Leo XIV sends greetings and a blessing to the Waldensian synod at Torre Pellice

Pope Leo XIV has sent a message of good wishes and “the blessing of the Lord” to the synod of the Methodist and Waldensian churches, opened on 22 August 2026 at Torre Pellice, in Piedmont. The message, delivered to the Catholic bishop of Pinerolo and signed by the Cardinal Secretary of State, greets an assembly gathered from 22 to 26 August to debate peace, social justice, ecumenism, human rights, the protection of vulnerable persons and artificial intelligence. Developing this last theme and referring to his own encyclical, the pope calls there to «far crescere la tecnica senza far regredire il cuore»: to let technique grow without letting the heart wither.

What the Church has always taught

The Church is one, and her unity is not an ideal to be built but a fact of the faith. “There is but one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism,” the Catechism of the Council of Trent recalls in expounding the ninth article of the Creed; the dove of the Spouse “is one, she alone is beautiful.” The same Catechism is without evasion as to who stands outside this body: the heretics and the schismatics are excluded from the Church, “because they have abandoned her, and from thenceforth they can no more belong to her than a deserter belongs to the army he has quitted.”

Scripture governs even the gesture of greeting. Saint John writes: “If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him: God speed you. For he that saith unto him: God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works.”

The measure

The Waldensian churches are a Protestant denomination, separated from the Roman Church and condemned as heretical well before the Reformation, whose doctrine they afterwards embraced. Their synod does not deliberate on the faith received, but on causes of the age, on ecumenism and on technology. To this assembly the pope addresses no call to return: he sends good wishes and a blessing, and joins in its reflection on artificial intelligence as in that of a partner.

Yet tradition knows only one road to unity, and it is not mutual deference. Pius XI fixed it without ambiguity against the nascent ecumenism: the union of Christians is brought about only by the return of the dissidents to the one Church of Christ, from which they once withdrew; to labour at it otherwise, treating the separated confessions as equals, is to suppose that the true Church may still be sought for. To bless an assembly that professes another faith, and to greet it as an interlocutor, is precisely the greeting that Saint John forbids.

What the faithful should take from it

Charity toward the separated is a duty, and to pray for them is another; no one denies it. But charity wills their good, and their good is the whole faith, not confirmation in error. A Christian formed by tradition will therefore hold two things together: the respect owed to every man, and the refusal to call “union” what leaves each in his own belief. The Church has but one thing to offer to those who have left her, and it is herself. It is not a question of judging souls, nor of disputing about the sovereign pontiff, but of keeping, intact, the faith as the Church has always held it.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), ninth article of the Creed, on the unity of the Church and on those who do not belong to the Church. Second Epistle of Saint John, verses 10 and 11 (Douay-Rheims, Vulgate). Pius XI, encyclical Mortalium animos (1928), on false union among Christians.