1. Peace, a journey of hope in the
face of obstacles and trial
Peace is a great and precious value, the
object of our hope and the aspiration of
the entire human family. As a human atti-
tude, our hope for peace is marked by an
existential tension that makes it possible
for the present, with all its difficulties, to
be “lived and accepted if it leads towards
a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and
if this goal is great enough to justify the
effort of the journey”.[1] Hope is thus the
virtue that inspires us and keeps us mov-
ing forward, even when obstacles seem
insurmountable.
Our human community bears, in its
memory and its flesh, the scars of ever
more devastating wars and conflicts that
affect especially the poor and the vulnera-
ble. Entire nations find it difficult to break
free of the chains of exploitation and cor-
ruption that fuel hatred and violence.
Even today, dignity, physical integrity,
freedom, including religious freedom,
communal solidarity and hope in the fu-
ture are denied to great numbers of men
and women, young and old. Many are the
innocent victims of painful humiliation
and exclusion, sorrow and injustice, to
say nothing of the trauma born of sys-
tematic attacks on their people and their
loved ones.
The terrible trials of internal and inter-
national conflicts, often aggravated by
ruthless acts of violence, have an endur-
ing effect on the body and soul of human-
ity. Every war is a form of fratricide that
destroys the human family’s innate voca-
tion to brotherhood.
War, as we know, often begins with the
inability to accept the diversity of others,
which then fosters attitudes of aggran-
dizement and domination born of selfish-
ness and pride, hatred and the desire to
caricature, exclude and even destroy the
other. War is fueled by a perversion of re-
lationships, by hegemonic ambitions, by
abuses of power, by fear of others and by
seeing diversity as an obstacle. And these,
in turn, are aggravated by the experience
of war.
As I observed during my recent Ap-
ostolic Journey to Japan, our world is
paradoxically marked by “a perverse di-
chotomy that tries to defend and ensure
stability and peace through a false sense
of security sustained by a mentality of
fear and mistrust, one that ends up poi-
soning relationships between peoples and
obstructing any form of dialogue. Peace
and international stability are incompati-
ble with attempts to build upon the fear of
mutual destruction or the threat of total
annihilation. They can be achieved only
on the basis of a global ethic of solidarity
and cooperation in the service of a future
shaped by interdependence and shared
responsibility in the whole human family
of today and tomorrow”.[2]
Every threatening situation feeds mis-
trust and leads people to withdraw into
their own safety zone. Mistrust and fear
weaken relationships and increase the
risk of violence, creating a vicious circle
that can never lead to a relationship of
peace. Even nuclear deterrence can only
produce the illusion of security.
We cannot claim to maintain stability
in the world through the fear of annihila-
tion, in a volatile situation, suspended on
the brink of a nuclear abyss and enclosed
behind walls of indifference. As a result,
social and economic decisions are being
made that lead to tragic situations where
human beings and creation itself are dis-
carded rather than protected and pre-
served.[3] How, then, do we undertake
a journey of peace and mutual respect?
How do we break the unhealthy mental-
ity of threats and fear? How do we break
the current dynamic of distrust?
We need to pursue a genuine fraternity
based on our common origin from God
and exercised in dialogue and mutual
trust. The desire for peace lies deep with-
in the human heart, and we should not
resign ourselves to seeking anything less
than this.
2. Peace, a journey of listening
based on memory, solidarity and
fraternity
The Hibakusha, the survivors of the
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, are among those who
currently keep alive the flame of col-
lective conscience, bearing witness to
succeeding generations to the horror of
what happened in August 1945 and the
unspeakable sufferings that have contin-
ued to the present time. Their testimony
awakens and preserves the memory of
the victims, so that the conscience of hu-
manity may rise up in the face of every
desire for dominance and destruction.
“We cannot allow present and future gen-
erations to lose the memory of what hap-
pened here. It is a memory that ensures
and encourages the building of a more
fair and fraternal future”.[4]
Like the Hibakusha, many people in to-
day’s world are working to ensure that fu-
ture generations will preserve the mem-
ory of past events, not only in order to
prevent the same errors or illusions from
recurring, but also to enable memory, as
the fruit of experience, to serve as the ba-
sis and inspiration for present and future
decisions to promote peace.
What is more, memory is the horizon
of hope. Many times, in the darkness of
wars and conflicts, the remembrance of
even a small gesture of solidarity received
can lead to courageous and even heroic
decisions. It can unleash new energies
and kindle new hope in individuals and
communities.
Setting out on a journey of peace is a
challenge made all the more complex
because the interests at stake in relation-
ships between people, communities and
nations, are numerous and conflicting.
We must first appeal to people’s moral
conscience and to personal and political
will. Peace emerges from the depths of
the human heart and political will must
always be renewed, so that new ways can
be found to reconcile and unite individu-
als and communities.
The world does not need empty words
but convinced witnesses, peacemakers
who are open to a dialogue that rejects
exclusion or manipulation. In fact, we
cannot truly achieve peace without a
convinced dialogue between men and
women who seek the truth beyond ideol-
ogies and differing opinions. Peace “must
be built up continually”;[5] it is a journey
made together in constant pursuit of the
common good, truthfulness and respect
for law. Listening to one another can lead
to mutual understanding and esteem, and
even to seeing in an enemy the face of a
brother or sister.
The peace process thus requires en-
during commitment. It is a patient effort
to seek truth and justice, to honour the
memory of victims and to open the way,
step by step, to a shared hope stronger
than the desire for vengeance. In a state
based on law, democracy can be an im-
portant paradigm of this process, provid-
ed it is grounded in justice and a commit-
ment to protect the rights of every person,
especially the weak and marginalized, in
a constant search for truth.[6] This is a
social undertaking, an ongoing work in
which each individual makes his or her
contribution responsibly, at every level of
the local, national and global community.
As Saint Paul VI pointed out, these “two
aspirations, to equality and to participa-
tion, seek to promote a democratic soci-
ety… This calls for an education to social
life, involving not only the knowledge of
each person’s rights, but also its necessary
correlative: the recognition of his or her
duties with regard to others. The sense
and practice of duty are themselves con-
ditioned by the capacity for self-mastery
and by the acceptance of responsibility
and of the limits placed upon the freedom
of individuals or the groups”.[7]
Divisions within a society, the increase
of social inequalities and the refusal to
employ the means of ensuring integral
human development endanger the pur-
suit of the common good. Yet patient ef-
forts based on the power of the word and
of truth can help foster a greater capacity
for compassion and creative solidarity.
In our Christian experience, we con-
stantly remember Christ, who gave his
life to reconcile us to one another (cf.
Rom 5:6-11). The Church shares fully in
the search for a just social order; she con-
tinues to serve the common good and to
nourish the hope for peace by transmit-
ting Christian values and moral teaching,
and by her social and educational works.
3. Peace, a journey of reconcilia-
tion in fraternal communion
The Bible, especially in the words of the
Prophets, reminds individuals and peo-
ples of God’s covenant with humanity,
which entails renouncing our desire to
dominate others and learning to see one
another as persons, sons and daughters
of God, brothers and sisters. We should
never encapsulate others in what they
may have said or done, but value them for
the promise that they embody. Only by
choosing the path of respect can we break
the spiral of vengeance and set out on the
journey of hope.
We are guided by the Gospel passage
that tells of the following conversation
between Peter and Jesus: “Lord, how of-
ten shall my brother sin against me, and
I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you
seven times, but seventy times seven” (Mt
18:21-22). This path of reconciliation is
a summons to discover in the depths of
our heart the power of forgiveness and
the capacity to acknowledge one another
as brothers and sisters. When we learn to
live in forgiveness, we grow in our capac-
ity to become men and women of peace.
What is true of peace in a social context
is also true in the areas of politics and the
economy, since peace permeates every
dimension of life in common. There can
be no true peace unless we show our-
selves capable of developing a more just
economic system. As Pope Benedict XVI
said ten years ago in his Encyclical Let-
ter Caritas in Veritate, “in order to defeat
underdevelopment, action is required
not only on improving exchange-based
transactions and implanting public wel-
fare structures, but above all on gradual-
lyincreasing openness, in a world context,
to forms of economic activity marked by
quotas of gratuitousness and commun-
ion” (No. 39).
4. Peace, a journey of ecological
conversion
“If a mistaken understanding of our
own principles has at times led us to justi-
fy mistreating nature, to exercise tyranny
over creation, to engage in war, injustice
and acts of violence, we believers should
acknowledge that by so doing we were
not faithful to the treasures of wisdom
which we have been called to protect and
preserve”.[8]
Faced with the consequences of our
hostility towards others, our lack of re-
spect for our common home or our
abusive exploitation of natural resources
– seen only as a source of immediate prof-
it, regardless of local communities, the
common good and nature itself – we are
in need of an ecological conversion. The
recent Synod on the Pan-Amazon Region
moves us to make a pressing renewed call
for a peaceful relationship between com-
munities and the land, between present
and past, between experience and hope.
This journey of reconciliation also calls
for listening and contemplation of the
world that God has given us as a gift to
make our common home. Indeed, natu-
ral resources, the many forms of life and
the earth itself have been entrusted to us
“to till and keep” (Gen 1:15), also for fu-
ture generations, through the responsible
and active participation of everyone. We
need to change the way we think and see
things, and to become more open to en-
countering others and accepting the gift
of creation, which reflects the beauty and
wisdom of its Creator.
All this gives us deeper motivation and
a new way to dwell in our common home,
to accept our differences, to respect and
celebrate the life that we have received
and share, and to seek living conditions
and models of society that favour the
continued flourishing of life and the de-
velopment of the common good of the
entire human family.
The ecological conversion for which we
are appealing will lead us to a new way
of looking at life, as we consider the gen-
erosity of the Creator who has given us
the earth and called us to a share it in joy
and moderation. This conversion must be
understood in an integral way, as a trans-
formation of how we relate to our sisters
and brothers, to other living beings, to
creation in all its rich variety and to the
Creator who is the origin and source of all
life. For Christians, it requires that “the ef-
fects of their encounter with Jesus Christ
become evident in their relationship with
the world around them”.[9]
5. “We obtain all that we hope
for”[10]
The journey of reconciliation calls for
patience and trust. Peace will not be ob-
tained unless it is hoped for.
In the first place, this means believing
in the possibility of peace, believing that
others need peace just as much as we do.
Here we can find inspiration in the love
that God has for each of us: a love that is
liberating, limitless, gratuitous and tire-
less.
Fear is frequently a source of conflict.
So it is important to overcome our hu-
man fears and acknowledge that we are
needy children in the eyes of the One
who loves us and awaits us, like the father
of the prodigal son (cf. Lk 15:11-24). The
culture of fraternal encounter shatters
the culture of conflict. It makes of every
encounter a possibility and a gift of God’s
generous love. It leads us beyond the lim-
its of our narrow horizons and constantly
encourages us to a live in a spirit of uni-
versal fraternity, as children of the one
heavenly Father.
For the followers of Christ, this journey
is likewise sustained by the sacrament of
Reconciliation, given by the Lord for the
remission of sins of the baptized. This
sacrament of the Church, which renews
individuals and communities, bids us
keep our gaze fixed on Jesus, who rec-
onciled “all things, whether on earth or
in heaven, by making peace through the
blood of his cross” (Col 1:20). It requires
us to set aside every act of violence in
thought, word and deed, whether against
our neighbours or against God’s creation.
The grace of God our Father is be-
stowed as unconditional love. Having
received his forgiveness in Christ, we can
set out to offer that peace to the men and
women of our time. Day by day, the Holy
Spirit prompts in us ways of thinking and
speaking that can make us artisans of jus-
tice and peace.
May the God of peace bless us and come
to our aid.
May Mary, Mother of the Prince of
Peace and Mother of all the peoples of the
earth, accompany and sustain us at every
step of our journey of reconciliation.
And may all men and women who
come into this world experience a life of
peace and develop fully the promise of
life and love dwelling in their heart.
From the Vatican, 8 December 2019
Franciscus
[1] BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter
Spe Salvi (30 November 2007), 1.
[2] Address on Nuclear Weapons, Na-
gasaki, Atomic Bomb Hypocenter, 24 No-
vember 2019.
[3] Cf. Homily at Lampedusa, 8 July
2013.
[4] Address on Peace, Hiroshima, Peace
Memorial, 24 November 2019.
[5] SECOND VATICAN ECUMENI-
CAL COUNCIL, Pastoral Constitution
Gaudium et Spes, 78.
[6] Cf. BENEDICT XVI, Address to the
Italian Christian Workers’ Associations, 27
January 2006.
[7] Apostolic Letter Octogesima Ad-
veniens (14 May 1971), 24.
[8] Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (24 May
2015).
[9] Ibid., 217.
[10] Cf. SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS,
Noche obscura, II, 21,8.
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