CT News
Sep 17, 2025 : Around 9,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday Sept. 15 evening to take part in a prayer vigil for the Jubilee of Consolation. It was a special event of the Holy Year that was dedicated to everyone who has endured moments of particular difficulty, bereavement, suffering, or hardship.
Celebrating the prayer vigil, Pope Leo XIV invited everyone who has experienced hardship or loss to embrace faith in Christ, so that pain may not lead to violence but forgiving love.
The Pope led pilgrims in the Liturgy of the Word, which included two testimonies from women who have suffered an especially traumatic loss of a loved one.
Sharing testimonies of pain and forgiveness
Diane Foley, mother of the late American journalist James Foley, told her story of faith and her reconciliation with a member of the so-called Islamic State who killed her son.
He was serving in Syria as an independent conflict journalist in 2012 when he was kidnapped, starved, tortured, and publicly beheaded in August 2014, because he was an American journalist and a Christian.
Ms. Foley shared her struggle not to become bitter but to turn to God despite her anger. She looked to Mary, whose son was also killed despite His innocence, saying the Blessed Mother's example taught her to walk in faith and trust in God.
Lucia Di Mauro Montanino shared the pain she and her daughter endured after her husband, a security guard, was murdered by a group of young men in the Italian city of Naples.
A few years after the youngest of the group—17-year-old Antonio—was sentenced to 22 years in prison, he asked to meet Ms. Di Mauro and ask her forgiveness.
When Antonio was released under supervision 14 years early, Ms. Di Mauro accompanied him and his new family "on his winding path of rebirth."
"Reconciliation requires an active encounter, and it is what allowed Antonio to build a new life and me to make sense of my husband’s death," she said.
God's closeness in times of darkness
In his address, Pope Leo reflected on humanity’s need for comfort and consolation amid the many wars and personal losses people endure every day.
The Pope noted that those who suffer look around for someone to offer some form of consolation, but often find no one.
If we turn our questions into pleas and supplications for justice and peace from God, we turn our hope to Jesus, who is the bridge between God and humanity.
The Pope noted that the testimonies of Ms. Foley and Ms. Di Mauro Montanino reveal the truth that “pain must not give rise to violence,” since love can conquer hatred.
Forgiveness, he said, offers us a foretaste of the Kingdom of God on earth, breaking the cycle of evil and establishing justice grounded in God’s mercy.
Pope Leo XIV invited everyone to allow God to comfort us in our pain, rather than relying on our own strength of will.
In conclusion, the Pope appealed for an end to the crushing weight of violence, hunger, and war that are causing immense suffering to entire populations.
Related reading :
.png)
.png)
.png)