Pope Leo XIV Tells Future Diplomat Priests "exercise the gift of your priesthood with humility...as faithful and tireless disciples of Christ the Good Shepherd."

Pope Leo XIV on Friday greeted a group of priests from the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy who have just concluded a year of missionary service, commending them for their dedication and calling them to live their priesthood with humility, closeness, and Gospel witness, wherever in the world the Church may send them.  The purpose of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy is to prepare young ecclesiastics for the diplomatic service of the Holy See through a program of specialised studies, following the completion of an ecclesiastical degree.

GREETING OF THE HOLY FATHER LEO XIV
TO THE STUDENTS OF THE PONTIFICAL ECCLESIASTICAL ACADEMY
WHO HAVE CONCLUDED THE MISSIONARY YEAR

Apostolic Palace
Friday, June 20, 2025
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I am pleased to meet you today and to address my cordial greeting to each of you. I welcome your President, HE Monsignor Salvatore Pennacchio, your Prefect of Studies, Monsignor Gabriel Viola, and you, dear Priests, who are returning from the experience of the Missionary Year, the culmination of your formation at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.

Last week, meeting your companions of the Alma Mater of Pontifical Diplomats , I had the opportunity to reiterate the value of this formative intuition introduced by my venerated Predecessor. I urged them to be and remain "shepherds with their feet on the ground", to embody that figure of the priest at the service of the Pope in the Pontifical Representations, well outlined in the Chirograph The Petrine Ministry , with which we wanted to give new impetus to your centuries-old Institution, now close to celebrating the 325th anniversary of its foundation.

As I stated on the occasion of several meetings in the context of the recent Jubilee of the Holy See , the safeguarding of that concern for all the Churches – proper to the ministry entrusted to me – requires the faithful and irreplaceable service of the Secretariat of State and of the Pontifical Representatives, with whom you will soon begin to collaborate.

For this reason I also urge you to exercise the gift of your priesthood with humility and meekness, the ability to listen and closeness, as faithful and tireless disciples of Christ the Good Shepherd. Whatever tasks are entrusted to you, in whatever part of the world you may find yourself, the Pope must be able to count on priests who, in prayer as in work, do not hold back in bringing His closeness to the people and the Churches with their testimony.

I thank you again for the docility and selflessness with which you have spent yourselves in the most diverse contexts in this last year and I heartily bless the beginning of your ministry in the diplomatic service of the Holy See.