Truth is Encountered Only in Freedom

Image of Pope Leo XIV facing the Rimini meeting audience

Pope Leo XIV at the Rimini meeting 2026

It is not a matter of numbers […] It is a matter of freedom: truth is encountered only in freedom.
— Pope Leo XIV, address to the 47th Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, Rimini, August 22, 2026
Elia Carrai Truth Is Encountered Only in Freedom

Elia Carrai - Speaking to participants in the 47th Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples, Pope Leo XIV rekindled—to use his own words—"dreams and visions." What he said matters for the whole Church: it can stretch our horizons to the size of the epochal change we are living through.

Truth Is Encountered Only in Freedom

Without glossing over the tragedies and challenges that shake our present, the Pope had the courage to name the unexpected opportunity this "dramatic and wonderful" era holds. Secular society, then, is not an enemy to be fought but a space to be understood, inhabited, and lived in: a society that does not need one more round of abstract appeals, but rather for spaces of authentic humanity and full freedom to open wide within it. Pope Leo made the decisive point plain: for the Church today it "is not a matter of numbers [...] It is a matter of freedom: truth is encountered only in freedom."

That judgment is anything but a given within the Church herself—including her movements—and it commits us to an exercise in understanding the present that leaves no room for presumption, for fear, or for paradigms recent history has already shown to be false. The Pope went on: within "the historical circumstances that rekindle the most human questions and an infinite desire for meaning, justice, and peace," we are grasping ever more clearly how necessary this passionate esteem for the freedom of each person is to the truth itself.

Reading the Signs of the Times Differently

For the Church, this means a shift in the way we have grown used to reading the signs of the times. As the Pope put it: "A certain loss of influence—which we adults may have feared and fought against—was meant to reveal to us that we can hold in higher esteem the power of the Gospel, the bonds it forges, the logic it ignites, and the life it brings forth."

What looks like a dramatic loss of the Church's influence on society—a trend that has picked up striking speed since the turn of this century—is not something to fear. It is precisely what frees us to recognize what can truly touch our lives, and so genuinely shape and transform them.

Reawakening Human Depth

Leo goes deeper still, widening the horizon his predecessors had already pointed to: "'The Church does not proselytize. Rather, she grows by attraction.' It is the attraction of a way of inhabiting the world, about which Don Giussani provocatively asked: 'Is it possible to live this way?'" Our own complex present—so hard to decipher—is exactly what can reawaken that human depth made up of needs, urgencies, and questions, the only depth that lets us grasp the newness and beauty of a life that attracts: the life of Christ, which even to the world of the second century appeared "wonderful and undoubtedly paradoxical."

The human heart, as the Pope also recalled in Magnifica humanitas, "feels the need to discover a different plan" (no. 230)—a plan other than maneuvering for spheres of influence or the seduction of ideological constructs. It needs the mercy of a different plan, the grace of a different logic, a new breath of life: as unexpected as it is longed for by every man and woman.

To Move and to Touch

Only in this loyalty to one's own authentic need does it become possible to recognize and embrace the Mystery of the Incarnation, of Emmanuel: the infinite mercy of God-with-us. A Mystery that does not constrain but sets us free and makes us able to take risks. "The disarming beauty of this Mystery," Pope Leo continued, "calls for taking 'the educational risk' of which Don Giussani spoke to you."

Only this possible contemporaneity with the very life of God in Christ—renewed in the men and women who down the centuries have allowed themselves to be drawn to Him and indwelt by His Spirit—only this presence of the divine in the human is the true newness that moves history and saves it, opening up a possibility of life, of love and freedom, that we would never have dreamed of.

Echoing the title of the Meeting—The love that moves the sun and the other stars (Dante, Paradiso XXXIII)—the Pope pointed to God's method: a God "who willingly remains silent," and who in just this way shows his real effectiveness. A presence able to move and touch the human heart and its freedom: "Yes, love moves!"

Recognizing That We Belong to Love

Following in Augustine's footsteps, Leo reminded us that the very form of God's mercy toward humanity is His reaching out to us, taking the risk and staking everything on the unquenchable desire for Him that dwells indomitably in every man and woman.

When the heart lets itself be drawn anew by the life and love of Christ, the awareness of the one true belonging arises—and from that awareness spring the communion and synodality to which the Pope has called us. We must not confuse them with the outcome of human constructs or of strategies bent on making everyone alike. They are the recognition of "belonging to God alone": the belonging of love, the only belonging that truly sets us free, because "in love there is never coercion, indoctrination; never seduction, deception, or recruitment."

Conversion as Service

"There is love only in freedom, in living encounter, in the generous gift of self." Unity is always a gift of grace, for it comes to full flower only through the attraction of Christ, who draws near to men and women of every age. For this reason, the Pope recalled, every authority in the Church is called to be converted "into service, which honors diversity and fosters harmony." What that authority is asked to administer is never a product of its own skill at governing or strategizing; it is always the fruit of an "impossible" unity—one that only Christ, present among us, makes possible and renews time and again: "It is the Lord who always lifts us up, as individuals and as a community!"

Experiencing God Who Comes to Meet Us

Leo XIV's message to the Meeting deserves the whole Church's careful attention. The point is to let his words challenge us, rather than to shrink them or water them down into a confirmation of what we already feel we are living. Breaking into a landscape of tired and repetitive ecclesial analysis, the Pope's message rekindles, with its bold vision, the desire to experience "God who comes to meet us—as an event, a gaze, an experience—awakening in each of us the desire to be loved and to love."

Michiel Peeters

Michiel Peeters, a Dutch Catholic priest and Tilburg University chaplain, is associated with Communion and Liberation. He engages students in faith discussions, addresses modern objections to religion, and bridges contemporary culture with Catholic spirituality. Peeters contributes to translating movement literature and organizing events, becoming an influential voice in Dutch religious discourse.

Previous
Previous

Who Is This Man?

Next
Next

Christ's Tenderness Toward His Friends