Pope Leo XIV Makes his 1st Visit to the Vatican Library on his Birthday Noting that his Mother was a Librarian and Inaugurates "Catastrophe and Wonder" Exhibition FULL TEXT

Pope Leo XIV made his first official visit as pontiff to the Vatican Library and Archives on Sept. 14, his birthday. He recalled that his mother was a librarian to those present. Visiting the historic Apostolic Archives and the Apostolic Library in the Vatican on Monday, Pope Leo XIV inaugurated the ““AQVA. Catastrophe and Wonder” Exhibition”. Speaking to staff of the Library and Archives, the Pope highlighted his first visit to the Library as pontiff, “following in the footsteps” of his predecessors.
FULL ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV
TO THE STAFF OF THE APOSTOLIC ARCHIVES AND THE APOSTOLIC LIBRARY
Vatican Apostolic Library - Monday, September 14, 2026
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Your Excellency, Your Excellencies, dear brothers and sisters,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Before I formally bid you farewell with a brief speech I've prepared, I'd just like to say that God, in his providence, and sometimes with a certain humor, always reminds us that he is with us. Many of you may not know that my mother was a librarian, and today I'm here on my birthday precisely to greet you all.

I thank the Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, Monsignor Pagazzi; I greet the Prefects and Vice-Prefects of the Apostolic Library and the Apostolic Archive , along with the managers and all those who work there; the President of the Governorate and several friends and benefactors, to whom I express my heartfelt gratitude.

For the first time as Pontiff, I am visiting the Vatican Library, following in the footsteps of my Predecessors. This is intended as a sign of the Pope's closeness and appreciation for the mission of the Apostolic Archives and the Apostolic Library, at the service of the development and dissemination of culture, for the benefit of the Church and of all humanity. In particular – as the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium states – for the "safeguarding and valorization of the acts and documents that concern the governance of the universal Church" and their study ( n. 242 ), and for "collecting and preserving a rich patrimony of science and art and […] making it available to scholars who seek the truth" ( n. 243 ).

When we think of a library, we imagine a peaceful, tranquil environment. Indeed, books are silent and demand silence. In reality, if on the one hand a book soothes, on the other it ignites restlessness, fueling the desire and courage to seek. Saint Augustine is an emblem of this dynamic. Full of life and torment due to powerful forces clashing within him—as he writes—for years he “uttered desperate cries” ( Confessiones , VIII,12,28), until a child's voice reached him, singing: “Take and read, take and read.” He immediately took a book from a friend, Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans , read it, and “a light, almost of certainty, penetrated his heart, and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled” (cf. Confessiones , VIII,12,29). The doubt faded, but not the desire, which instead grew stronger, pushing him to explore the full breadth and depth of the Sacred Scriptures. He himself speaks of it several times, saying that he carefully studied, bending like a question mark, various manuscripts of the biblical books to extract the best text (cf. In Hep. loc. 3, 6, 14 and 3, 6, 17; Enarr. Ps. 36, III, 6; Enarr. Ps . 138, 20). The book of Scripture that reached Augustine is the same one that opened his spirit. Dearest ones, all of you, by preserving, studying, and making available to scholars the books of the successor of Peter, help the Church and humanity to measure up to the depth of this desire. Without it, everything distances itself from the living God, the source of truth and love.

How can I describe the Pope's Library? I'll use a metaphor: the Apostolic Library is a heart. The heartbeat is the symbol of life, and it results from two opposing movements, systole and diastole: a concentration and a relaxation, a movement toward the center and one toward the periphery. The Apostolic Library, too, remains alive to the extent that it maintains its own systole and diastole.

The systole: May the Apostolic Library continue to be a place rich in privacy, quiet, respect, and care. Within the Vatican walls, the almost monastic atmosphere of the Apostolic Library daily reminds us of the Savior's command: "If you must build, if you must fight, first sit down and study" (cf. Luke 14:28-32). The interiority of the Apostolic Library also depends on the unique, priceless treasure it preserves. While it is essential to facilitate its study, including through the digitization and sharing offered by the digital environment, it is also necessary to maintain and encourage the ancient gesture of physically visiting the Library. Indeed, it is not just a repository of books to be drawn from comfortably on your home computer, but an atmosphere of connection, discussion, and exchange of ideas.

But the heart also lives in diastole, and so does our Library. We are in the Leonine Hall, dedicated to Pope Leo XIII . He was a pastor capable of grasping the most dramatic issues of the time, such as the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. He was also the Pontiff of great cultural transitions, such as the opening of the Vatican Archives to scholars from around the world and the increased access to the Library, so much so that he transformed a former arms depot into this beautiful reading room. The openness and breadth of spirit of this Library is evident from its humanistic origins: not only works of theology, but also of literature, philosophy, astronomy, physics, mathematics, geography, botany, zoology, medicine, history, law, art, and economics. Not only European and Christian books, but also volumes written in other religious contexts, from every corner of the world. And this was many centuries before this became a universally shared sensibility. With this style, the Apostolic Library bears witness to the ancient and new cultural openness of the Church. The series of exhibitions that began today also confirms this. A sign of this cultural cordiality is also the gentle diplomacy that finds among the documents and books of the Vatican Archives and Library an open path, one of the "gates of reconciliation" mentioned in the Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas ( n. 211 ). And so, forward! Faithful to the past and faithful to the future, with the languages ​​and means that are proper to you, find new gates of reconciliation.

I greet you, recalling an urgent need shared by the Apostolic Library and the Apostolic Archives: the need for new spaces. I issued instructions in this regard today , and I hope they will contribute to meeting this need. I intend to continue along the path traced by my predecessors, who, over the centuries, have demonstrated the Apostolic See's care for the institutions that preserve and promote its cultural and administrative memory.

Dear all, thank you all and keep up the good work! I bless you from the bottom of my heart and pray for you.

Thank you.