A few hours ago Pope Leo XIV made his debut with journalists, advocating a more serene communication: "I ask you to choose consciously and courageously the path of peaceful communication". Some experts are already calling him "the Pope of unity", an idea that appears explicitly on his pontifical coat of arms.

The vision of the polis as a common house has been idealized, especially with the promise of digital media to facilitate mutual understanding and comprehension. However, more than two decades later, the initial optimism has waned. Pandemic, war conflicts, and concerns about artificial intelligence and disinformation have generated pessimism. We wonder how to regain confidence in public discussion .

Do we want to be a mass (as sometimes happens in the networks) or a community where respect and even friendship reign? Polarization is also dehumanization. Leo XIV says that we must "disarm" communication of all prejudice, rancor, fanaticism and hatred: we must purify it of aggression. There is room for controversy, but always in a style based on respect for those who think differently.

The agitation and propaganda promoted by Marxism-Leninism is sometimes found in ideological approaches of all stripes that seek above all confrontation, something that also happens in the Catholic Church. To paraphrase Benedict XVI, those who want to build community must stop seeing the other as an evil to be eliminated. Because communication is a place for dialogue: "Communication, in fact, is not only the transmission of information, but the creation of a culture, of human and digital environments that become spaces for dialogue," Leo XIV told journalists on Monday. There is a unity of all the people who form a community, a common home: we are in solidarity, mysteriously in solidarity. In an individualistic world, it is necessary to rethink community, something that was already clearly seen around the Second World War by authors such as Dietrich Von Hildebrand.

Responding to polarization leads us to rethink our relationships with others. According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, trust is the "firm hope that one has of someone or something," a brief definition that suggests the importance of having something secure on which we can rely. Today, that trust faces ongoing challenges. Ethical errors or failures can trigger reputational crises; distrust in institutions is a growing problem; in networks (including Catholic ones), a revolution of kindness seems necessary because contempt and insult abound.

Polarization diminishes hope and fosters distrust, further fragmenting the community. Building trust requires active listening, understanding the needs of audiences, creating spaces for participation, and transparent and authentic responses. Listening reinforces integrity and benevolence, essential values for building trusting relationships. In line with this, Leo XIV states: "Peace begins with each one of us: with the way we look at others, listen to others, talk about others; and, in this sense, the way we communicate is of fundamental importance: we must say 'no' to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war".  

Listening is fundamental to understanding the other, recognizing that the various positions often contain partial truths. St. Thomas Aquinas used disputatio as a method of analysis, integrating these truths in reflection.  

Leo XIV's first intervention gives us very good ideas for overcoming this pathology of communication, with "disarmed" and "disarming" messages, as he said, paraphrasing his first words as Pontiff: "A disarmed and disarming communication allows us to share a different vision of the world and to act in a way that is consistent with our human dignity," he said. Thus, the necessary revolution of kindness in the public space seems a little closer.