The Archbishop of Canterbury has decried the “terrible violence inflicted on innocent people in conflicts across the globe” during her pilgrimage in Rome.
Dame Sarah Mullally, while addressing a congregation in the Italian capital, also emphasised the importance of speaking up for and defending “the dignity and worth of every human being”, including refugees.
Her remarks come ahead of a scheduled meeting with Pope Leo at the Vatican on Monday.
This visit occurs amidst recent public criticism directed at the pontiff by US President Donald Trump, who earlier this month branded the religious leader “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy” and demanded he “focus on being a great Pope, not a politician”.
The pontiff himself had used his first Easter message to strongly criticise war, calling on “those who have weapons (to) lay them down”.
Leo doubled down on his comments following Mr Trump’s criticism, warning during his recent four-nation Africa tour that the world is being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants”.
Dame Sarah issued a statement at the time backing the Pope’s calls for peace.
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She said she stood in solidarity with the pontiff “in his courageous call for a kingdom of peace” and urged “all those entrusted with political authority to pursue every possible peaceful and just means of resolving conflict”.
On Sunday, she delivered a sermon at St Paul’s Within the Walls – the first non-Roman Catholic church to be built within the city’s walls – calling for justice and peace.
She said: “The Book of Wisdom reminds us that ‘God did not make death… but created all things so that they might exist’.
“God’s desire is life – life in its fullness, life shared, life given.
“And yet, we look at our world today and often we see something very different: instead of making justice and peace a priority, we see terrible violence inflicted on innocent people in conflicts across the globe.
“In such a world, the Church cannot lose confidence in the Gospel. For the Gospel is precisely this: that life, not death, has the final word; that Christ has broken the power of violence, not by greater force, but by self-giving love.”
Dame Sarah is on her first pilgrimage to Rome since being formally enthroned in March as the first woman to hold the role of top bishop in the Church of England.
The purpose of her four-day visit is said by Lambeth Palace to be to “strengthen Anglican–Roman Catholic relations” and “aims to deepen bonds of communion, affirm a shared witness, and encourage ongoing collaboration at both global and local levels”.
In her sermon on Sunday at the Episcopal church, she also described an “increasingly polarised world”, in which she said the Church must continue “its outward service and acts of love: in care for the marginalised, in welcome to the stranger, in accompaniment of refugees and those who find themselves displaced, unseen, or unheard”.
Dame Sarah is expected to meet the Pope on Monday morning for private prayer and discussion, after which each will give an address.
The archbishop will also join the Pope for midday prayer in the Chapel of Urban VIII within the Apostolic Palace.
She is accompanied on the trip by Archbishop of Westminster Richard Moth, who is the leader of Catholics in England and Wales.
