Pope: Social justice cannot depart from Gospel or turn to violence

By Devin Watkins

The Church in Peru holds its Social Week in Lima on August 14-16, which brings together Catholics to dialogue in search of responses to the country’s complex social issues.

Pope Leo XIV sent a message to participants, which was read out in Spanish on Thursday evening.

The Pope recalled that his own pastoral ministry has been marked by the Church in Peru, noting that God’s Providence has always accompanied Peruvians.

He pointed to several Saints tied to the Latin American nation, including St. Rose of Lima, St. Martin de Porres, St. John Macías, and St. Turibius of Mogrovejo, and highlighted their unique examples of care for social justice.

Pope Leo recalled Pope St. Paul VI’s words at the canonization of St. John Macías, who loved people “because he saw in them the image of God.”

“How much we would like to remind this to those who today work among the poor and marginalized!” he said. “We must not depart from the Gospel, nor break the law of charity in order to seek, by ways of violence, a greater justice.”

With his predecessor, Pope Leo invited those who work for social justice to transform people from within, along with their social structures so that they may become more just and more human.

Turning to the 16th-century St. Turibius of Mogrovejo, the Pope praised the Spanish-born bishop’s vast expansion of the Church in Peru by creating 100 new parishes, hosting a Pan-American Council, and spending all his strength to care for those who live on the peripheries of society.

“The Peruvian lands saw him not only in the fervor of an apostolic action that still amazes us today,” he said, “but also in the quiet of his serene face and his recollected, devout demeanor, which clearly showed whence that strength came to him: from an intense prayer and union with God.”

Pope Leo XIV then reflected on the contemporary situation of Peru, which he said faces multiple challenges regarding economics, politics, and culture.

“The pain,” he said, “caused by the injustice and exclusion suffered by so many of our brothers and sisters urges all the baptized to give a response which, as Church, must correspond to the signs of the times from the very heart of the Gospel.”

The Pope upheld the saints as models for our own times which call each person to build a better future.

“Let us understand,” he said, “that all the Church’s social action must have as its center and goal the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ, in such a way that, without neglecting what is immediate, we always keep awareness of the proper and ultimate direction of our service.”

In conclusion, Pope Leo urged the Church in Peru to express their love for God by sharing both the material bread and the Bread of the Word of God with others, so that their hearts may be awakened with “hunger for the Bread of heaven, which only the Church can give.”