Vatican City, October 22, 2025

As part of the Jubilee Year celebrations, a delegation from Pax Christi International attended the General Audience with Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City, joining thousands of pilgrims from around the world in prayer for peace, justice, and healing for victims of violence and ecological destruction.

The delegation included Sr. Wamuyu Wachira, Co-President of Pax Christi International (Kenya); Martha Inés Romero, Secretary General (Colombia); Nicolás Paz, Director of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative (Spain); Sr. Sheila Kinsey, the Initiative’s representative in Rome (US); Marie Dennis, Director of the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence (US); and Ken Butigan, Senior Advisor to the Institute (US).

At the conclusion of the General Audience, Marie Dennis and Ken Butigan met personally with Pope Leo XIV to share updates on the work of the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence, a research center established to serve the Church by making resources, publications, and expertise on Gospel nonviolence more accessible to Catholic leaders, communities, and institutions worldwide. The Pope received the news with evident interest and encouragement.

During their exchange, Dennis and Butigan presented Pope Leo with Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World (2020), a volume compiling the research of more than 120 scholars, theologians, and practitioners from around the world. “From our experience at the grassroots, we know that the world is hungry for nonviolence,” Dennis shared. The Pope, who has been a consistent prophetic voice for peace since his election, listened attentively, nodding and offering his blessing to the delegation. Before parting, the delegation thanked him for his example and leadership as an apostle of nonviolence.

The encounter also celebrated the longstanding collaboration between Pax Christi International and Pace e Bene, one of the founding members of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative following the landmark Nonviolence and Just Peace Conference held at the Vatican in 2016. Since then, the partnership has advanced the mission of Gospel nonviolence through global research, conferences, and advocacy—most recently through the creation of the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence in Rome.

Pax Christi International’s presence at the General Audience reaffirmed its commitment to Gospel nonviolence as a way of life and a strategy for transforming injustice. The delegation’s pilgrimage to Rome continued with participation in the Jubilee of Popular Movements (October 25–26), further deepening the movement’s collaboration with the Church’s global witness of peace and reconciliation.