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Pope Leo XIV warned world leaders that the goal of peace cannot be achieved while Christians are being persecuted, the dignity of human life is pushed to the wayside, and religious freedom of expression is suppressed.

Speaking in English to the diplomats accredited to the Holy See, Leo delivered Friday what is dubbed the pope’s “state of the world” address – often viewed as one in which he sets forward his essential priorities with regard to foreign policy.

While many faithful Catholics continue to weigh whether Pope Leo will significantly distinguish himself from his immediate predecessor, Pope Francis, his address to the diplomats perhaps amounts to his most direct comments since his election to the papacy in May. Here, Leo spoke to several key areas of Church teaching – the dignity of all human life, the essential role of marriage and the family, and the freedoms of speech, religion, and conscience – and their current-day state of endangerment.

“[W]e firmly reiterate that the protection of the right to life constitutes the indispensable foundation of every other human right,” the Holy Father asserted. “A society is healthy and truly progresses only when it safeguards the sanctity of human life and works actively to promote it.”

“[I]n the current context, we are seeing an actual ‘short circuit’ of #HumanRights,” Leo continued. “The right to freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, religious freedom, and even the right to life are being restricted in the name of other so-called new rights, with the result that the very framework of human rights is losing its vitality and creating space for force and oppression. This occurs when each right becomes self-referential, and especially when it becomes disconnected from reality, nature, and truth.”

Pope Leo lamented that “language” and the “meaning of words” have grown to become “ever more fluid” and “increasingly ambiguous” in our current culture of increased weaponization.

“Language is no longer the preferred means by which human beings come to know and encounter one another,” he pointed out to the diplomats. “Moreover, in the contortions of semantic ambiguity, language is becoming more and more a weapon with which to deceive, or to strike and offend opponents.”

While Leo observed that it is necessary for “words once again to express distinct and clear realities unequivocally” – something that should be happening, he said, “in our homes and public spaces, in politics, in the media and on social media” – what we actually find is that “the opposite is true, for freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed precisely by the certainty of language and the fact that every term is anchored in the truth.”

“It is painful to see how, especially in the West, the space for genuine freedom of expression is rapidly shrinking,” the Pope bemoaned. “At the same time, a new Orwellian-style language is developing which, in an attempt to be increasingly inclusive, ends up excluding those who do not conform to the ideologies that are fueling it.”

The consequences of this state of affairs are grave, Leo said, and include the restriction of “fundamental human rights, starting with the freedom of conscience.”

Specifically naming “refusal of military service in the name of non-violence” and “refusal on the part of doctors and healthcare professionals to engage in practices such as abortion or euthanasia,” the pope affirmed that “[c]onscientious objection is not rebellion, but an act of fidelity to oneself.”

“At this moment in history, freedom of conscience seems increasingly to be questioned by States, even those that claim to be based on democracy and human rights,” he noted, continuing that, in a similar way, “religious freedom risks being curtailed” in many regions of the world.

To this point, Pope Leo cited his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, who recalled that religious freedom “is the first of all human rights, because it expresses the most fundamental reality of the person.”

Calling attention to massive displays of religious persecution, such as in Nigeria and Bangladesh, Leo nevertheless asserted that another more “subtle form of religious discrimination against Christians” exists, one that “is spreading even in countries where they are in the majority, such as in Europe or the Americas.”

“There, they are sometimes restricted in their ability to proclaim the truths of the Gospel for political or ideological reasons, especially when they defend the dignity of the weakest, the unborn, refugees and migrants, or promote the family,” he said.

Citing Saint John Paul II, Leo continued that human dignity flows from the Christian view that “human beings are created in the image and likeness of God,” who has called them “into existence out of love” and has also “called them to love.”

This calling, he said, “is revealed in a privileged and unique way within the family.” 

“It is in this context that we learn to love and foster the capacity to serve life, thus contributing to the development of society and the Church’s mission,” the Holy Father observed.

Despite the family’s central role, he continued, it is facing “two crucial challenges.”

“On the one hand, there is a worrying tendency in the international system to neglect and underestimate its fundamental social role, leading to its progressive institutional marginalization,” he asserted. “On the other hand, we cannot ignore the growing and painful reality of fragile, broken and suffering families, afflicted by internal difficulties and disturbing phenomena, including domestic violence.”

The pope said this “vocation to love and to life … manifests itself in an important way in the exclusive and indissoluble union between a woman and a man,” and “implies a fundamental ethical imperative for enabling families to welcome and fully care for unborn life.”

“In light of this profound vision of life as a gift to be cherished, and of the family as its responsible guardian, we categorically reject any practice that denies or exploits the origin of life and its development,” he asserted. “Among these is abortion, which cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life. In this regard, the Holy See expresses deep concern about projects aimed at financing cross-border mobility for the purpose of accessing the so-called ‘right to safe abortion.’ It also considers it deplorable that public resources are allocated to suppress life, rather than being invested to support mothers and families.”

“The primary objective must remain the protection of every unborn child and the effective and concrete support of every woman so that she is able to welcome life,” Pope Leo emphasized, adding that further degradation of the dignity of human life is witnessed in “the practice of surrogacy.”

“By transforming gestation into a negotiable service, this violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a ‘product,’ and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family,” Leo said.

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