On the first anniversary of the election of Pope Leo XIV, the whole world congratulates His Holiness. One year has passed since his first blessing to the people of God from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. The Catholic Church in Estonia joins all the congratulations to Pope Leo XIV worldwide and prays for the Holy Father.
Already from the beginning of his pontificate, Leo XIV spoke of “unarmed and disarming peace,” which is a crucial issue on the European continent, which has struggled with the war in Ukraine for the past five years, as well as the consequences of nearby conflicts in the Middle East and recently in the Persian Gulf, writes the Conference of European Bishops in its message for the Pope’s first year in office.
In his first year of pontificate, Pope Leo XIV did not view Europe as a simple institutional construct; rather, he described it as a historical subject with global responsibility, a community of peoples called to rediscover the meaning of its vocation to peace, to defend human dignity and to promote dialogue.
We are aware of the call to live our faith personally, starting first and foremost from the centrality of Christ. This was emphasized by Leo XIV in his first homily as Pope during the Mass pro Ecclesia held on May 9, 2025, in the Sistine Chapel: “Step aside so that Christ may remain.”
We have seen the central role of Christ in every appeal, every speech, and every homily that Pope Leo XIV delivered in the first year of his pontificate. We followed him to Nicaea, where he commemorated the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council, and accompanied him in prayer in Lebanon, in the „Message of the Land“, from which a new call for peace must emerge. But we have also watched with interest Pope Leo XIV’s journey to Africa, knowing that his appeal is to remove obstacles from the path of integral human development. We must do this by living according to „healthy secularity“, as Leo XIV himself emphasized on September 29, 2025, to the members of the European Parliament’s working group on inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue. Secularity means a clear distinction between religion and politics, which thereby recognizes the public importance of the religious dimension and its contribution to personal development and social coexistence.
On March 18, 2026, meeting with participants of the conference „Who is my neighbor today?“, organized by CCEE (Council of European Bishops’ Conferences), CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference), and WHO, Leo XIV clearly highlighted inequalities in Europe – poverty, loneliness, isolation, difficulties in accessing care, and the mental health crisis – and emphasized that health is a universal right. In the Pope’s view, Europe remains true to itself only if it can protect the most vulnerable among us and refuses to accept that social divides are considered the norm.
The Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) consists of 39 members, of whom 33 are bishops’ conferences, the Archbishops of Luxembourg and the Principality of Monaco, the Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus, and the Bishops of Chișinău (Moldova) of the Diocese of Mukachevo and of the Diocese of Tallinn (Estonia); all together representing the Catholic Church in 45 countries on the European continent.
Source: Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE)