(Vatican Radio) Pope Benedict XVI’s message for World Peace Day 2013 was presented
to journalists at a press conference in the Vatican on Friday by the president, secretary
and under-secretary of the Pontifical Justice and Peace Council. Entitled ‘Blessed
are the Peacemakers’, the message looks at both the theological and practical foundations
for promoting justice and peace in today’s world, as Philippa Hitchen reports:
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.
Please find below the full text of Pope Benedict's message
for the 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 , 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 wrote in
his Encyclical , 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 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 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
Cf. SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World, , 1. Cf. Encyclical Letter (11 April 1963): AAS 55 (1963),
265-266. Cf. ibid.: AAS 55 (1963), 266. BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter (29
June 2009), 32: AAS 101 (2009), 666-667. Cf. ibid, 34 and 36: AAS 101 (2009),
668-670 and 671-672. Cf. JOHN PAUL II, (8 December 1993): AAS 86 (1994), 156-162.
BENEDICT XVI, , Baabda-Lebanon (15 September 2012): L’Osservatore Romano, 16 September
2012, p. 7. Cf. Encyclical Letter (11 April 1963): AAS 55 (1963), 304.