Pope Leo XIV calls mutual love the debt that doesn't enslave

Sunday in the Square

Vatican bulletin B0698 sets the scene in plain official Italian. At noon on Sunday 6 September 2026, the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Pope Leo XIV appeared at the study window of the Apostolic Palace and prayed the Angelus with the faithful and pilgrims in St Peter's Square. OSV News published the full English text of the address the same day.

He opened the way he often does. "Dear brothers and sisters, happy Sunday!" Then he went straight to the day's readings. The word of God that Sunday, he said, offered "some fundamental criteria for thought and action." In the Letter to the Romans, every commandment is "summed up in this word, 'Love your neighbor as yourself'" (Rom 13:9). Paul drives the point home with an image that's also in the Lord's Prayer. "Owe no one anything, except to love one another" (v. 8).

That sentence is what the whole Sunday talk turns on. Jesus taught people to ask for forgiveness of debts and to forgive them too. Yet, Leo said, there's one debt we owe each other that doesn't enslave us, and it's the debt of mutual love. "All the attention, care and goodness we have received make us freer and more capable of responsibility."

That's not a soft slogan. In his letter to the Romans, Paul's working out what a Christian community still owes each other once the old habit of keeping score has been set aside. Leo's reading keeps the paradox. Most debts tie you down. This one, he says, does the opposite. Being cared for doesn't make you smaller. It makes you freer, and better able to answer for what you do next.

If you've ever sat through a sermon that turned "love your neighbour" into background noise, this is the opposite. He names the debt, then throws out the idea of a prison that usually comes with talk of debt. Mutual love is owed, and it doesn't enslave. That pairing is Sunday's headline, before Ukraine and Genazzano come into it.

Two ways to practise mutual love

The Sunday Gospel, he said, suggests at least two ways for every Christian community to practise that mutual love.

The first is learning how to correct each other as brothers and sisters. Leo called it "a delicate art, too often forgotten," one that "calls for frankness and a gradual approach." The steps are the ones Matthew's Gospel already sets out for a community under strain. You speak honestly, face to face first. Then, if you need to, you bring in two or three others. Finally, if it comes to it, you take it to the whole community. Doing that, he said, "means facing reality and transforming problems and conflicts into opportunities for growth."

Then came the blunt contrast. "Complaining and speaking ill of others are easier, but they accomplish nothing and leave many situations paralyzed. The Gospel, instead, teaches us the freedom that comes through charity."

If you work anywhere that runs on gossip, that line hits hard. He calls the easy path, complaining and talking behind someone's back, a dead end, not harmless letting off steam. The harder path is honesty, one step at a time. You go face to face first, not as a pile-on, and not in a group chat. It's a delicate art because honesty without the step-by-step part turns into a show, and going step by step without honesty turns into dodging. Leo puts both demands in one sentence.

The second way of loving each other as brothers and sisters, he said, is one that for Jesus "transforms even our prayer: coming to an agreement." That's not only when there's a fight. It's also when asking God for something. He quoted Matthew 18:19: "If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven."

That promise, as he read it, suggests people can have "shared desires, shared sorrows and shared hopes," and can grow closer through prayer. Without faith, "each person might feel alone and become suspicious of others, seeing them as strangers and enemies." By grace, "we are brothers and sisters who can live in harmony: meeting one another, forgiving one another and listening to one another in the Lord."

So under that one debt, he named three things. Owe each other love. Practise it by correcting each other honestly, one step at a time. And practise it by coming to agreement, including when you pray together, so suspicion doesn't harden into seeing others as strangers and enemies. That was the teaching, before anyone mentioned a capital city under attack.

Mary's visit to Elizabeth

He finished the reflection with Mary. After the angel's announcement, she "went in haste to her cousin Elizabeth to share the joy and the hardship of pregnancy." Ask her, he said, "to teach us, too, the joyful debt of fraternal love."

The visit to Elizabeth pulls the rest of the talk together. Joy and hardship go together. It isn't a polite drop-in. It's two pregnant women sharing the load, and Leo names both sides. The debt of love between brothers and sisters is joyful in that sense, not the greeting-card sense. You go quickly, and you share what's hard as well as what's bright.

That's the end of the teaching half. What came after the Angelus prayer changed tone, but it kept Sunday's words about dialogue and agreement.

After the Angelus: Ukraine, in the pope's words

OSV's full text and the Vatican bulletin match on what came after the Angelus. He began: "With a sorrowful heart, I have followed the news of the latest violent attacks that have recently struck several cities and civilian infrastructures in Ukraine, causing the deaths of innocent people." He went on, "My heart goes out to the suffering people, who for years have lived in anguish and fear."

Then he renewed his appeal: "I renew my appeal to put an end to the violence, to stop the destruction and to open hearts to dialogue and peace!" And he voiced a hope for diplomacy, tied to "these days." "I hope that the efforts undertaken in these days to resume negotiations will bear concrete fruit and open space for diplomacy."

He asked for prayer "that concord may prevail in all the conflicts of the world."

In that part he mentioned cities and civilian infrastructure. He mentioned innocent people killed, and years of anguish. He renewed his call to end the violence. He tied his hope to the efforts at talks "in these days," and asked for concrete fruit and room for diplomacy. Then he widened the prayer to every conflict in the world. In the published text, he didn't go through the envoys' travels. That's in OSV's background reporting, which comes next, and it's clearly marked as theirs.

What OSV reported around the appeal

Junno Arocho Esteves, writing for OSV News on 7 September 2026, set the Sunday appeal against a war "now in its fourth year" and against hopes for US-led talks. That framing is the reporter's.

According to that OSV piece, Russia had stepped up its attacks on Ukraine with a series of devastating strikes at the end of August and into September. OSV cited a 1 September Associated Press report saying a Russian bombing of Kyiv over twelve hours killed more than a dozen people. The AP said the attacks targeted civilian infrastructure and apartment buildings. The same OSV summary notes that Ukrainian drone attacks over the summer targeted Russian retailers and oil refineries.

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, spoke in a video message published on 6 September. OSV quotes him saying attacks that deliberately target civilians "at the most vulnerable moments of their lives" were "state terrorism." "The worst thing," he said, "is that the enemy is using modern means, including unmanned systems, to attack residential areas at night." He said that during the day, especially after 1 September, when the school and university year began in Ukraine, Russia "deliberately attacks schools, universities, and dormitories."

Those are Shevchuk's words as OSV reported them, from the same Sunday as the Angelus. They sit beside Leo's appeal as a separate public statement from a church leader in Kyiv. The pope didn't say them from the window.

On the peace talks, OSV reported that both countries briefly paused strikes when US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow on 5 September to talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The next day they met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. The talks with Putin were described as "constructive," OSV said, but there was "no concrete sign that either country was back on the negotiating table." At a 6 September press conference, Zelenskyy said he wanted security guarantees from the United States to prepare defences for the coming winter, the AP reported, as cited by OSV.

Put that next to Leo's line about "efforts undertaken in these days" and you can see why OSV published the background piece. The pope voiced the hope for concrete fruit. The reporters named the envoys, the cities, the verdict that talks were constructive but nobody was back at the table yet, and Zelenskyy's request for guarantees before winter. Different people were speaking, in the same week of news.

An OSV caption on an older photo notes that Shevchuk had a private audience with Leo on 12 February 2026 at the Apostolic Palace. He briefed the pope on Ukraine as the full-scale invasion neared four years. That's only useful as a record of when they met. It doesn't change Sunday's Angelus text.

Greetings, then ordinary life after summer

After the Ukraine appeal, Leo welcomed Romans and pilgrims from many countries. He greeted, in particular, the community of the Interdiocesan Seminary Studienhaus Sankt Lambert of Lantershofen in Germany. He greeted the pilgrims from the Parish of Sant'Ulderico Vescovo in Musestre, near Treviso. And he greeted the Diocesan Choir of the Diocese of Oppido Mamertina-Palmi, who'd come with their bishop.

Then came a pastoral sign-off that sounds small until you notice the time of year. "As we gradually resume our ordinary activities after the summer break, let us ask the Lord to accompany us and sustain us with his light." Happy Sunday. The Square empties, and the week goes on.

Talk of ordinary life after summer isn't a throwaway line on a weekend when envoys are shuttling between Moscow and Kyiv and a vigil Mass for Mary is already on the pope's calendar for Monday evening. It's a pattern Leo often follows. There's a public appeal, then a return to work, study, choir practice and the parish bus home. The debt of mutual love is for those places too.

Monday evening at Genazzano

On 8 August 2026, the Prefecture of the Papal Household had already published the notice in English. On Monday 7 September, at 18:00, the Holy Father Leo XIV would celebrate Holy Mass in the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano, on the eve of the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That set the date. Mares's OSV report fills in what happened on the day.

Genazzano is a small town about thirty-five miles east of Rome. The Augustinians have looked after the shrine since the 14th century. It's drawn pilgrims for centuries, including several popes, Urban VIII, Pius IX, John XXIII and John Paul II, who are painted in frescoes on the basilica walls. Monday's visit was Leo's second to the basilica as pope. His first, Mares notes, was a surprise visit just days after he was elected in the May 2025 conclave, to pray before the image of the Virgin Mary he's long been devoted to.

The Augustinian Province of Chicago, where the young Robert Prevost joined religious life, was dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel. He's been visiting the Genazzano shrine for decades, ever since he first went while studying in Rome in the early 1980s. The visits kept going through his years as prior general of the Augustinians, as bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, and later as a cardinal. That history is why Monday's trip wasn't a random stop. It was a homecoming.

Silent prayer, a golden rose and a new fresco

Mares gives a clear timeline for the evening. Leo arrived in Genazzano just after 5 p.m. He greeted pilgrims outside and inside the basilica, who kissed his ring. He first knelt in prayer before the main altar. Then he went to the chapel with the revered image of Our Lady of Good Counsel, where he prayed silently and presented a golden rose, a traditional papal gift.

Before Mass, a new fresco on the basilica wall was unveiled. It shows the current Augustinian pope kneeling before the image of Mary, next to the older frescoes of Urban VIII, Pius IX, John XXIII and John Paul II. The wall now shows that unbroken line in paint.

The golden rose is an old papal gift. It's made of metal and comes with ceremony, so it's not a garden flower, but it's still a rose offered to an image of Mary. On the eve of Mary's birthday, the gift and the feast fit together even before the homily begins.

The guest-book line that opened the homily

At the start of the homily, Leo quoted words he'd written in the shrine's guest book on that first visit after the conclave. Mares reports the line with his introduction: "As you may remember, 'in the early days of my pontificate, I felt the duty and a deep desire to visit Genazzano, the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel, who has accompanied me throughout my life with her maternal presence, her wisdom and the example of her love for her Son, who is always the center of my faith.'"

He put duty and deep desire in the same breath. He spoke of Mary's motherly presence, her wisdom and the example of her love for her Son, and he named that Son as the centre of his faith. That's how he placed himself in the shrine before he turned to the feast.

"Mary is the dawn of a new day"

Reflecting on the birth of the Virgin Mary, which the Church celebrates on 8 September, Leo said: "Mary is the dawn of a new day, of our world finally freed from evil."

Then came the request that became OSV's headline. "Let us ask her for her Good Counsel, so that we may welcome the divine Word, keep it within us, and bring it to light through courageous and wise decisions, decisions of authentic conversion."

There are three steps before the decisions. You welcome the Word, keep it, and bring it to light. The decisions are how you bring it to light. They're meant to be brave and wise, and to come from real conversion. Sunday's Angelus had already talked about agreement, dialogue and how complaining gets you nowhere. Monday's talk of good counsel fits right alongside it, without the pope needing to point that out. Welcome it. Keep it. Bring it to light. Decide.

"She is born simply a child"

On Mary's birth itself, Mares quotes him: "We celebrate the birth of a little girl called to become the Mother of her Creator, the Mother of God who saves. And yet, she is born simply a child, like the daughters and granddaughters we hold in our arms."

Calling her the Mother of her Creator is an old Christian paradox, and Leo won't let it drift away from a baby you can hold. She's a little girl, like the daughters and granddaughters in the room. In those two sentences, the feast is about the whole universe and about family life at the same time.

St Thomas of Villanova and imagination in hard times

He turned to St Thomas of Villanova, a 16th-century Augustinian bishop and theologian. Thomas wondered why the Gospels didn't give more details about Mary's life, and he treated that silence as an invitation to reflect on her holiness and virtues.

Leo's comment, according to Mares, was that "St. Thomas invites us to engage in this wonderful exercise of the imagination." He said this kind of reflective prayer matters especially today, "in times of destruction and uncertainty."

Then came the long quote from Thomas, as OSV reported it word for word:

"Let your imagination run wild … paint in the depths of your soul a young woman who is most pure, most prudent, most beautiful, most devout, most humble, most gentle, full of every grace, rich in sanctity, adorned with all the virtues, embellished with all the charisms, absolutely pleasing to God."

That's not a call to make up history. As Leo used Thomas, the Gospels' silence about Mary's private life becomes permission to imagine her virtues in prayer, right when the world outside is loud with destruction and uncertainty. On Sunday he spoke about violent attacks and innocent deaths. On Monday he named destruction and uncertainty as the reason this kind of prayer matters. There's no sign Leo planned the two days as a pair. The calendar just put them side by side, and the words happen to fit together.

How the two days fit together

If you take one thing from Sunday, take the debt that doesn't enslave. It's mutual love, which is owed and which frees you, practised by correcting each other and by coming to agreement. If you take one thing from Monday, take the plea for good counsel that leads to brave and wise decisions of real conversion. Welcome the Word, keep it, and bring it to light.

Correction without love becomes a weapon. Agreement without honesty becomes a fake peace. Counsel without conversion becomes branding. Leo's Sunday words guard against the first two. His Monday words guard against the third. You can keep all three warnings in mind without inventing any secret Vatican plan.

The Ukraine appeal falls between the two. He spoke of a sorrowful heart. He asked for an end to the violence and the destruction, and for hearts open to dialogue and peace. He hoped the efforts at talks "in these days" would bear concrete fruit. OSV's background piece tells you which envoys travelled on 5 and 6 September, and what "constructive" did and didn't mean. It tells you what Shevchuk called state terrorism that same Sunday, and what the AP reported about the Kyiv bombing and Zelenskyy's request for security guarantees before winter. The pope's words were end, stop, open, hope and pray. The reporters supplied the names.

Genazzano adds personal history and acts of devotion. It was his second visit as pope. The first came days after his election in May 2025. There's the guest-book line about duty and desire. He knelt at the main altar and prayed silently before the image. There's the golden rose, and the new fresco beside the older papal ones. There's a homily about a little girl who becomes Mother of her Creator. And there's Thomas of Villanova on imagining holiness in your soul when the Gospels are quiet and the world is loud.

Leo didn't mention Kushner, Witkoff, Putin or Zelenskyy. OSV linked those names to the story, and that's OSV's reporting. The death toll stays at the "over a dozen" that OSV cited from the AP for the 1 September bombing of Kyiv. The state of the talks stays where OSV left it, with no concrete sign either side was back at the table. Thomas of Villanova's words stay a prayer exercise about Mary's virtues, not a foreign policy paper. Leo had already tied that exercise to times of destruction and uncertainty. That's plenty for one sentence.

The Papal Household announced Genazzano on 8 August. The Angelus fell on the Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time because that's where the calendar of readings was. When themes line up, it can just be coincidence, unless an official source says otherwise.

Where things stand on Tuesday morning

The Angelus text is set down in the bulletin and on OSV's full English page. Mares reported the Genazzano Mass, with the guest-book quote, lines from the homily and details of the rituals. The Ukraine talks are still moving. OSV's 7 September account is the snapshot here, including its line that there was "no concrete sign" of a return to the table. Shevchuk's Sunday video stands as his accusation over attacks on civilians and schools. Leo's Sunday hope was for concrete fruit and room for diplomacy. Whether that fruit comes will only be clear after this morning.

The lesson you can carry with you is still the one about debt. Owe each other love, and don't mistake that debt for a chain. Practise it face to face before you take it to a crowd. Practise agreement in prayer before suspicion takes hold. Ask for counsel that helps you welcome the Word, keep it and bring it to light in decisions that are brave, wise and life-changing. And it's fine to hold a golden rose and a sorrowful heart in the same week without making one explain the other.

On Sunday he also greeted the seminary community of Studienhaus Sankt Lambert in Lantershofen, the parish of Sant'Ulderico Vescovo in Musestre, and the diocesan choir of Oppido Mamertina-Palmi with their bishop, and he blessed the return to everyday life after summer. Those are the ordinary people in the Square before the cars pull away.

More from The Gold Standard: Leo opened Gaudium et Spes, The common home got a theology and The synod got the house.

Sources

Vatican Press Office bulletin B0698, Angelus of 6 September 2026 (Italian original): https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2026/09/06/0698/01299.html.

OSV News, full English text of Pope Leo XIV's Angelus address, 6 September 2026: https://www.osvnews.com/full-text-pope-leo-xivs-angelus-address-given-sept-6-2026/. The Vatican's official English text of the Angelus is at vatican.va.

Prefecture of the Papal Household notice, 8 August 2026, Genazzano Mass set for 7 September at 18:00: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2026/08/08/260808d.html.

Courtney Mares, OSV News, "Pope Leo XIV asks Our Lady of Good Counsel for aid to make 'courageous and wise decisions,'" 7 September 2026, 3:27 p.m.: https://www.osvnews.com/pope-leo-xiv-asks-our-lady-of-good-counsel-for-aid-to-make-courageous-and-wise-decisions/.

Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News, "Pope Leo expresses hope Ukraine, Russia negotiations bear fruit," 7 September 2026, with background reporting, AP citations and Shevchuk's 6 September video: https://www.osvnews.com/pope-leo-expresses-hope-ukraine-russia-negotiations-bear-fruit/.