“What will happen if everything is overwhelmed by war?” This is the question that Zaira, a young mother of three from Benevento, asks Leo XIV, questioning the right to peace, in the pages of the July issue of Piazza San Pietro, the magazine published by the Vatican Basilica, which this month is dedicated to the Jubilee of Young People. “Yours is a cry that reaches the heart of God,” the Pontiff responds in the “Dialogue with Readers” section, calling everyone, believers and non-believers, to a journey of conversion of heart. Peace, the Pope explains, is not just a desire, but a personal and daily commitment, born from the depths of our being and nourished by concrete actions, “it is built in the heart and from the heart.”

“We insist on dialogue at all levels, to promote a true culture of encounter and not of conflict, and also of limiting power, as my beloved predecessor, Pope Francis, always called for,” is the appeal of Leo XIV, who issues the challenge of “knowing how to combine prayer with the necessary courageous gestures and with the exhausting patience of small steps.” “War will not prevail,” the Pope concludes, “and children have the right to a genuine, just, and lasting peace.”