(photo: Vatican Media, September 20, 2025)

Today Pope Leo XIV delivered an address in St. Peter’s Square on the occasion of the Jubilee of Justice. In Pilgrims on the Way of Hope: A Resource for the Jubilee of Justice, the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) explains:

The Jubilee of Justice is an opportunity to remember that we are called to respond to both the needs of our neighbors who are experiencing poverty and injustice now, while at the same time working for God’s vision of justice in our world. The Jubilee Year is a time to reflect on God’s mercy in our own lives and work to extend that mercy to those around us.

During his address, Pope Leo XIV made several important points about the connections of justice to forgiveness, amends, and reconciliation. I have compiled them into a summary list of quotes for you taken from the address:

• “[Justice] establishes a circularity of social relations, which places the value of every human being at its core and seeks to preserve that value through justice, especially in the face of conflicts that may arise from individual actions…”
• “There are many examples in the Gospels in which human actions are measured by a justice that can overcome the evil of abuse.”
• “[Justice] calls us to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven (cf. Matthew 18:21-35).”
• “It is this power of forgiveness, intrinsic to the commandment of love, that emerges as a constitutive element of a justice capable of combining the supernatural with the human.”
• “[Evangelical justice] prompts human justice to go ever further, impelling it towards the pursuit of reconciliation.”
• “Evil, in fact, must not only be punished but also repaired, and to this end, it is necessary to look deeply at the well-being of individuals and the common good.”

This text is an original work of its author Tom Delaney and was entirely composed without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

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If your parish or faith community is seeking a deeper experience of healing, mercy, and spiritual renewal, Live and Forgive is here to help. To begin the conversation, email Live and Forgive presenter and facilitator Tom Delaney at tom@liveandforgive.com— he will be glad to connect with you.