A Shepherd for a Shaken World
In his first message to the world, Pope Leo XIV asks us not to retreat, but to reach.
On May 18, 2025, newly elected Pope Leo XIV delivered his first Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica. It was a message the world sorely needed. As wars rage, economies buckle, and trust in institutions erodes, his words were neither evasive nor ornamental. They were a call.
A call to unity.
A call to compassion.
A call to face what divides us — and choose, deliberately, to heal.
His sermon did not skirt politics. He condemned economic systems that exploit both the Earth and its people. He acknowledged the suffering in Ukraine and met personally with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He invoked peace, but not the kind built on silence or distance. The peace he described comes only from proximity — from showing up, listening, and holding the line of dignity even when power falters.
This poster, “A Shepherd for a Shaken World,” is an attempt to capture that posture: a figure of faith, yes, but also a civic force. Someone whose hand extends not to bless from above, but to gather from below.
In the crowd are the very people this message was meant for — refugees, nurses, farmers, mothers, climate marchers, and children who still believe there is something holy in being together.
We are not a faith-based project, but we are a belief-based one. And this moment reminded us that sometimes, belief comes not from dogma, but from daring to keep hope public. From daring to say: we are not too broken to unify.
The world is shaken. But we still have shepherds. And they’re not just in robes. Sometimes they’re artists, teachers, neighbors, or you — reading this.