Pope Leo XIV speaks to people who work in Italy’s intelligence sector in the Vatican’s Hall of Blessings on Dec. 12, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Dec 12, 2025 / 09:11 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV warned that intelligence agencies in some countries work against the Catholic Church, “oppressing its freedom” by using confidential information for “nefarious purposes.”
In an audience at the Vatican on Friday with people who work in Italy’s intelligence sector, the pope recalled the importance of conducting their jobs both ethically and morally.
“We must be vigilant to ensure that confidential information is not used to intimidate, manipulate, blackmail, or discredit politicians, journalists, or other actors in civil society. All of this also applies to the ecclesial sphere,” he said on Dec. 12.
Speaking in the Hall of Blessings, Leo urged those engaged in national security intelligence work to act with professionalism, to have respect for human dignity, and to engage in ethical communication.
“Security agencies often have to collect information on individuals and therefore have a strong impact on individual rights,” he noted. “It is therefore necessary that limits be established, according to the criterion of human dignity, and that we remain vigilant against the temptations to which a job like yours exposes you.”
The pope urged them to ensure that the protection of national security “always and in all cases guarantees people’s rights, their private and family life, freedom of conscience and information, and the right to a fair trial.”
Leo recalled the massive changes to digital communications in recent decades and warned that the arrival of new and increasingly advanced technologies “offers us greater possibilities but, at the same time, exposes us to constant dangers.”
“The massive and continuous exchange of information requires us to be critically vigilant about certain issues of vital importance: the distinction between truth and fake news, the undue exposure of private life, the manipulation of the most vulnerable, the logic of blackmail, and incitement to hatred and violence,” he said.
