Pope Francis received the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See on January 9th, 2025. The meeting at beginning of the year, which is not only a tradition in the Vatican but in many states, was not a matter of protocol, but posed a profound question: what is the purpose of diplomacy in today's world? An official institution with such an ancient history always finds its justification, yet the soul of this service that connects countries, governments, and cultures has been so much affected in the past years, because dialogue has been struck dead. The Pope said, “The biblical account of the Tower of Babel shows what happens when everyone speaks only in his or her “own” language." He went on to note how international institutions “no longer seem capable of ensuring peace and stability”-this is obvious for everybody, but it is very sad. Because their decadence means that there is no longer a shared conscience of the common destiny of peoples and humanity.
How can diplomacy help? The one accredited to the Vatican and that of the Holy See, which does not have economic or territorial interests of its own? In addition to dealing with circumstantial situations (which the Pope mentions in his speech), the aim of this diplomacy is the common good of humanity: in general, for example, ecology or in special circumstances, often dramatic such as wars. Its instruments are dialogue and encounter. Instruments that are little valued in these days. Pope Francis once said, “The world suffocates without dialogue.”
But if in our time of power, a turnaround does not occur, we will slide into a world of conflict in a paroxysmal way. In many wars, “War is always a failure!” - repeats the Pope, saying that it cannot be accepted that civilian populations are bombed or that children freeze to death because the country's hospitals or energy network have been destroyed.
Francis reaffirms that the inhumanity of so many war situations and the ongoing violent language in international politics must be overcome: without diplomacy, that is, without dialogue and encounter, it cannot be overcome. He himself, Vatican diplomacy, the Holy See and the Church are committing themselves directly, in formal and informal ways, for a breakthrough. It is the fundamental choice of the Church of Rome. Paul VI affirmed it in the heart of the Second Vatican Council with the encyclical “Ecclesiam suam”; which is certainly programmatic of a pontificate, but far more than that, of the phase of Church life in which we are still immersed, and which has borne so many fruits of inter religious and human encounter. Dialogue is not an accessory, but part of the Church's mission and its way of being in the world: “The Church becomes word; the Church becomes message; the Church becomes conversation” - Pope Montini said with great lucidity.
The Church becomes word and lives by conversation and dialogue in all aspects of its existence and mission. The Pope's appeal is not a generous intervention of a Christian sensitive to the pain of the world and the dark future to which humanity is heading. It emerges from the depths of the life of the people of God and from the fibres of the Church. The Church is not silenced neither by persecution (and the Pope hints at some situations), nor by the arrogance of powerful communication or political-military powers. We see this on the issue of migrants and refugees. While a policy of closure prevails, the Pope's voice resounds, “With great distress I note...that migration is still covered by a dark cloud of mistrust, instead of being considered a source of empowerment.” This heartfelt appeal cannot be left aside.
The weakness of the Word is the everyday strength of the Church. It corrodes the walls of hate and indifference. A word of truth (Pope Francis speaks of the “diplomacy of “truth”), religious truth certainly, but also referring to the real conditions of men and women, of peoples: “If the link between reality, truth and knowledge is missing, human beings will no longer be able to speak and understand one another…”
Based on its experience and during its long history, the Church believes in diplomacy, because it believes in talking to each other, meeting, discussing, coming together. Therefore, Pope Francis talked about the “diplomacy of hope” with obvious allusion to the underlying theme of the Jubilee. Diplomacy can reply to the thirst for peace, which exists in the peoples and which the Church perceives as a profound question of the people, especially when they suffer from the consequences of war or are subject to the slavery of poverty; thirst for hope facing a dark future. The thirst for hope can and must restart the commitment for dialogue among those who govern.
Those who are longing for peace cannot resign themselves to the current situation. A new audacity is needed to make peace by using dialogue and by asking for it. I am thinking of mature civil societies that action will be taken in this regard. This is an encouragement for those who act at the frontiers of relations between peoples, but also an invitation to all of us not to resign or to give in to the shouted and arrogant reasons of force, and its sequel of mystifications and pain.
published in Avvenire Jan. 11th, 2025, translation by editorial staff 
