Pope Leo XIV urges Latin American priests, nuns, and seminarians in Rome to place God above all and boldly announce Christ amid today’s confusion.
Newsroom (12/12/2025 Gaudium Press ) – In a message released today and dated December 9, the memorial of Saint Juan Diego, Pope Leo XIV has called on Latin American priests, religious sisters, brothers, and seminarians studying in Rome to renew their response to Christ’s summons: “Follow me.”
Addressing them as “queridos hermanos y hermanas,” the Holy Father underscored that the two simple words “Follow me” contain “the deepest purpose of our life,” whether as seminarians, priests, or consecrated persons.
Drawing directly from the Gospel accounts of the call of the disciples, the Pope emphasized the absolute initiative of the Lord. “The call,” he wrote, “comes without prior merit from some of its interlocutors” and is directed especially toward those who will bring the Gospel to sinners and the weak. In this way, disciples become “instruments of the design of salvation that God holds for all men.”
The message highlights the radical demands of that call, using the encounter with the rich young man (Mt 19:16-22) as a key reference. Pope Leo XIV stressed three requirements: the absolute primacy of God, the theoretical and practical knowledge of the divine law, and the willingness to relinquish all human security by offering “everything we are and what we care for.”
Quoting Saint Ambrose’s commentary on a parallel passage in Luke, the Pope clarified that Jesus does not abolish natural obligations but invites disciples to a higher union with God that surpasses even legitimate earthly ties, so that “we can see his only One.”
Yet this radical detachment, the Holy Father insisted, is never solitary. Citing again Saint Ambrose and Saint Peter’s first letter, he reminded the clergy and religious that they belong to a community “purchased at the price of his blood,” whose unity already anticipates the eternal harmony for which Christ prayed: “That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you” (Jn 17:21).
Turning to the post-Resurrection dialogue between the risen Jesus and Peter, Pope Leo XIV noted that the command “Follow me” is spoken twice—once after Peter’s triple profession of love and again when the apostle shows curiosity about John’s fate. In both instances, the Pope observed, Christ reveals his patient awareness of human fragility and selfishness, yet never withdraws the invitation. “What does it matter to you?” Jesus tells Peter. “You follow me.”
In today’s “confusing and noisy society,” the Holy Father declared, the Church needs servants and disciples who announce “the absolute primacy of Christ” with unmistakable in both their words and their lives. This clarity, he said, is cultivated above all through meditative reading of Sacred Scripture in the silence of profound prayer, reverent acceptance of the voice of legitimate pastors, and diligent study of the Church’s treasury of wisdom.
Whether in moments of joy or hardship, the Pope urged his readers to echo the Psalmist: “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will” (Ps 40:8). He likened the bond uniting priests, religious, and seminarians to Christ with the marriage vow taken “in health and in sickness, in wealth and in poverty.”
Entrusting the Latin American clergy and religious in Rome to Our Lady of Guadalupe—“Mother of the true God for whom one lives”—Pope Leo XIV asked her to teach them to respond with courage, to preserve in their hearts the wonders Christ has worked in them, and to proclaim without sadness the joy of having encountered him.
The message, signed “May the Most Holy Virgin Mary guard you in Rome and intercede for you so that everything in Rome will be fruitful in your mission,” the Pope concluded. “God bless you.”
- Raju Hasmukh with files from vatican.va
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