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Address of the Holy Father Leo XIV
to the International Commission of Contemplative Dominican Nuns
Sala dei Papi – Wednesday, 30 September 2026
Pope Leo’s Address:
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Peace be with you.
Sisters and brothers,
I am very happy to meet you, shortly after the recognition of the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Sister Maria Petra Giordano, a professed nun of the Order of Preachers. She made faith and vocation the cornerstones of her life as a consecrated woman.
Faith and vocation can also guide our meeting and reaffirm that the contemplative vocation, in the Dominican spirit and throughout the Church, is at the heart of the mission.
Moreover, Jordan of Saxony, the immediate successor of Saint Dominic, wrote that from the beginning, the nuns of the first female communities dedicated themselves mainly to contemplative prayer and study.
They accompanied the preaching of their brothers with penance and participated in the same charism.
Saint Thomas Aquinas’s principle that the fruit of one’s contemplation is transmitted to others takes up Saint Dominic’s intuition that every word of proclamation must originate from silence, listening, prayer, and a profound relationship with God in order to be true.
Contemplation is the “breath of our relationship with God”. It is a silent pause in which we welcome the Word and allow ourselves to be transformed by it.
Contemplation allows us to know people and things more and more in Him.
Then, we can give to others what we have lived and understood.
In particular, there is a reminder for you, Federal Presidents.
Beyond the necessary administrative implications, your presence in the monastery visits and the Federation’s activities wants you, first of all, to be guardians of these values.
Saint Dominic, who is said to have preferred to speak with or of God, taught you to grow in this style.
Therefore, it is important that visits always be moments of common encounter with the Lord in prayer, mutual listening, fraternal correction, and reconciliation.
In this regard, your constitutions call for respect of a fundamental value of cloistered life: silence.
When faithfully cultivated, silence will be precious to you.
It will help you safeguard the entire observance and foster peace in the monastery.
It will also help you look within yourselves, be attentive to the sisters in the community, and be attentive to others outside the community.
Silence is an act of the will.
It is creating spaces of freedom and truth, in which to guard attention, making oneself sensitive to the voice of those who “do not count”, and maturing wisdom and generosity.
This is particularly important in a fast-paced world where everything must be visible immediately and every void must be filled quickly.
In silence, the questions each person asks themselves are heard, but they are not always easy to answer alone.
For this reason, your communities must offer oases of true and profound peace where chaotic anxiety is silensed and we can hear God’s voice.
As Federal Presidents, you encounter situations of difficulty, such as aging communities, deaths exceeding new vocations, decreased working capacity with consequent economic problems, management of large and expensive buildings, and challenges such as shared formation, interculturality, and the organization of communion structures.
The “spirit of survival” tempts you to become isolated and reduce your commitments in the illusion that you can make your remaining resources sufficient so that you do not depend on others or have to suppress monasteries.
In the face of this, I invite you to stop asking yourselves how to maintain empty structures.
Rather, listen to what the Spirit asks of the Dominican contemplative life today.
Be aware that before there are works to be managed, there is a call to be answered.
There is a fire that burns and cannot be allowed to die, as Saint Catherine of Siena said.
Dear sisters, despite the current problems, never lose heart.
Your service to the Church is precious.
Continue it with trust, in communion, and with discernment.
Be united without conforming.
Be faithful to tradition and open to newness.
Be contemplative, capable of bringing the world before God.
May the Virgin Mary, invoked through the Holy Rosary, teach you to recognize the Lord’s invisible work each day.
With the help of His grace, may you pour the oil of consolation and the wine of hope onto the wounds of humanity in our time.
Thank you for being a gift.
I cordially impart my apostolic blessing to you. Thank you.
