Pope Leo XIV greets a child dressed as the pope before his weekly general audience yesterday (CNS/Lola Gomez)
Pope Leo XIV said yesterday during his weekly general audience that the Catholic Church is made up of a diverse group of people who are called to embrace all of humanity and are bound together by their faith in Christ.
"Its unifying principle is not a language, a culture, an ethnicity, but faith in Christ,” he said in St Peter’s Square.
The Church is the assembly of “all those who in faith look upon Jesus", he said, united not by nationality or culture but by their shared faith in Christ.
The Pope said love is the law that governs relationships within the Church, as believers receive and experience it through Jesus. Through Christ, believers from every nation are united in faith, he said. The Church is the people of God who “draw their existence from the body of Christ and who are themselves the body of Christ".
Rather than turning inward, the Pope said, the Church must remain open to everyone.
“Unified in Christ, Lord and Saviour of every man and woman, the Church can never turn inwards on herself but is open to everyone and is for everyone,” he said.
In a world marked by conflict and division, Pope Leo added, the diversity of the Church is a sign of hope.