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Building Bridges of Peace

Pope Leo XIV: Building Bridges of Peace

by Dario Doshin Girolami, founding and guiding teacher of Centro Zen l’Arco in Rome

On Sunday May 18 I was invited to represent Buddhism at the Installation Mass of Pope Leo XIV held in St. Peter Square. The following morning I was invited, together with other members of the Italian Buddhist Union, to a private audience for the different religious traditions, in the evocative setting of the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace.

Pope Leo XIV welcomed representatives of the Christian Churches, ecclesial communities, and different religious traditions, urging us all to a common commitment, free from ideological and political conditioning, to achieve world peace – a firm call to say “no” to war, rearmament, and to impoverishing economy, reaffirming the centrality of dialogue and mutual respect as tools of global cooperation.

Pope Leo XIV sees interreligious dialogue as the high road to fraternal and peaceful coexistence.

In my personal exchange with him I spoke to him both in Italian and English and he answered me in both languages with a big smile.

When I first met former SFZC Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman Roshi, she told me: “Wow, Rome!”. I wonder what she would say of this meeting.