Peace in the Christmas Season
Pope Leo's Messages for Christmas and the World Day of Peace
Pope Leo XIV reflected on the “unarmed and disarming” peace of Christ in his 2026 World Day of Peace message, which was published by the Vatican earlier this month. Pope Leo introduced this theme of the unarmed and disarming peace imparted by the risen Christ in his first public message to the world after his election this past May, an address which, as I noted at the time, was deeply indebted to the thought of the fourth-century bishop and theologian St. Augustine (Pope Leo was formerly the prior general of the Augustinian Order). Back in August, the Vatican announced that Leo would expand upon this theme in his upcoming World Day of Peace message, and Leo has made good on that promise.
Ever since the practice was inaugurated by Pope Paul VI, the popes have used their annual World Day of Peace messages to address some important topic related to peace. For example, in his 2025 address, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of forgiveness for peace (reflecting the theme of the recently inaugurated Jubilee Year), and the year before, he spoke on the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, including the use of lethal autonomous weapons.
The popes have also regularly used their annual Christmas “Urbi et Orbi” messages to call for peace in the world. In particular, the popes often use these addresses to call attention to significant conflicts in the world and to pray for peace. Pope Leo continued this tradition in his address, delivered on Christmas Day. Recalling with joy his recent journey to the Middle East, the pope prayed for peace in those countries that have been ravaged by war, including Israel, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. He also called for peace in Ukraine, where he has likewise continued Pope Francis’s humanitarian efforts. Leo also highlighted what he called the “forgotten” wars in Africa, including those in Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the ongoing civil war in Myanmar and the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. Finally, he looked to the Americas, lamenting the ongoing civil strife in Haiti and calling for dialogue rather than conflict between the United States and the South American countries Colombia and Venezuela.
Pope Leo grabbed headlines with his insistence in his Christmas homily that “[O]n earth, there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person. To refuse one is to refuse the other.” Leo returned to this theme in his Urbi et Orbi address, stating: “Those who do not love are not saved; they are lost. And those who do not love their brother or sister whom they see, cannot love God whom they do not see.”
The central theme of the latter address, however, was to explain how Christ brought peace to the world on the first Christmas. First of all, Christ brings peace because He became one of us to free us from the burden of sin. Second, Christ desired to be close to us. As he explains, “Out of love, he wanted to be born of a woman and so share our humanity; out of love, he accepted poverty and rejection, identifying himself with those who are discarded and excluded.”
Leo turns again to Augustine, paraphrasing the great theologian: “God, who created us without us, will not save us without us.” The pope explains that our own cooperation in Christ’s saving work is how we bring peace to the world:
If all of us, at every level, would stop accusing others and instead acknowledge our own faults, asking God for forgiveness, and if we would truly enter into the suffering of others and stand in solidarity with the weak and the oppressed, then the world would change.
Here Leo rejects any sharp dichotomy between inner, spiritual peace and earthly peace.
In his World Day of Peace message, Pope Leo further spells out the implications of this vocation of peace. First of all, he insists that work for peace is “unarmed.” He explains today that people are all too willing to take up arms to vindicate their cause or in pursuit of their self-interest. Leo argues that this temptation arises because we feel powerless in an uncertain world or because peace seems like an impractical dream. He states, “When we treat peace as a distant ideal, we cease to be scandalized when it is denied, or even when war is waged in its name.” Joining his voice with that of popes going back to John XXIII, Leo denounces the endless build-up of military weaponry, which reflects fear and a lack of hope.
Against those who see peace as beyond our grasp, Leo counters by citing Augustine: “[T]o have peace, it is there, within reach, and we can possess it without effort.” Christ offered a nonviolent response to those who sought to kill Him, and Christians are called to bear witness to Christ’s “unarmed” peace. Echoing the message of his Urbi et Orbi message, the pope teaches that Christians can do so when they have “listened to the pain of others and freed themselves inwardly from the deception of violence.”
It’s significant that Leo appeals to Augustine against those “realists” who consider peace impractical and violence a necessary tool of politics. Leading exponents of the “realist” school of international relations, particularly the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and the political theorist Hans Morgenthau, enlisted St. Augustine as an important forerunner of their school of thought. Pope Leo here appears to be reclaiming Augustine from the realists.
Leo also insists that Christ’s peace is “disarming.” To disarm means first of all to resist the temptations of the “realists” and to recognize the possibility of peace, “[T]o banish fear and the anxious expectation of war from our minds.” This spiritual disarmament will lead to “the realization that true and lasting peace among nations cannot consist in the possession of an equal supply of armaments but only in mutual trust.”
The world’s great religions, of course, have a role to play in promoting disarmament. Leo calls on religious faithful around the world to resist the temptation “to drag the language of faith into political battles, to bless nationalism, and to justify violence and armed struggle in the name of religion,” a temptation the pope refers to as “blasphemy.” This is no doubt intended as a challenge to Christian nationalism in the United States and parts of Europe, but the pope also likely has in mind religiously-fueled conflicts in Africa and Asia, as well. Instead, religious believers should be peacemakers and promote dialogue as a path to peace.
Pope Leo XIV signaled on the day of his election to the papacy that peace would be a central theme of his papacy, and he has used the occasion provided by these two addresses to return to that theme. Leo calls on the faithful to be peacemakers and to look to Christ as the source of our peace.
Coming Soon…
The Synod Study Groups are scheduled to publish their final reports at the end of the year. If and when this occurs, I’ll be sure to read through them and offer informed commentary here at Window Light.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I would be experimenting with Substack’s feature allowing authors to “tag” articles that share common themes or topics. What I discovered is that the main way tags are used on Substack is to enable authors to highlight articles related to a particular theme on the main web page of their newsletters. Attentive readers who have visited the Window Light web site may have noticed that I’ve been experimenting with various tags, which are currently displayed as you scroll down the site’s main page. What I also discovered, however, is that although I can create as many tags as I want, at most nine can be displayed on the newsletter’s main page. So, what I will do is develop five or six broad themes that cover the topics I write about here, as well as two tags highlighting more specific areas of current focus (like immigration) that may change over time. You should see these tags soon on the Window Light main page, and then over time I will go back and tag all the previously published articles. Hopefully you find this feature useful!