Pope at Roma, Sinti and Traveller Day: Peace is possible, not just a dream

Pope Leo XIV held an assembly with Roma, Sinti, and Travellers of all the world on Saturday in Paul VI Hall at the Jubilee dedicated to these communities.
He spoke at this audience responding to questions that children and young people raised.
Responding to a question concerning war, he said that if we believe firmly that peace is possible, then let us self develop it inside ourselves, within our families and communities.

"We all want to live in a world without war. Let us always try first within ourselves and be people of peace, builders of bridges convinced that peace is possible-nothwithstanding everything-that it is not just a dream but real concrete thing." 

Speaking further on Jubilee's theme he recounted"Hope is on the move—my father and mother were wandering Arameans" (cf. Deuteronomy 26:5). Today, he said, we are all strengthened in our path by the gift you bring to the Pope: your deep faith, your strong hope in God only, and your firm trust that stays solid even when tested by the hardships of a life mostly spent on the edge of society. Pope Leo recalled with great sentiment the importance of that Jubilee event, taking place 60 years after the historic meeting that Pope Paul VI had with itinerant peoples in Pomezia back in 1965 when he crowned an image of Our Lady under the title “Queen of the Roma, Sinti, and Travellers.” He said itinerant peoples exemplify three basic principles: “to put trust in God only, to renounce attachment to possessions, and exemplary faith—by action as well as by word.” The Pope noted that theirs is a community that has traveled for more than a thousand years as pilgrims and nomads while other societies settle, pushed to the peripheries of cities, rights, education, and culture. He said, “And yet, it is this very social order which has driven you to the periphery, made of you wanderers without repose or welcome — it is the same order; the paradigm that over the last century has been the origin of great social injustices in our world: vast economic imbalances between people and communities, unprecedented financial disorder, environmental degradation and wars.” Pope Leo XIV renewed his appeal to the Roma, Sinti, and Traveller people to consider in depth the words of Pope Francis from 2019 not to harbor any resentment but rather to move forward with the "dignity of family, the dignity of work, the dignity of earning your daily sustenance, and the dignity of prayer." "May the dignity of work and the dignity of prayer give you strength to break down barriers of mistrust, and fear," added Pope Leo. At the same time, he reminded that itinerant peoples must take on their evangelizing mission in the Church, ending by calling on them to display the richness of their culture. Lead in the great change going on, walking with other people of good will wherever you happen to be found, going beyond mutual mistrust, showing the beauty of your culture, sharing faith and prayer and the strength that comes from honest work.