Leo XIV: an appeal for Haiti, a prayer for Nepal

At the close of the Angelus recited on Sunday 30 August 2026, at Castel Gandolfo, Pope Leo XIV made two appeals. He first said he had received “tragic reports” from Haiti, where “the horrific massacre carried out in Kenscoff” had cost the lives of many, while others were taken hostage. He expressed his spiritual closeness to the victims and their families, and called for “the immediate release of all hostages.” To those in charge he addressed “a heartfelt appeal to all those in positions of authority to take concrete steps in order to ensure the safety of the population and put an end to all forms of violence.”

The pope then prayed for the victims of the floods that ravaged Nepal and Tibet, “for those who have lost their lives, for the injured, those missing, for the families and rescue workers.” The provisional toll grew heavier by the hour: 903 dead and 4,247 missing for Nepal alone, to which are added 16 dead and 546 missing on the Tibetan side — 919 dead and 4,793 missing. More than two thousand people remain missing in the three Nepalese districts of Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Makwanpur; the authorities were still without news of 592 foreign nationals and 933 workers at dams and hydroelectric plants. Nepal’s prime minister, Balendra Shah, spoke of “an unimaginable and heartbreaking natural disaster.”

The law this blood breaks

“Thou shalt not kill.” This fifth commandment, teaches the Catechism of the Council of Trent, is given “to protect the life of each one of us in particular,” and its words “absolutely forbid homicide.” It excepts no one: “There is no one, whatever be the lowliness of his condition, who is not protected by it.” Murderers, it adds, are “the most relentless enemies of the human race and even of nature; for they destroy, as much as is in them, the work of God, in destroying man.”

And because man is made to the image of God, he who sheds his blood, “in making His image disappear from the midst of the world,” “does Him a signal injury.” Right after the flood, God had laid down this demand: “I will require the blood of your lives at the hand of every one that shall have shed it.” The blood of the innocent, like that of Abel, cries out from the earth to God, who requires an account of it.

The same charity that defends life also demands the ransom of the captive. Among the corporal works of mercy that tradition holds to be a duty, and not a movement of the heart, are the ransoming of captives and the burial of the dead. To call for the release of the Kenscoff hostages is therefore no diplomatic clause: it is the exercise of a work the Church has always honored.

Pray for the dead, relieve the afflicted

Toward the drowned of Nepal and Tibet, the law is no less. To pray for the dead is, according to Scripture, “a holy and wholesome thought … that they may be loosed from sins.” And to relieve the afflicted — to feed, clothe, shelter, and bury him — belongs to the same works of mercy by which, on the day of judgment, Christ will say: “as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.” The pope’s prayer for the dead, the injured, the missing and the rescuers is that law put into act.

The measure

The same doctrine sheds light on the duty of authority. The Catechism recalls that magistrates, “the legitimate avengers of crime,” who proceed against criminals “to protect the innocent,” far from breaking this precept, observe it. To guard the weak is therefore not, for power, one policy among others, but a charge received from God; where the innocent is not protected, blood accumulates, and an account of it will be required. The appeal addressed to the authorities asks nothing more, and nothing less, than what this law requires of them.

What the faithful must retain

Two calamities, one same measure: the life of man, made to the image of God, is sacred even in the poorest of the displaced and the most anonymous of the drowned. We must pray for the dead and for the captives, commit their tormentors and the chance of the waters to the justice of God, who is not mocked, and hold firm that no massacre and no catastrophe escapes His gaze. It is in this light, and not in that of figures alone, that such days are weighed.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment (“Thou shalt not kill”), the corporal works of mercy (ransoming captives, burying the dead) and the duty of magistrates. Holy Scripture, according to the Vulgate (Douay–Rheims): Genesis 9:5 (the blood required after the flood); Genesis 1:27 (man created to the image of God); Genesis 4:10 (the blood of Abel crying from the earth to God); 2 Machabees 12:46 (prayer for the dead); Saint Matthew 25:40 (“as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren”).