accompany, and serve life.
The greatness of a civilization is not measured by its material achievements, but by the way it cares for, protects and upholds the human person.
Religions are guardians of life, for they affirm its sacred value. Their fruitfulness is shown in their loving presence alongside those who are most vulnerable and fragile.
To serve life means to surround it with care, presence, and tenderness, especially in times of trial, right to the very end.
For those of us who are open to transcendence, our mission is to offer sound points of reference, especially to young people, to help build a communion that respects and upholds the dignity of every human person.
Dear friends, the Church regards all who sincerely seek truth, goodness, and beauty as companions on the journey. Once again, I thank you for your closeness and your presence.
May the infinite goodness and wisdom of God accompany us and teach us to live ever more fully as his children and as brothers and sisters to one another. Thus, wherever we live, may we be artisans of peace and witness to a hope that never ceases to grow in our world.
May God bless you.
