In Rome worldwide meeting and jubilee Pilgrimage of the Popular Movements

Many appointments from 21-26 October, including the audience with Pope Leo XIV

From 21-24 October 2025, Rome hosted the 5th World Meeting of Popular Movements, an international summit that unites delegations from the five continents to reflect and act on the great themes of land, housing and work (the “3 T’s: Terra, Techo y Trabajo), considered by Pope Francis “sacred rights” proper to human dignity.

The heart of the event was the private audience with Pope Leo XIV, scheduled for Thursday, 23 October, at 4 p.m., in the Paul VI Audience Hall. After Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and representatives of the Popular Movements delegations greeted the Holy Father, Pope Leo encouraged all those present to continue their “just struggles” for land, housing, and work, assuring them of the Church's closeness.

“This walking together testifies to the vitality of the popular movements as builders of solidarity in diversity. The Church must be with you: a poor Church for the poor, a Church that reaches out, a Church that runs risks, a Church that is courageous, prophetic and joyful! What I consider most important is that your service be animated by love.” Pope Leo XIV

It was the first official meeting of the Holy Father with the delegations of the Popular Movements from various parts of the world, in continuity with the preceding pope.

The World Meeting of Popular Movements (Encuentro Mundial de Movimientos Populares, EMMP) was indeed born in 2014 as a response to the invitation of Pope Francis to create spaces of fraternity between organizations and movements from around the world, so that the poor and the organized people would not resign themselves and would be protagonists of change. EMMP promotes the culture of encounter so that popular movements might conduct their battle for human dignity, nature and social justice “without pride but with courage, without violence but with tenacity.” It is accompanied in this process by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The work of this fifth world meeting was organized around three thematic axes: land (agrarian reform and ecological justice), Housing (dignified housing and popular habitat), and work (work with rights, popular economics and self-management). The event will culminate with the jubilee pilgrimage of the popular movements in the Vatican, which has scheduled the crossing of the Holy Door on Saturday 25 October and mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday the 26th, along with the Synodal teams and participatory bodies, to reaffirm the common commitment towards a synodal Church at the service of social justice and the common good.

The meeting of 21-24 October was hosted by Spin Time, a palace in the Esquiline quarter of Rome, that provides housing and social assistance to around 400 persons with emergency needs and is the “home” of many popular movements in Rome. The meetings were “closed door” but moments of dialogue are foreseen with the city and citizens and a festival in Piazza Vittorio, organized with the support of the Commune of Rome.

On the 21st, Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, participated in the sessions, contributing a speech entitled “Dream Come True.”

“Pope Francis dreamt of the day when popular movements – farmers and fishers, migrants, precarious workers, social activists – are not simply welcome by Church people, but recognised as a living, thinking, acting part of Church life. And so, you are here, delegations of popular movements accompanied by representatives of the Church in their areas.” Card. Michael Czerny, S.J.

Read the speech of H.E.Michael Czerny in full here.

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Press Conference

On Wednesday, 15 October 2025, at 12:00 at the Holy See Press Office, took place the Press Conference of the 5th Meeting of Popular Movements (21-24 October) and the Jubilee Pilgrimage (25-26 October).

The following took part in the press conference:

-Card. M. Czerny, S.J., Prefect of the Dicastery for promoting Integral Human Development;

-Don Mattia Ferrari, coordinator of the platform (EMMP (World Meeting of Popular Movements);

-Micheline Mwendike Kamate, member of Popular Movements in Africa.

The promotors illustrated the program and the objectives of the meeting, emphasizing the importance of dialogue between the popular movements and the Church to build together a future of justice, peace, and solidarity.

One week since the publication of Dilexi te, the exhortation of Pope Le on love for the poor with his invitation to act so that all people might “lie a more dignified life,” the announcement of the worldwide meeting of popular movments seems almost a first attempt to respond, with a clear intent: to walk WITH the poor, not FOR them, and to see that they are protagonists of this journey.

"Until now many development efforts have failed because there are those who think that development can occur without the direct involvement of the poor. But if the great majority of people are impeded in developing themselves adequately, then none of the really huge problems of the planet can be ever resolved.” Card. Michael Czerny, S.J.