The Great Short-Circuit of Human Rights: Pope Leo XIV’s Warning to a World that has Forgotten Truth

The very framework of human rights is losing its vitality and creating space for force and oppression. This occurs when each right becomes disconnected from reality, nature and truth

When Pope Leo XIV delivered his annual address to the Diplomatic Corps on January 9, 2026, he did so with both a pastoral heart and a warrior’s tongue. In a moment heavy with geopolitical strife, our Holy Father delivered an unexpectedly vigorous critique of global trends, from the return of war to the erosion of human dignity, while also challenging the very language by which we understand and debate human rights.

Drawing heavily on St Augustine’s City of God, Pope Leo remarks that “although the context in which we live today is different from that of the fifth century, some similarities remain highly relevant”. “War” he says “Is back in Vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading”. This despite the fact that, as St Augustine observed “there is no one who does not wish to have peace…those who intentionally interrupt the peace in which they are living have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a peace that suits them better”

The attitude of ‘peace on my terms’ is what Pope Leo argues “led humanity into the tragedy of the Second World War” from whose ashes “the United Nations was born”.