Pope Leo XIV used the solemn setting of the Quirinale Palace to issue a clear call to Italians: Do not abandon the Christian heritage that shaped your civilization.
In a formal address to President Sergio Mattarella during a visit to the see of the Italian government Oct. 14, the Holy Father acknowledged the long and singular bond between the Catholic Church and the Italian nation, a land where “countless churches and bell towers” still bear silent witness to a people who once expressed their faith not only in worship, but in culture, craftsmanship, and community life.
After expressing gratitude for Italy’s collaboration during the Jubilee and in the days surrounding the death of Pope Francis, Pope Leo shifted to warning: “There is a certain tendency, these days, to undervalue, at various levels, the models and values that have developed over the centuries and that shape our cultural identity.” He urged Italians: “Let us not disdain what our ancestors experienced and what they passed on to us, even at the cost of great sacrifices.”
The Pope also criticized the modern push toward identity erasure, cautioning the nation not to be “captivated by massifying and fluid models, which promote only a semblance of freedom, only to make people dependent on forms of control such as passing fads and commercial strategies.” True freedom, he implied, comes from inheritance, not from detachment.
As CatholicVote previously reported, the Pope also placed family and tradition at the center of national renewal. Words like “father,” “mother,” “son,” “daughter,” “grandfather,” and “grandmother,” he said, “naturally express and inspire feelings of love, respect, and dedication.”
These aren’t just roles “but anchors of a moral order” without which no society can survive. He warned that without the courage to uphold these values, cultures dissolve into abstraction.
Pope Leo tied this preservation of identity directly to Italy’s future. “Cherishing the memory of those who came before us and treasuring the traditions that have made us what we are,” he said, is necessary “for looking to the present and the future with awareness, serenity, responsibility, and a sense of perspective.”
Speaking of Saint Francis of Assisi, whose 800th anniversary of death is approaching, Pope Leo said that Italy has been entrusted with a “special mission” to hand on a culture that sees the earth “as a sister with whom we share our existence, and as a beautiful mother who welcomes us into her arms.”
“Italy is a country of immense wealth, often humble and hidden, and therefore sometimes needs to be discovered and rediscovered,” he said, and encouraged Italians to “draw hope from it and confidently face present and future challenges.”