In his first Christmas audience with the Roman Curia, the administrative body of the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV set a clear tone for his pontificate on Dec. 22: The Church must be outward-looking and visibly united in a fractured world. Speaking in the Hall of Benedictions, the Pope framed mission and communion as concrete criteria for daily ecclesial work.
“The Church, by her very nature, is outward-looking, turned toward the world, missionary,” the Pope affirmed, grounding this conviction in the mystery of Christmas itself: “The first great exodus is God’s own—his going forth from himself to meet us.”
He called on the members of the Curia to be missionaries: “We are not mere gardeners tending our own plot, but disciples and witnesses of the Kingdom of God, called in Christ to be leaven of universal fraternity among different peoples, religions and cultures.”
