VATICAN CITY (CNS) ─ Too often, in the name of security, war is waged against the poor, Pope Leo XIV said.
The Holy Year instead indicates that safety is found in the culture of encounter, he said. The Jubilee "asks of us the restitution and redistribution of unjustly accumulated wealth, as the way to personal and civil reconciliation."
The pope made his comments during a meeting marking the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking June 26. Dozens of guests attended the gathering in the San Damaso Courtyard at the Vatican, including Italian government officials, individuals in recovery for substance abuse and those who assist them.
"Today, brothers and sisters, we are engaged in a battle that cannot be abandoned as long as, around us, anyone is still imprisoned in the various forms of addiction," Pope Leo said.
"Our fight is against those who make their immense business out of drugs and every other addiction -- think of alcohol or gambling," he said. "There are huge concentrations of interest and extensive criminal organizations that states have a duty to dismantle."
However, he said, "it is easier to fight against their victims."
"Too often, in the name of security, war is waged against the poor, filling prisons with those who are merely the final link in a chain of death. Those who hold the chain in their hands instead manage to gain influence and impunity," he said.
"Our cities must not be freed of the marginalized, but of marginalization; they must be cleared not of the desperate, but of desperation," he said.
"The fight against drug trafficking, educational commitment among the poor, the defense of Indigenous communities and migrants, and fidelity to the social doctrine of the church are in many places considered subversive," he said.
"The Jubilee indicates the culture of encounter as the way to safety," he said, and challenges must be tackled together.
"We conquer evil together. Joy is found together. Injustice is fought together. The God who created and knows each one of us -- and is more intimate to me than I am to myself -- made us to be together," he said.
"Of course, there are also bonds that hurt and human groups where freedom is lacking. But these, too, can only be overcome together, trusting those who do not profit from our suffering, those whom we can meet and who meet us with selfless attention," the pope said.
"Drugs and addiction are an invisible prison that you, in different ways, have known and fought, but we are all called to freedom," Pope Leo told his audience.
"St. Augustine confessed that only in Christ did the restlessness of his heart find peace. We seek peace and joy, we thirst for them. And many deceptions can delude and even imprison us in this quest," he said.
"The church needs you. Humanity needs you. Education and politics need you. Together, we will make the infinite dignity imprinted on each person prevail over every degrading addiction," the pope said.
"Let us go forward together, then, multiplying the places of healing, encounter and education: pastoral paths and social policies that start from the street and never give anyone up for lost," he said.
