Angelus of July 26: the hidden treasure and the voice calling for dialogue

Pope Francis comments on Mt 13:44-52, denounces "the industry of consumerism" and addresses his appeals to the Holy Land, Lebanon, and the victims of the fires.

The Fact

This Sunday, July 26, 2026, at the Angelus from Castel Gandolfo, Leo XIV commented on the Gospel of the seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Mt 13:44-52), the three brief parables of the hidden treasure, the pearl, and the net. The Pope warned against the "consumerism industry," which "poisons the heart" and distances the faithful from true joy, which comes from God and not from merchandise. At the end of the Marian prayer, he made several appeals: the resumption of "negotiations for a fair political solution" in the Middle East (Vatican News, English and French editions, July 26, 2026), a thought for Lebanon and Gaza, and prayer for the victims of fires in France and Spain.

Our Reading (in the light of the magisterium)

The papal critique of consumerism is not new. John Paul II had formulated it in Centesimus annus n° 36 (1991): consumer society subordinates freedom to "possessing," stifling the truth of the person. Benedict XVI in Caritas in veritate n° 51 (2009), then Francis in Laudato si' n° 203 (2015), took it up and deepened it. Leo XIV, in this summer of climate fires and unresolved wars, makes it a matter of burning topicality: he who runs after material comfort cannot, in the same movement, want peace, for he first fears the loss of his goods. The hidden treasure of the Gospel is the overturned joy: that of the disciple who sells everything, with gladness, to acquire Christ. That freedom is also a politics.

To Meditate

What is my field worth? What am I willing to sell for the treasure? And above all: have I understood that it is already there, at my feet?