Pope Leo XIV warned this Saturday that social dialogue cannot be limited to avoiding conflict or bringing together different positions, but rather requires maintaining conversation even when opposing interests arise and decisions demand “concrete sacrifices.” The Pontiff also insisted that, for Christians, fraternity does not arise solely from a social agreement, but from a prior truth: “we have one and the same Father.”
Leo XIV spoke these words during the audience granted in the Vatican Apostolic Palace to participants in the meeting “Fratelli tutti: North-South Socio-Environmental Dialogue,” organized by CELAM and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and promoted by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. In his address he also addressed technological development, subsidiarity, the Social Doctrine of the Church, and the need for progress to be subordinated to the dignity of the person and the common good.
Below, we reproduce in full the address of Leo XIV:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Peace be with you.
I cordially greet Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, the ecclesiastical authorities of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council, the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. I value the constancy with which, together with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, you have sustained this path of North-South socio-environmental dialogue for five years.
I also thank the representatives of international organizations, regional development banks, the business world, and foundations who have chosen to join this journey.
I likewise welcome the presidents, vice-presidents, and secretaries general of trade unions and employers’ chambers of the Americas, as well as the leaders of ecclesial networks in Latin America and the Caribbean, of Organized Communities in North America, and of university networks in both hemispheres. Their presence expresses the will to continue a dialogue that can translate into a path toward more human, sustainable, and solidarity-based models of development, capable of protecting the dignity of every person and paying particular attention to those at risk of being left behind.
This meeting is of particular interest because of the breadth of the sectors represented and the responsibility that many of its participants exercise in areas decisive for social, economic, and cultural life. Precisely for this reason, this space for dialogue can help to address with greater realism the challenges that affect our common future.
At the beginning of my pontificate, when meeting with the College of Cardinals, I recalled some fundamental aspects of the path the universal Church has been following for decades in the footsteps of the Second Vatican Council. Among them, I highlighted the need for a “courageous and confident dialogue with the contemporary world in its different components and realities” (Address to the College of Cardinals, 10 May 2025).
Such dialogue belongs to the very mission of the Church, which has received from Jesus Christ the mandate to proclaim the Gospel to all peoples and to bring its light to the concrete realities of every age. Its pastoral character is part of its very nature and commits it to facing squarely the reality of the men and women to whom it is sent. The Gospel imperative to care for the poor further requires that this gaze be directed in a particular way toward those who suffer most gravely the consequences of social, economic, and technological changes.
A few days ago I recalled that the Church is called to “assume reality and also to unmask the contradictions that characterize the personal and social life of the contemporary world,” including those that may accompany scientific and technological progress that opens up unprecedented possibilities (Catechesis, 2 September 2026).
Such a commitment is rooted in the very mystery of the Christian faith. God has entered our history. In Jesus Christ He has assumed our humanity and has entrusted to the Church the mission of proclaiming the Gospel amid the real circumstances in which peoples live. From the Scriptures to the great Fathers of the Church, such as Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, the Christian tradition has learned to discern within history what truly serves man and what ultimately turns against him.
The novelties of our time thus place us before a common responsibility. In Magnifica humanitas I expressed it with a biblical image: we stand before the possibility of “raising a new Tower of Babel or building the city where God and humanity dwell together” (n. 1). Therefore, in the face of technological development, the decisive question is not simply whether we accept or reject certain tools, but what kind of humanity we wish to build and what place each person will have in it. A responsibility of such magnitude exceeds the possibilities of any isolated institution. That is why it is necessary to recover with new vigor the logic of subsidiarity (cf. n. 13), recognizing the proper responsibility of each actor and, at the same time, the need to work together.
I am pleased that the Church in the Americas has promoted this space of encounter and cooperation to advance the North-South Shared Responsibility Agenda for Multisectoral Cooperation. When public institutions, businesses, workers, universities, communities, and social organizations share their knowledge, capacities, and resources in service of the common good, a conviction that has matured in the Social Doctrine of the Church—and that my Predecessors have developed in various ways—takes concrete form: the great social challenges require shared responsibility, participation, and collaboration among the different bodies of society. Pope Francis expressed this same conviction when speaking of “social friendship” (cf. FT, 154).
An agenda of shared responsibility can precisely help ensure that legitimate differences do not become fragmentation. In my first Encyclical I wished to emphasize that pluralism needs a principle of unity that allows it to be oriented toward common foundations and toward the ultimate end of the person (cf. MH, 10). The Church’s synodal experience can offer a lesson here: truly listening to differences does not mean diluting them, but learning to discern them and, from them, to seek what can serve the good of all. This exercise is particularly necessary at a time when polarized narratives find immediate amplification and confrontation can easily become an instrument of power (cf. MH, 190). In the face of this dynamic, the very fact that such different persons and institutions have decided to sit at the same table already contains a responsibility. True dialogue requires more than cordiality: it obliges us to remain in conversation when opposing interests arise and when decisions demand concrete sacrifices.
For believers, moreover, fraternity finds its ultimate foundation in a truth that precedes any agreement: we have one and the same Father. As Fratelli tutti recalled, “without an openness to the Father of all, there will be no solid and stable reasons for the call to fraternity” (n. 272).
The res novae of our time set in motion a true movement of “reflection and action” (MH, 174), which must “be guided with foresight: by institutions capable of regulating without stifling and protecting without replacing; by businesses that recognize work and dignity as measures of success; by intermediate organizations and educational communities that rebuild trust and relationships; and by citizens who cultivate responsibility, moderation, discernment, and a sense of truth” (MH, 181).
“Do not be afraid” is an exhortation that my predecessors repeated at decisive moments in the life of the Church. I too would like to make it my own today, for “we must not allow ourselves to be intimidated by tensions or differences, because they can become creative forces when guided by shared responsibility” (MH, 13).
The Social Doctrine of the Church offers invaluable assistance in this regard. Many of the organizations present here know it, study it, and help to spread it. “It is not a manual of principles and norms to be applied, but a process of shared discernment” (MH, 27). Its principles do not replace the decisions you must make; rather, they offer criteria for judging whether those decisions truly respect human dignity and serve the common good.
For this reason, the value of the points of consensus that may be reached will not be measured solely by the number of people who support them. It will be recognized by the interests they are able to protect and, particularly, by the impact they have on the lives of those who have less power to defend themselves.
The principles of social justice offer a decisive criterion here. A social, economic, and political order can truly be called human when it allows everyone—“particularly the weakest—to live a truly dignified life, leaving no one behind” (MH, 77).
At the end of Magnifica humanitas I reflected on the figure of the prophet Nehemiah. Faced with a Jerusalem in ruins, he listened to the suffering of his people, brought it before God, discerned what needed to be done, sought the necessary resources, and organized a project that could only be carried out with the participation of many people (cf. MH, 241).
I would like to propose that same image for the work you are undertaking. In our time as well, great structures have collapsed wherever progress ceases to serve the person, where work loses its dignity, where entire communities are left aside, or where technology ends up deepening the divisions it should help us overcome.
Like Nehemiah, you are called to “enter into the works of history’s construction—research laboratories, technological companies, schools, media, institutions, local communities—to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened” (MH, 241). Moreover, I invite you to allow yourselves to be challenged by the signs of the times and to welcome the contributions of the sciences, cultures, and human experiences in order to discern possible paths forward.
Negotiation is part of that work and of a “better politics” capable of seeking the common good above particular interests (cf. FT, 154). Therefore, I encourage you to cultivate a healthy “culture of negotiation” (cf. MH, 221), capable of opening paths where differences seem to close every possibility of encounter. In this way you will also be able to contribute to the diplomacy of peace that our world needs.
Nehemiah did not rebuild Jerusalem alone. He called his people together, and each one worked on the part of the construction that corresponded to him. Now it is up to you to recognize what part of this shared work has been entrusted to you. May the progress of our time not leave new ruins in its wake, and may all that we build be truly a home and a refuge for all, beginning with the most in need.
Thank you very much.