Pacem in Terris - high point of the Church’s Social Teaching: Card. Turkson

Lisbon, 23 Nov 2013: ‘Your reflections on the role of dialogue and democracy as instruments for peace in Europe may bear fruit by helping participants and others to “contribute whole-heartedly to the creation of a civic order in which rights and duties are ever more diligently and more effectively observed, said Cardinal Peter Turkson on Saturday in Lisbon. He was speaking on ‘Dialogue and Democracy: Instruments for Peace in Europe’ in a conference that celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the encyclical, Pacem in Terris or ‘Peace on Earth’.

Pacem in Terris is the legacy of Pope John XXIII to a humanity yearning for peace, said the Cardinal adding, its title calls to mind the hymn of the angels at the birth of Jesus: “Glory to God on high, and on earth peace to men of God’s pleasure”.

Although the Cuban missile crisis and the threat of nuclear war were the immediate occasion for its promulgation, the encyclical does not directly counsel nuclear disarmament, the abolition of war or the opening of space for peace, observed Cardinal Turkson. Pacem in Terris does not argue from war to peace, but from human dignity and relationships to peace! Throughout the encyclical, the undeniable fact of human relationships and the irreducible value of human dignity are the foundation and source.

Reflecting further on the encyclical, the Cardinal said: Blessed Pope John begins and continues and finishes with the irreducible core of dignity within each and every man and woman – and with the dynamics of relationship among them all. He begins with the individual person, and he does not stop until he reaches the whole human family and all its institutions and the universal common good they should serve – until, he reaches peace on earth for everyone.

Relations, like coexistence, begin on small community levels and expand to society, nations and the entire globe. On all these levels and in all these forms of relationships and coexistence, the dignity of the person needs to be safeguarded by cultivating the virtues of truth, justice, love and freedom. Indeed, relationships are not something we happen to be in, and dignity is not something that we may or may not have. Relationships and dignity are what we are and have as human, affirmed Cardinal Turkson.

The rights that flow from the human person’s dignity “are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority,” be it local, national or international. The dignity and rights of persons are prior to society and must be so recognized, respected, protected and promoted by society, added Cardinal Turkson.

Reflecting on interreligious dialogue, the Cardinal said that it hand in glove with the demands of the relationships in which we stand. With Good Pope John we can trust that where justice governs relationships and people embrace the dignity of every person, there peace begins to reign, concluded Cardinal Turkson.Source: VR Sedoc