Peace is a permanent journey of reconciliation. I thank you for coming here to pray for peace, showing the world how decisive prayer truly is. The human heart must in fact be disposed toward peace; in meditation it opens itself, and in prayer it goes beyond itself—entering within oneself to go beyond oneself. This is what we bear witness to, offering contemporary humanity the immense treasures of ancient spiritualities.
Pope Leo XIV commemorates 60th anniversary of ‘Nostra Aetate’ at Rome’s Colosseum. Tuesday 28th October 2025
Nostra Aetate is a significant and influential document within the Catholic Church, recognised for its role in fostering improved relations between Catholics and members of the Jewish community and other World Religions over several decades, recently marked its 60th anniversary. Titled “Nostra Aetate” (“In Our Time”), was officially promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope St. Paul VI as a key outcome of the Second Vatican Council.
On Tuesday October 28, 2025 Pope Leo XIV joined faith leaders on Tuesday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate and expressed appreciation of their interfaith gathering being demonstrated as a collective belief that prayer serves as a meaningful instrument for fostering reconciliation.
Approximately 300 representatives of world religions and cultures had joined the Holy Father for an evening ecumenical prayer service for peace organised by the Community of Sant’Egidio and held at the Colosseum in Rome, Tuesday 28th October 2025
Pope Leo XIV emphasised the fact that there is a widespread and earnest desire for peace across the globe. It is important to foster a genuine and constructive period of reconciliation that addresses and maintains sensitivity to the needs of those experiencing hardship, end the misuse of authority, minimises acts of force, and uphold respect for the rule of law. Additionally, he expressed her desire to move beyond conflict, recognising the suffering caused by violence, destruction, and displacement.
Several individuals graciously displayed small blue banners bearing the word “peace” in various languages, as Pope Leo and other esteemed religious leaders facilitated the lighting of candles to symbolise their collective prayer and reaffirmed dedication to fostering interfaith dialogue.
Following the prayer gathering at the Colosseum, Rome’s renowned monument, the Holy Father continued to the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall to participate in the coordinated celebrations collaboratively organised by the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue and the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.
Prayer Meeting for Peace Address of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
In the presence of Religious Leaders, Colosseum, October 28, 2025 sseum, October 28, 2025
Your Holinesses, Your Beatitudes, Distinguished Representatives of the Christian Churches and the great world Religions! We have prayed for peace according to our different religious traditions, and now together we gather to send forth a message of reconciliation.
Conflicts exist wherever there is life, but it is not war that helps to face them nor to resolve them. Peace is a permanent journey of reconciliation.
I thank you for coming here to pray for peace, showing the world how decisive prayer truly is. The human heart must in fact be disposed toward peace; in meditation it opens itself, and in prayer it goes beyond itself—entering within oneself to go beyond oneself. This is what we bear witness to, offering contemporary humanity the immense treasures of ancient spiritualities.
The world thirsts for peace: it needs a true and lasting era of reconciliation that puts an end to the abuse of power, displays of force, and indifference to justice. Enough of wars, with their painful mass of death, destruction, and exiles! Today, together, we manifest not only our firm will for peace, but also our consciousness of the great power of reconciliation within prayer.
Those who do not pray, misuse religion—even for killing. Prayer is a movement of the spirit, an opening of the heart. Not shouted words, not ostentatious gestures, not religious slogans used against the creatures of God. We believe that prayer can change the history of peoples. Places of prayer should be tents of encounter, sanctuaries of reconciliation, oases of peace.
Saint John Paul II, on October 27, 1986, invited the world’s religious leaders to Assisi to pray for peace: never again one against another, but side by side. It was a historic moment, a turning point in relations among religions. In the “Spirit of Assisi,” year after year, these encounters of prayer and dialogue have continued, creating a climate of friendship among religious leaders and welcoming many pleas for peace.
Today the world seems to have gone in the opposite direction, but we begin again from Assisi—from that awareness of our shared mission, from the responsibility for peace. I thank the Community of Sant’Egidio and all the organizations, Catholic and not, that—often going against the current—keep this spirit alive.
The prayer in the “Spirit of Assisi,” for the Catholic Church, rests on the solid foundation of the Declaration Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council, that is, on the renewal of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the religions. And exactly today we celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of that Declaration: it was October 28, 1965.
Together we reaffirm the commitment to dialogue and fraternity desired by the Council Fathers, which has borne much fruit. In their words: “We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God,” teaches Vatican II. All believers are brothers. And religions, as “sisters,” must help peoples treat one another as brothers, not as enemies. For “One is the community of all peoples, one their origin” (Nostra Aetate, 1).
Last year you met in Paris, and Pope Francis wrote to you on that occasion: “We must keep from giving in to the temptation to become a means of fueling forms of nationalism, ethnocentrism and populism. Wars only escalate. Woe to those who seek to drag God into taking sides in wars!” I make these words my own and repeat with strength: war is never holy—only peace is holy, because it is willed by God!
With the power of prayer, with bare hands raised to heaven and open hands reached out toward others, we must ensure that this era of history—marked by war and the arrogance of force—soon comes to an end, and that a new one begins. We cannot accept that this era continues any longer, shaping the mentality of peoples and accustoming humanity to war as a habitual companion of history. Enough! This is the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. Enough! Lord, hear our cry!
The Venerable Giorgio La Pira, a witness of peace, while working politically in difficult times, wrote to Saint Paul VI: “The world needs a different kind of history: the history of the age of negotiation, the history of a new world without war.” These are words that can serve more than ever today as a program for humanity.
The culture of reconciliation will overcome the current globalization of impotence, which seems to tell us that another history is impossible. Yes—dialogue, negotiation, and cooperation can face and resolve the tensions that arise in conflictual situations. They must do so! There exist both forums and people capable of doing so. “To end war is the binding duty of all political leaders before God. Peace is the priority of all politics. God will hold accountable those who have not sought peace or who have fomented tensions and conflicts—for all the days, months, and years of war.”
This is the appeal that we, religious leaders, make with all our hearts to the rulers of the world nations. We echo the peoples’ desire for peace. We give voice to those who are unheard and voiceless. We must dare to make peace!
And if the world were to be deaf to this appeal, we are certain that God will hear our prayer and the lament of the many who suffer. For God desires a world without war. He will free us from this evil!
The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to “maintain good fellowship among the nations” (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men,(14) so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.(15)