On March 24, Pope Francis received members of the Centro Italiano Femminile (Italian Women’s Center), founded in 1944.

In his address, the Pope recalled that the Center’s first national president, Maria Federici Agamben, contributed to Italy’s 1947 constitution. “As long as they are not homologated by the prevailing system of power, women, by acquiring power in society, can change the system, if they manage, so to speak, to convert power from the logic of domination to that of service, of care.”

The “logic of domination,” the Pope added, is evident in the war of Ukraine, which is “unbearable to see.” The ultimate answer is “not more weapons, more sanctions, more political-military alliances,” but “a different way of governing the world.”

The needed “change of mentality,” he continued, is “the school of Jesus Christ,” “the school of Gandhi,” “the school of the saints of every age,” and “also —I would say above all —the school of countless women who have cultivated and cherished life; of women who have cared for the fragile, the wounded, the human and social wounds; of women who have dedicated mind and heart to the education of the new generations.”