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Pope Leo XIV returned to his Jubilee catechesis series May 28 with a reflection on the parable of the Good Samaritan, challenging the faithful to recognize compassion not only as a matter of religious obligation, but as a fundamental expression of our shared humanity.
Addressing thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the General Audience, the Holy Father emphasized that the virtue of compassion precedes religious identity.
“Before being a religious matter, compassion is a question of humanity! Before being believers, we are called to be human,” he said.
His message drew from the Gospel of Luke (10:33), where a Samaritan — a social outsider — stops to care for a man left beaten and abandoned by the roadside. Pope Leo contrasted this figure with a priest and a Levite, both religious officials who chose to pass by. Their failure to act, he noted, illustrates how religiosity alone does not guarantee moral responsibility.
The Pope used the parable as an invitation to self-examination.
“The parables help us to look at [things] from another point of view,” he said, noting how Jesus reframes the question from “Who loves me?” to “Who has loved?”
This, the Pope explained, is the difference between an immature and a mature heart.
“The first question is the one we ask when we sit in the corner and wait, the second is the one that drives us to set out on the path,” he said.
The Samaritan’s example, Pope Leo pointed out, is not defined by belief or status but by action. He stopped, approached, treated wounds with oil and wine, and took the victim to an inn — at his own expense and with a promise to return.
“[I]f you want to help someone, you cannot think of keeping your distance,” the Pope said, “you have to get involved, get dirty, perhaps be contaminated.”
He then urged the faithful to see themselves in the suffering of others — a necessary step, he suggested, for becoming people of true compassion.
“Dear brothers and sisters, when will we too be capable of interrupting our journey and having compassion?” he said. “When we understand that the wounded man in the street represents each one of us. And then the memory of all the times that Jesus stopped to take care of us will make us more capable of compassion.”
Pope Leo concluded the audience with an impassioned plea for peace in Ukraine and Gaza, urging the global community to stop the violence and support humanitarian efforts.
“I strongly reiterate my appeal to stop the war and to support every initiative of dialogue and peace,” he said, invoking the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace.
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