Pope Leo XIV attends the Jubilee of Roma, Sinti and Travelling Peoples, and affirms the Church’s pastoral care for itinerant peoples, while inviting them to embrace the dignity of the family, work, and prayer.
By Devin Watkins
Roma, Sinti, and Travellers from across the world met with Pope Leo XIV on Saturday in the Paul VI Hall for the Jubilee of Roma, Sinti, and Travelling Peoples.
During the audience, he answered questions put to him by children and young people.
Responding to a question about war, the Pope invited everyone to believe that peace is truly possible, urging us to make peace within ourselves, our families, and those around us.
“We all want to live in a world without war, and we must always try to be promoters of peace, builders of bridges, firmly convinced ourselves that peace is possible—that it is not only a dream, and that we can live in peace,” he said.
In his prepared remarks, the Pope recalled the theme of the Jubilee: “Hope is on the move—my father and mother were wandering Arameans” (cf. Deuteronomy 26:5).
“Today,” he said, “we all feel renewed in our journey by the gift you bring to the Pope: your strong faith, your unshakable hope in God alone, your steadfast trust that does not yield to the hardships of a life often lived on the margins of society.”
Pope Leo recalled that the Jubilee event comes 60 years after Pope Paul VI’s historic meeting in 1965 with itinerant peoples in Pomezia, during which he crowned an image of Our Lady as “Queen of the Roma, Sinti, and Travellers.”
He reaffirmed the Chruch’s desire to walk alongside their communities through pastoral ministers.
Itinerant peoples, he said, bear witness to three essential truths: “to trust in God alone, to cling to no worldly good, and to show an exemplary faith through your deeds and words.”
Pope Leo crowns the image of Our Lady, Queen of the Roma, Sinti, and Travellers (@Vatican Media)
The Pope noted that their peoples have travelled as pilgrims and nomads for over a thousand years, as other societies have cast them aside and pushed them to the margins of cities, rights, education, and culture.
“And yet, the very model of society that has marginalized you and made you wanderers without peace or welcome,” he said, “is the same model that has, over the past century, produced the greatest social injustices on a global scale: enormous economic inequalities between persons and peoples, unprecedented financial crises, environmental disasters, and wars.”
Pope Leo XIV went on to invite the Roma, Sinti, and Traveller peoples to heed Pope Francis’ appeal to them in 2019, in which he asked them to harbor no resentment but rather to move forward with the “dignity of the family, the dignity of work, the dignity of earning your daily bread, and the dignity of prayer.”
“May the dignity of work and the dignity of prayer be your strength in breaking down walls of mistrust and fear,” added Pope Leo.
At the same time, he said, itinerant peoples need to embrace their evangelizing mission in the Church, concluding with a call for them to exhibit the beauty of their culture.
“Be protagonists of the epochal change now underway,” he said, “walking alongside other people of goodwill wherever you live, moving beyond mutual distrust, making known the beauty of your culture, sharing faith, prayer, and the bread that comes from honest work.”
Pope Leo signs the violin of a performer at the audience (@Vatican Media)
