Pope on World day of Peace 2013: “Blessed are the Peacemakers”
(Vatican Radio) The Catholic Church marks the World Day of Peace each January 1st.
In his 2013 message for the day, entitled “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” Pope Benedict
XVI says peace is possible in today’s world but everyone must work together as a family
to achieve it.
The papal message was presented to journalists at a December
press conference in the Vatican by the president, secretary and under-secretary of
the Pontifical Justice and Peace Council. As Philippa Hitchen reports, the message
looks at both the theological and practical foundations for promoting justice and
peace in today’s world:
Listen:
From defence
of human life to food insecurity, from religious freedom to economic development.
This message for World Peace Day on January 1st 2013 is a far reaching reflection
on the need to establish right relationships between people and recognise that, in
God, we are one human family’ Peace, Pope Benedict insists, is not a naïve, utopian
dream, but rather it reflects the deepest longing of the human heart. While we must
work hard to build a new world order based on truth, freedom, love and justice, as
Pope John XXIII wrote in 'Pacem in Terris' half a century ago, we must also recognise
that true peace is also a gift from God. Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of
the Pontifical Justice and Peace Council:
"There are so many efforts, so many
initiatives, to bring peace in the world, but establishing divine coordinates for
peace invites us to consider that it's not just what we, with our human energies,
can do.....
The message does spell out many practical concerns including a
looming food crisis, the need for new models of development and financial practise
based on people, not just profits, and the right to work as a fundamental good for
individuals, families and societies.
There’s also a strong focus on defending
the right to life, upholding traditional family values and the need for religious
freedom - including conscientious objection to laws or practices which undermine the
Church’s teaching and beliefs. Cardinal Turkson again:
"So I would encourage
people to more away from the tendency to divide social doctrine or social engagement
from faith, as if the two don't belong together - but what is faith if it is not the
transformation of the here and now......
Pope Benedict concludes his message
with a call for 'a pedagogy of peace' based on pardon and reconciliation. Quoting
the prayer, often attributed to St Francis of Assisi, the Pope asks God to make us
instrument of His peace, bringing love, mercy and peace wherever there is hatred,
hurt or doubt.
Below please find the full text of Pope Benedict
XVI’s Message for World Day of Peace 2013:
Blessed are the Peacemakers
1.
EACH NEW YEAR brings the expectation of a better world. In light of this, I ask God,
the Father of humanity, to grant us concord and peace, so that the aspirations of
all for a happy and prosperous life may be achieved.
Fifty years after the
beginning of the Second
Vatican Council, which helped to strengthen the Church’s mission in the world,
it is heartening to realize that Christians, as the People of God in fellowship with
him and sojourning among mankind, are committed within history to sharing humanity’s
joys and hopes, grief and anguish, as they proclaim the salvation of Christ and promote
peace for all.
In effect, our times, marked by globalization with its positive
and negative aspects, as well as the continuation of violent conflicts and threats
of war, demand a new, shared commitment in pursuit of the common good and the development
of all men, and of the whole man.
It is alarming to see hotbeds of tension
and conflict caused by growing instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the
prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in
an unregulated financial capitalism. In addition to the varied forms of terrorism
and international crime, peace is also endangered by those forms of fundamentalism
and fanaticism which distort the true nature of religion, which is called to foster
fellowship and reconciliation among people.
All the same, the many different
efforts at peacemaking which abound in our world testify to mankind’s innate vocation
to peace. In every person the desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides
in a certain way with the desire for a full, happy and successful human life. In other
words, the desire for peace corresponds to a fundamental moral principle, namely,
the duty and right to an integral social and communitarian development, which is part
of God’s plan for mankind. Man is made for the peace which is God’s gift.
All
of this led me to draw inspiration for this Message from the words of Jesus Christ:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Mt 5:9).
Gospel
beatitude 2. The beatitudes which Jesus proclaimed (cf. Mt 5:3-12 and Lk 6:20-23)
are promises. In the biblical tradition, the beatitude is a literary genre which always
involves some good news, a “gospel”, which culminates in a promise. Therefore, the
beatitudes are not only moral exhortations whose observance foresees in due time –
ordinarily in the next life – a reward or a situation of future happiness. Rather,
the blessedness of which the beatitudes speak consists in the fulfilment of a promise
made to all those who allow themselves to be guided by the requirements of truth,
justice and love. In the eyes of the world, those who trust in God and his promises
often appear naïve or far from reality. Yet Jesus tells them that not only in the
next life, but already in this life, they will discover that they are children of
God, and that God has always been, and ever will be, completely on their side. They
will understand that they are not alone, because he is on the side of those committed
to truth, justice and love. Jesus, the revelation of the Father’s love, does not hesitate
to offer himself in self-sacrifice. Once we accept Jesus Christ, God and man, we have
the joyful experience of an immense gift: the sharing of God’s own life, the life
of grace, the pledge of a fully blessed existence. Jesus Christ, in particular, grants
us true peace, which is born of the trusting encounter of man with God.
Jesus’
beatitude tells us that peace is both a messianic gift and the fruit of human effort.
In effect, peace presupposes a humanism open to transcendence. It is the fruit of
the reciprocal gift, of a mutual enrichment, thanks to the gift which has its source
in God and enables us to live with others and for others. The ethics of peace is an
ethics of fellowship and sharing. It is indispensable, then, that the various cultures
in our day overcome forms of anthropology and ethics based on technical and practical
suppositions which are merely subjectivistic and pragmatic, in virtue of which relationships
of coexistence are inspired by criteria of power or profit, means become ends and
vice versa, and culture and education are centred on instruments, technique and efficiency
alone. The precondition for peace is the dismantling of the dictatorship of relativism
and of the supposition of a completely autonomous morality which precludes acknowledgment
of the ineluctable natural moral law inscribed by God upon the conscience of every
man and woman. Peace is the building up of coexistence in rational and moral terms,
based on a foundation whose measure is not created by man, but rather by God. As Psalm
29 puts it: “May the Lord give strength to his people; may the Lord bless his people
with peace” (v. 11).
Peace: God’s gift and the fruit of human effort 3.
Peace concerns the human person as a whole, and it involves complete commitment. It
is peace with God through a life lived according to his will. It is interior peace
with oneself, and exterior peace with our neighbours and all creation. Above all,
as Blessed John XXIII
wrote in his Encyclical Pacem
in Terris, whose fiftieth anniversary will fall in a few months, it entails the
building up of a coexistence based on truth, freedom, love and justice. The denial
of what makes up the true nature of human beings in its essential dimensions, its
intrinsic capacity to know the true and the good and, ultimately, to know God himself,
jeopardizes peacemaking. Without the truth about man inscribed by the Creator in the
human heart, freedom and love become debased, and justice loses the ground of its
exercise.
To become authentic peacemakers, it is fundamental to keep in mind
our transcendent dimension and to enter into constant dialogue with God, the Father
of mercy, whereby we implore the redemption achieved for us by his only-begotten Son.
In this way mankind can overcome that progressive dimming and rejection of peace which
is sin in all its forms: selfishness and violence, greed and the will to power and
dominion, intolerance, hatred and unjust structures. The attainment of peace depends
above all on recognizing that we are, in God, one human family. This family is structured,
as the Encyclical Pacem
in Terris taught, by interpersonal relations and institutions supported and animated
by a communitarian “we”, which entails an internal and external moral order in which,
in accordance with truth and justice, reciprocal rights and mutual duties are sincerely
recognized. Peace is an order enlivened and integrated by love, in such a way that
we feel the needs of others as our own, share our goods with others and work throughout
the world for greater communion in spiritual values. It is an order achieved in freedom,
that is, in a way consistent with the dignity of persons who, by their very nature
as rational beings, take responsibility for their own actions.
Peace is not
a dream or something utopian; it is possible. Our gaze needs to go deeper, beneath
superficial appearances and phenomena, to discern a positive reality which exists
in human hearts, since every man and woman has been created in the image of God and
is called to grow and contribute to the building of a new world. God himself, through
the incarnation of his Son and his work of redemption, has entered into history and
has brought about a new creation and a new covenant between God and man (cf. Jer 31:31-34),
thus enabling us to have a “new heart” and a “new spirit” (cf. Ez 36:26).
For
this very reason the Church is convinced of the urgency of a new proclamation of Jesus
Christ, the first and fundamental factor of the integral development of peoples and
also of peace. Jesus is indeed our peace, our justice and our reconciliation (cf.
Eph 2:14; 2 Cor 5:18). The peacemaker, according to Jesus’ beatitude, is the one who
seeks the good of the other, the fullness of good in body and soul, today and tomorrow.
From this teaching one can infer that each person and every community, whether
religious, civil, educational or cultural, is called to work for peace. Peace is principally
the attainment of the common good in society at its different levels, primary and
intermediary, national, international and global. Precisely for this reason it can
be said that the paths which lead to the attainment of the common good are also the
paths that must be followed in the pursuit of peace.
Peacemakers are those
who love, defend and promote life in its fullness 4. The path to the attainment
of the common good and to peace is above all that of respect for human life in all
its many aspects, beginning with its conception, through its development and up to
its natural end. True peacemakers, then, are those who love, defend and promote human
life in all its dimensions, personal, communitarian and transcendent. Life in its
fullness is the height of peace. Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and
crimes against life.
Those who insufficiently value human life and, in consequence,
support among other things the liberalization of abortion, perhaps do not realize
that in this way they are proposing the pursuit of a false peace. The flight from
responsibility, which degrades human persons, and even more so the killing of a defenceless
and innocent being, will never be able to produce happiness or peace. Indeed how could
one claim to bring about peace, the integral development of peoples or even the protection
of the environment without defending the life of those who are weakest, beginning
with the unborn. Every offence against life, especially at its beginning, inevitably
causes irreparable damage to development, peace and the environment. Neither is it
just to introduce surreptitiously into legislation false rights or freedoms which,
on the basis of a reductive and relativistic view of human beings and the clever use
of ambiguous expressions aimed at promoting a supposed right to abortion and euthanasia,
pose a threat to the fundamental right to life.
There is also a need to acknowledge
and promote the natural structure of marriage as the union of a man and a woman in
the face of attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different types
of union; such attempts actually harm and help to destabilize marriage, obscuring
its specific nature and its indispensable role in society.
These principles
are not truths of faith, nor are they simply a corollary of the right to religious
freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself, accessible to reason and thus
common to all humanity. The Church’s efforts to promote them are not therefore confessional
in character, but addressed to all people, whatever their religious affiliation. Efforts
of this kind are all the more necessary the more these principles are denied or misunderstood,
since this constitutes an offence against the truth of the human person, with serious
harm to justice and peace.
Consequently, another important way of helping
to build peace is for legal systems and the administration of justice to recognize
the right to invoke the principle of conscientious objection in the face of laws or
government measures that offend against human dignity, such as abortion and euthanasia.
One of the fundamental human rights, also with reference to international
peace, is the right of individuals and communities to religious freedom. At this stage
in history, it is becoming increasingly important to promote this right not only from
the negative point of view, as freedom from – for example, obligations or limitations
involving the freedom to choose one’s religion – but also from the positive point
of view, in its various expressions, as freedom for – for example, bearing witness
to one’s religion, making its teachings known, engaging in activities in the educational,
benevolent and charitable fields which permit the practice of religious precepts,
and existing and acting as social bodies structured in accordance with the proper
doctrinal principles and institutional ends of each. Sadly, even in countries of long-standing
Christian tradition, instances of religious intolerance are becoming more numerous,
especially in relation to Christianity and those who simply wear identifying signs
of their religion.
Peacemakers must also bear in mind that, in growing sectors
of public opinion, the ideologies of radical liberalism and technocracy are spreading
the conviction that economic growth should be pursued even to the detriment of the
state’s social responsibilities and civil society’s networks of solidarity, together
with social rights and duties. It should be remembered that these rights and duties
are fundamental for the full realization of other rights and duties, starting with
those which are civil and political.
One of the social rights and duties most
under threat today is the right to work. The reason for this is that labour and the
rightful recognition of workers’ juridical status are increasingly undervalued, since
economic development is thought to depend principally on completely free markets.
Labour is thus regarded as a variable dependent on economic and financial mechanisms.
In this regard, I would reaffirm that human dignity and economic, social and political
factors, demand that we continue “to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment
for everyone.” If this ambitious goal is to be realized, one prior condition is a
fresh outlook on work, based on ethical principles and spiritual values that reinforce
the notion of work as a fundamental good for the individual, for the family and for
society. Corresponding to this good are a duty and a right that demand courageous
new policies of universal employment.
Building the good of peace through a
new model of development and economics 5. In many quarters it is now recognized
that a new model of development is needed, as well as a new approach to the economy.
Both integral, sustainable development in solidarity and the common good require a
correct scale of goods and values which can be structured with God as the ultimate
point of reference. It is not enough to have many different means and choices at one’s
disposal, however good these may be. Both the wide variety of goods fostering development
and the presence of a wide range of choices must be employed against the horizon of
a good life, an upright conduct that acknowledges the primacy of the spiritual and
the call to work for the common good. Otherwise they lose their real value, and end
up becoming new idols.
In order to emerge from the present financial and economic
crisis – which has engendered ever greater inequalities – we need people, groups and
institutions which will promote life by fostering human creativity, in order to draw
from the crisis itself an opportunity for discernment and for a new economic model.
The predominant model of recent decades called for seeking maximum profit and consumption,
on the basis of an individualistic and selfish mindset, aimed at considering individuals
solely in terms of their ability to meet the demands of competitiveness. Yet, from
another standpoint, true and lasting success is attained through the gift of ourselves,
our intellectual abilities and our entrepreneurial skills, since a “liveable” or truly
human economic development requires the principle of gratuitousness as an expression
of fraternity and the logic of gift.
Concretely, in economic activity, peacemakers
are those who establish bonds of fairness and reciprocity with their colleagues, workers,
clients and consumers. They engage in economic activity for the sake of the common
good and they experience this commitment as something transcending their self-interest,
for the benefit of present and future generations. Thus they work not only for themselves,
but also to ensure for others a future and a dignified employment.
In the
economic sector, states in particular need to articulate policies of industrial and
agricultural development concerned with social progress and the growth everywhere
of constitutional and democratic states. The creation of ethical structures for currency,
financial and commercial markets is also fundamental and indispensable; these must
be stabilized and better coordinated and controlled so as not to prove harmful to
the very poor. With greater resolve than has hitherto been the case, the concern of
peacemakers must also focus upon the food crisis, which is graver than the financial
crisis. The issue of food security is once more central to the international political
agenda, as a result of interrelated crises, including sudden shifts in the price of
basic foodstuffs, irresponsible behaviour by some economic actors and insufficient
control on the part of governments and the international community. To face this crisis,
peacemakers are called to work together in a spirit of solidarity, from the local
to the international level, with the aim of enabling farmers, especially in small
rural holdings, to carry out their activity in a dignified and sustainable way from
the social, environmental and economic points of view.
Education for a culture
of peace: the role of the family and institutions 6. I wish to reaffirm forcefully
that the various peacemakers are called to cultivate a passion for the common good
of the family and for social justice, and a commitment to effective social education.
No one should ignore or underestimate the decisive role of the family, which is
the basic cell of society from the demographic, ethical, pedagogical, economic and
political standpoints. The family has a natural vocation to promote life: it accompanies
individuals as they mature and it encourages mutual growth and enrichment through
caring and sharing. The Christian family in particular serves as a seedbed for personal
maturation according to the standards of divine love. The family is one of the indispensable
social subjects for the achievement of a culture of peace. The rights of parents and
their primary role in the education of their children in the area of morality and
religion must be safeguarded. It is in the family that peacemakers, tomorrow’s promoters
of a culture of life and love, are born and nurtured.
Religious communities
are involved in a special way in this immense task of education for peace. The Church
believes that she shares in this great responsibility as part of the new evangelization,
which is centred on conversion to the truth and love of Christ and, consequently,
the spiritual and moral rebirth of individuals and societies. Encountering Jesus Christ
shapes peacemakers, committing them to fellowship and to overcoming injustice.
Cultural
institutions, schools and universities have a special mission of peace. They are called
to make a notable contribution not only to the formation of new generations of leaders,
but also to the renewal of public institutions, both national and international. They
can also contribute to a scientific reflection which will ground economic and financial
activities on a solid anthropological and ethical basis. Today’s world, especially
the world of politics, needs to be sustained by fresh thinking and a new cultural
synthesis so as to overcome purely technical approaches and to harmonize the various
political currents with a view to the common good. The latter, seen as an ensemble
of positive interpersonal and institutional relationships at the service of the integral
growth of individuals and groups, is at the basis of all true education for peace.
A pedagogy for peacemakers 7. In the end, we see clearly the need to propose
and promote a pedagogy of peace. This calls for a rich interior life, clear and valid
moral points of reference, and appropriate attitudes and lifestyles. Acts of peacemaking
converge for the achievement of the common good; they create interest in peace and
cultivate peace. Thoughts, words and gestures of peace create a mentality and a culture
of peace, and a respectful, honest and cordial atmosphere. There is a need, then,
to teach people to love one another, to cultivate peace and to live with good will
rather than mere tolerance. A fundamental encouragement to this is “to say no to revenge,
to recognize injustices, to accept apologies without looking for them, and finally,
to forgive”, in such a way that mistakes and offences can be acknowledged in truth,
so as to move forward together towards reconciliation. This requires the growth of
a pedagogy of pardon. Evil is in fact overcome by good, and justice is to be sought
in imitating God the Father who loves all his children (cf. Mt 5:21-48). This is a
slow process, for it presupposes a spiritual evolution, an education in lofty values,
a new vision of human history. There is a need to renounce that false peace promised
by the idols of this world along with the dangers which accompany it, that false peace
which dulls consciences, which leads to self-absorption, to a withered existence lived
in indifference. The pedagogy of peace, on the other hand, implies activity, compassion,
solidarity, courage and perseverance.
Jesus embodied all these attitudes in
his own life, even to the complete gift of himself, even to “losing his life” (cf.
Mt 10:39; Lk 17:33; Jn 12:25). He promises his disciples that sooner or later they
will make the extraordinary discovery to which I originally alluded, namely that God
is in the world, the God of Jesus, fully on the side of man. Here I would recall the
prayer asking God to make us instruments of his peace, to be able to bring his love
wherever there is hatred, his mercy wherever there is hurt, and true faith wherever
there is doubt. For our part, let us join Blessed John
XXIII in asking God to enlighten all leaders so that, besides caring for the proper
material welfare of their peoples, they may secure for them the precious gift of peace,
break down the walls which divide them, strengthen the bonds of mutual love, grow
in understanding, and pardon those who have done them wrong; in this way, by his power
and inspiration all the peoples of the earth will experience fraternity, and the peace
for which they long will ever flourish and reign among them.
With this prayer
I express my hope that all will be true peacemakers, so that the city of man may grow
in fraternal harmony, prosperity and peace.
From the Vatican, 8 December 2012
BENEDICTUS PP XVI
PHOTO: Members of the Taize
Community pray during a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in St Peters Square at the
Vatican December 29, 2012.