On Pentecost Sunday, Pope Leo XIV called on Catholics to allow the Holy Spirit to “open all the doors that remain closed,” urging believers to rediscover God as Father, build a more welcoming Church, and work toward peace in a world marked by war and division.
Speaking May 24 from St. Peter’s Square during the Regina Caeli address, Pope Leo centered his reflection on the image of the Holy Spirit opening doors — first in the Upper Room after Christ’s resurrection, and now in the hearts of believers and the life of the Church.
“We can also ask ourselves today: what doors does the Holy Spirit open?” Pope Leo asked.
“The first door is that of God himself,” he said, explaining that the Holy Spirit “opens our path to the mystery of God.”
“With the gift of his Spirit, God gives us true faith, enables us to understand the meaning of the Scriptures, reveals himself as close to us, and allows us to participate in his very life,” Pope Leo said. “The Holy Spirit helps us to have a personal experience of God, to encounter him in Jesus and not merely in the observance of a law.”
The Pope then turned to the Church itself, warning that without the Holy Spirit, “the Church remains a prisoner of fear, timid before the world’s challenges, closed in on herself and therefore incapable of entering into dialogue with the changing times.”
“The Spirit opens the doors of the Church so that she may be welcoming and hospitable to all, even those who have closed their doors to God, to others, to hope, to the joy of living,” he said.
Quoting Pope Francis, Pope Leo said Christians are called to be “a Church that blesses and encourages” and “a Church with doors open to all.”
He also said the Holy Spirit “opens the doors of our hearts,” helping people overcome “resistance, selfishness, mistrust, and prejudice.”
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is present, brotherhood is born among individuals, groups, and peoples of the Earth, and all speak the one language of love, which unites and harmonizes diversity,” Pope Leo said.
He urged Catholics to pray for a renewal of faith and fraternity in the modern world.
“We need to rediscover God as a Father who loves us, to build a Church where everyone feels at home, and to foster a fraternal world where peace reigns among all peoples,” the Holy Father said.
Following the prayer, Pope Leo marked the Church’s annual Day of Prayer for the Church in China, observed on the feast of Mary Help of Christians, whose shrine at Sheshan near Shanghai is a major pilgrimage site for Chinese Catholics.
“Let us join our prayers with those of Chinese Catholics, as a sign of our affection for them and of their communion with the universal Church and with the Successor of Peter,” the Pope said.
He also prayed for victims of a recent mining accident in northern China and entrusted Christian communities in the Holy Land, Lebanon, and across the Middle East to the protection of the Virgin Mary “who are suffering because of the war.”
Pope Leo concluded by greeting pilgrims from several countries, including people with disabilities from Poland and cyclists from Belgium, before wishing the crowd a “happy Pentecost Sunday.”