Address of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV on the Occasion of the Opening of the Extraordinary Consistory
(June 26–27, 2026)
June 26, 2026
Dear Brother Cardinals,
I welcome you and thank you from my heart for having once again accepted my invitation. Your presence manifests the solicitude for the whole Church that we share in the service of the People of God and of the mission entrusted to us by the Lord.
At the Consistory last January, I expressed a simple desire: that these meetings would help us to learn ever more fully to "work together in the service of the Church" and to continue "a conversation that helps me in the service of the mission of the whole Church." These were not merely introductory words. I continue to believe that this is one of the most important responsibilities entrusted to the College of Cardinals. We too, like the whole Church, learn by walking. Communion is never a result achieved once and for all: it remains a daily conversion, which takes shape in prayer, and through concrete attitudes, relationships of trust, and a willingness to listen to one another.
In these months I have had occasion to recall on several occasions that we are called to be builders of the communion of Christ — a communion that takes shape in a synodal Church in which all cooperate in the same mission, each according to his own charism and his own ministry.
As I said to the Roman Curia, this communion "is built more through concrete gestures and attitudes — which must manifest themselves in our daily life, including in our work — than through words and documents" (Address to the Roman Curia for the Christmas Greetings, December 22, 2025). We are not custodians of particular interests, but "disciples and witnesses of the Kingdom of God, called to be in Christ a leaven of universal fraternity" (ibid.).
For this reason I have desired that our work focus on four themes that are deeply connected to one another.
First, we are invited to contemplate the world in which the Church is called to proclaim the Gospel. Before asking ourselves what to do, it is necessary to pause before reality, looking at it with the eyes of faith and allowing ourselves to be questioned by listening to our brothers and sisters. As I recalled just a few weeks ago, "Jesus walks through the streets, crosses the squares, visits our neighborhoods, dwells in the places of our daily life, like the God who is near and walks with his people, like the Lord of history" (Homily at the "Plaza de Cibeles," Madrid, June 7, 2026). And even today the Lord continues to go before us in history, and the Church is called above all to recognize his presence.
Subsequently, we will reflect together on the culture of power and the civilization of love. Many of you come from lands marked by war, violence, social or religious polarization. But none of us is a stranger to the many forms of conflict, oppression, and fracture that are crossing our societies today. For this reason, the discernment we are called to undertake concerns everyone and challenges the mission of the Church in every context. The Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas offers us some precious keys for reading this moment in time. I am above all interested in hearing how these pages resonate in your Churches, what questions they raise, what perspectives they open, what steps they suggest. An encyclical continues its journey when it is received, interpreted, and embodied in the concrete life of the Churches.
The third session will further deepen Magnifica Humanitas, examining the contribution that the Church can offer to the building of the common good. We live in a time in which the temptation of fragmentation grows and particular interests easily prevail. The social doctrine of the Church reminds us that the common good does not arise spontaneously, but demands shared responsibilities. For the Church, this takes on a very precise form: a synodal style at the service of the mission of the Kingdom. The Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas recalls this at n. 86, adding that this requires attention to the way in which decisions are made and responsibilities are exercised — in transparency, evaluation, and co-responsibility.
Finally, we will devote a session to the journey of implementing the Synod. This last session does not open a new topic, but gathers together and places in relationship what we will have shared in the preceding sessions. Faced with the wounds of the world, the building of the common good, and the mission of the Church, synodality indicates a way of proceeding: listening, discerning, and taking together the responsibility for the choices that the Lord entrusts to us. Synodality is not first and foremost a set of procedures; as I have had occasion to say on numerous occasions, synodality is an attitude, an openness, a willingness to understand. At times it has been interpreted as a diminishment of authority. In reality, it helps us to understand more deeply the meaning of authority itself — which exists to safeguard communion, to foster the participation of all, and to orient the common journey of the Church.
These four sessions find their unity in the missionary perspective that we shared at the last Consistory and that I recalled in the letter of last April. We are not here above all to reflect on the internal life of the Church. All the themes we will address — the gaze upon the world, peace, the common good, synodality — converge in a single question: how can we help our Churches today to proclaim the Gospel with greater fidelity, freedom, and credibility? Mission is not one among the many tasks of the Church. It is her reason for existing, and precisely for this reason it also becomes the criterion that orients our discernment. When we learn to listen to one another, to carry responsibilities together, to recognize the action of the Spirit in the different Churches, we are not merely improving the way we work: we are becoming a Church more capable of encountering the men and women of our time and of bearing witness to them of the joy of the Gospel.
For this reason I wish to ask you for a particular kind of help. The ministry that the Lord has entrusted to me cannot be lived alone. It has need of your experience, your pastoral wisdom, your knowledge of the Churches and of the peoples entrusted to you. I count on you to help me discern what the Spirit is saying to the Church today. I need your support: strong, explicit, and public. I need to feel sustained by you as by brothers.
I therefore ask you to accompany me not only in these days of work, but also in the daily service of the communion of the universal Church. Help me to listen to what is emerging in the Churches, to recognize the signs of hope that often grow in silence — but also not to ignore the difficulties, the misunderstandings, and the resistances that can slow down the journey. I need your freedom, your candor, and your loyalty. A sincere counsel is always an act of communion.
I also ask you to sustain, each one in his own Church and in his own ministry, this style of ecclesial discernment. I know that it demands patience and at times gives rise to questions. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the Lord is teaching us a more evangelical manner of living together the responsibility he has entrusted to us. The credibility of our witness and the fruitfulness of our mission also depend on this.
I therefore wish to encourage you to engage with conviction in the work of the groups. I am well aware that for many of us this is not the customary way of conducting a Consistory. And yet this too is part of the journey along which the Lord is leading us. Naturally, there will also remain space for personal interventions, and, as always, each one will be free to send me observations or confidential reflections. But I ask you to enter with trust into this ecclesial exercise. We too learn synodality by practicing it; we learn together to grow in communion.
I thank you even now for your willingness, for your interior freedom, and for your love of the Church.
Let us entrust these days to the Holy Spirit, that he may make us docile to his voice and grant us the grace of seeking together what best serves the Gospel and the good of the People of God.
Thank you.
(Rorate translation)
——
Extraordinary Consistory (June 26–27, 2026) - Concelebration with the Cardinals
Homily of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
Vatican Basilica
Friday, June 26, 2026
Dear brothers,
We have gathered around the altar of the Lord, at the tomb of Saint Peter, to begin this Consistory. From every corner of the world, we have come to celebrate this Eucharist. Let us offer to God our lives and the communities and peoples we hold dear, as well as our pastoral projects and experiences with all their joys and sorrows.
This diversity of emotions and thoughts now comes together and finds its luminous center in Christ, who himself addresses us, saying: "I am the true vine" (Jn 15:1). Through Jesus, grace and truth flow into our lives (cf. Jn 1:17), renewing us from within. These divine gifts are also the life-giving nourishment of the Consistory that we inaugurate today. The Gospel itself prepares the ground for it to bear fruit: "Remain in me, and I in you" (Jn 15:4). On the one hand, then, the Master warns us that "apart from me you can do nothing" (v. 5), and on the other, he wants his disciples to bear "much fruit" (v. 8). Much fruit indeed, for God's grace does not produce stunted growth in those who receive it, but rather a flourishing progress. Indeed, the eternal Word became man so that all might "have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn10:10). Having begun in faith, this life is strengthened even through the trial of pruning, because it is cultivated by the Father's attentive care.
As we ask God to grant us strength and wisdom, it is significant that our Consistory takes place on the eve of the Solemnity of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Let us pause, then, to commemorate these two pillars of the Roman Catholic Church, the two missionary martyrs whose preaching became one with their lives, to the point of becoming part of Sacred Scripture.
As we listen today to Saint Paul's words to the Corinthians, we can see how beautifully they harmonize with those of the Gospel. Indeed, the various charisms, ministries and ecclesial activities are like branches of the one vine — that is, of the same Lord (cf. 1 Cor 12:4-6), who pours out the Holy Spirit upon his Church. Corresponding to this organic unity is the standard that makes all forms of service in the Church good and fruitful, namely the standard of the common good (cf. v. 7).
Dear friends, to guide our discernment during these days, I would like to draw some insights from the word of God we have just heard.
First, the example of Saints Peter and Paul encourages us to share in the true freedom of faith. In fact, it is precisely our relationship with the Lord Jesus that frees us from sin and fear. As he calls us to follow him, he himself sends us out into the world as successors of the Apostles. Therefore, proclaiming the Gospel, celebrating the sacraments, and dedicating ourselves to the Lord's flock are realized and bear fruit to the extent that we believe in him, the Good Shepherd. Faith is that virtue — never to be taken for granted — that gives life to the Church, for it is the grace that nourishes the branches of the one vine. The living Church is the Church that believes through the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts. And this Church bears much fruit. Thus, just as divine grace precedes human freedom, the Church's faith precedes our own and calls for a fervent witness. This mission has Christ as its beginning and end. In the words of the psalmist, "Tell of his salvation from day to day; declare his glory among the nations" (Ps 96:2–3).
Second, we ask for the gift of peace in unity. Even as we invite all peoples to the faith in which we are truly free, international tensions and conflicts seriously wound the human family. At the same time, the Church and the world are not lacking initiatives and experiences that call for respect for human dignity, justice, the rule of law and simply for what is human. Indeed, there are many such examples. This is a source of hope, for it attests to the beauty of the work of God, who created us in his image and likeness as a sign of his glory in the world. Whenever this sign is wounded, we are all wounded. Whenever it is corrupted, we all suffer. Whenever it is destroyed, we all feel torn apart. Therefore, war is never worthy of humanity, and it is never blessed by God, because, even if we are equipped with high-tech weapons, the Creator has endowed us with intelligence and free will to resolve conflicts as human beings and not as beasts. That the unity of the human family takes precedence over individual peoples and states is not merely a biological fact; it is an ethical principle. Peace is a duty of justice because we are one human family, a magnifica humanitas that finds its head and redeemer in Christ.
As we reflect on the Encyclical that I promulgated on May 15th last, we must persevere along the path outlined by Saint Paul VI, for when he "coined the phrase 'the civilization of love,' the world was in the midst of the Cold War, an arms race and severe economic instability. In that context, the Church proposed an alternative path to that of ideological opposition between systems, and envisioned a social order in which justice and charity are intertwined" (Magnifica Humanitas, 186; cf. Saint Paul VI, Regina Caeli, May 17, 1970). Indeed, this is how Christian witness becomes prophecy, evangelization and service for a new world, as well as a cultural and social project that promotes integral human development. As she proclaims the Gospel, amid both joys and persecutions, the Church is never partial, since she is for everyone, and to each she addresses the same message of conversion and salvation.
Third, today and always, let us savor harmony through obedience — that is, a listening that recognizes the gift of the Word made flesh for us. Through such listening, the Holy Spirit guides us, pointing out pastoral challenges and opportunities, purifying our intentions and correcting whatever strays from our shared path. The implementation of the Synod, to which we are committed, invites everyone to move forward in unity of faith, in promoting peace, and in obedience to Jesus, the living Word. In this light, "today's vast and rapid cultural changes demand that we constantly seek ways of expressing unchanging truths in a language which brings out their abiding newness" (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 41). The one Word made flesh is in fact expressed in all languages: Christ who died and rose again is the true vine, which bears fruit through all the cultures that Christians transform from within. Thus, as the ideologies of the world wither away, the Holy Spirit makes fraternal harmony, charity and missionary zeal flourish in the Church.
Our working together in a collegial way embodies the synodality in which all the baptized participate in the unity of the People of God. Synodality and collegiality are, in fact, forms of Christian fraternity, which binds us together as the baptized and as bishops. Therefore, in helping me in the exercise of the Petrine ministry, you will find in me one who asks, not commands. Moreover, the authority of primacy belongs to the one who listens and only then leads, to the one who learns and only then teaches, always following the one and only Teacher. May the intercession of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul accompany us on this enthralling journey.
(Official translation)
