25 June 2026

In his recent encyclical, ‘Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo makes a distinction between the ‘culture of power’ and the ‘civilisation of love’. The one is a secular concept whereby people order their world through wielding power rather than creating a world established on love.

The Pope argued that we are all responsible for building this civilisation of love and he gave five paths towards building it. The first was  the need to disarm words.  ‘We must all, therefore, examine our conscience regarding the words we use, the prejudices we have and the explicit or implicit aggression that lies within them.’ he writes.

The second is building peace through justice. He quotes St. Augustine. ‘Do you wish to attain peace? Then practice justice.’  The two are intimately related. As the Psalmist says, ‘Justice and peace have embraced.’ If we seek justice in an unjust world, we will be making peace.

The third is adopting the perspective of victims. It is the incarnation which holds the key to this. God became man in the person of Christ. He revealed through his ministry how to respond to those who suffer. And through his own suffering, he brought healing to the world.

The fourth is cultivating a healthy realism. There are two perspectives alive in our political sphere. There is idealism which quickly runs out of energy and there is cynicism which has already been exhausted. In between, there is realism, an attempt to keep in touch with reality.

The last is reviving dialogue. Pope Leo spends most of his time on the importance of dialogue as an alternative to open conflict. This enables us to move from a culture of power to a culture of negotiation. As the Pope says, ‘Our neighbours are not first our enemies but our fellow human beings.’