Non-violence at heart of Pope's plea for World Day of Peace
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is calling for a renewed
culture of nonviolence to inform global politics today, saying military responses
to conflicts only breed further violence.
The Pope’s appeal comes in his annual message for the World
Day of Peace, which is marked by the Catholic Church on January1st .
Calling on political and religious leaders, on the heads of
international institutions, on business and media executives and on all men and
women of goodwill to become instruments of reconciliation and adopt nonviolence
as a style of politics for peace, Pope Francis says that we find ourselves
“engaged in a horrifying world war fought piecemeal”, and that violence
is clearly “not the cure for our broken world.”
Violence, he says in the message, leads to forced
migrations and enormous suffering , devastation of the environment, terrorism
and organized crime. It leads to retaliation and a deadly cycle that end up
benefiting only a few warlords.
But, Pope Francis continues, Christ’s message offers a
radically positive approach. He himself walked the path of nonviolence and
became an instrument of reconciliation.
Citing historical figures like Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi
and Martin Luther King as models of nonviolent peacemakers, the Pope says
nonviolence is more powerful than violence and it has produced impressive
results.
He recalls the contribution of Christian communities in the
fall of Communist regimes, pointing out that peaceful political transitions
were made using only the weapons of truth and justice. And he notes that such
efforts are not the legacy of the Catholic Church alone but are typical of many
religious traditions.
“I emphatically reaffirm, he says , that no religion is
terrorist (…); and that the name of God cannot be used to justify violence”.
Emphasizing also the domestic roots of a politics of
nonviolence Pope Francis says that while he pleads for disarmament and the
prohibition and abolition of nuclear weapons, with equal urgency he pleads for
an end to domestic violence and to the abuse of women and children.
My invitation to political, religious and economic
leaders, the Pope says, is to take up the challenge of building up society,
communities and businesses by acting as peacemakers, to choose solidarity as a
way of making history.
In a world in which everything is connected, he says, active
nonviolence is a way of showing that unity is more powerful and more fruitful
than conflict, and that differences can be faced constructively and
non-violently preserving “what is valid and useful on both sides”.
“All of us want peace, Francis concluds: “in 2017, may
we dedicate ourselves prayerfully and actively to banishing violence from our
hearts, words and deeds: (…) Everyone can be an artisan of peace”.
Please find below the full text of Pope Francis’s message
for the World Day of Peace:
"Nonviolence: A Style of Politics for Peace"
1. At the beginning of this New Year, I
offer heartfelt wishes of peace to the world’s peoples and nations, to heads of
state and government, and to religious, civic and community leaders. I
wish peace to every man, woman and child, and I pray that the image and
likeness of God in each person will enable us to acknowledge one another as
sacred gifts endowed with immense dignity. Especially in situations of
conflict, let us respect this, our “deepest dignity”, and make active
nonviolence our way of life.
This is the fiftieth Message for the
World Day of Peace. In the first, Blessed Pope Paul VI addressed all
peoples, not simply Catholics, with utter clarity. “Peace is the only
true direction of human progress – and not the tensions caused by ambitious
nationalisms, nor conquests by violence, nor repressions which serve as
mainstay for a false civil order”. He warned of “the danger of believing
that international controversies cannot be resolved by the ways of reason, that
is, by negotiations founded on law, justice, and equity, but only by means of
deterrent and murderous forces.” Instead, citing the encyclical Pacem in
Terris of his predecessor Saint John XXIII, he extolled “the sense and love of
peace founded upon truth, justice, freedom and love”. In the
intervening fifty years, these words have lost none of their significance or
urgency.
On this occasion, I would like to reflect
on nonviolence as a style of politics for peace. I ask God to help all of
us to cultivate nonviolence in our most personal thoughts and values. May
charity and nonviolence govern how we treat each other as individuals, within
society and in international life. When victims of violence are able to
resist the temptation to retaliate, they become the most credible promotors of
nonviolent peacemaking. In the most local and ordinary situations and in
the international order, may nonviolence become the hallmark of our decisions,
our relationships and our actions, and indeed of political life in all its
forms.
A broken world
2. While the last century knew the
devastation of two deadly World Wars, the threat of nuclear war and a great
number of other conflicts, today, sadly, we find ourselves engaged in a
horrifying world war fought piecemeal. It is not easy to know if our
world is presently more or less violent than in the past, or to know whether
modern means of communications and greater mobility have made us more aware of
violence, or, on the other hand, increasingly inured to it.
In any case, we know that this “piecemeal” violence, of
different kinds and levels, causes great suffering: wars in different countries
and continents; terrorism, organized crime and unforeseen acts of violence; the
abuses suffered by migrants and victims of human trafficking; and the
devastation of the environment. Where does this lead? Can violence
achieve any goal of lasting value? Or does it merely lead to retaliation
and a cycle of deadly conflicts that benefit only a few “warlords”?
Violence is not the cure for our broken world.
Countering violence with violence leads at best to forced migrations and
enormous suffering, because vast amounts of resources are diverted to military
ends and away from the everyday needs of young people, families experiencing
hardship, the elderly, the infirm and the great majority of people in our
world. At worst, it can lead to the death, physical and spiritual, of
many people, if not of all.
The Good News
3. Jesus himself lived in violent
times. Yet he taught that the true battlefield, where violence and peace
meet, is the human heart: for “it is from within, from the human heart, that
evil intentions come” (Mk 7:21). But Christ’s message in this regard offers
a radically positive approach. He unfailingly preached God’s
unconditional love, which welcomes and forgives. He taught his disciples
to love their enemies (cf. Mt 5:44) and to turn the other cheek (cf. Mt
5:39). When he stopped her accusers from stoning the woman caught in
adultery (cf. Jn 8:1-11), and when, on the night before he died, he told Peter
to put away his sword (cf. Mt 26:52), Jesus marked out the path of
nonviolence. He walked that path to the very end, to the cross, whereby
he became our peace and put an end to hostility (cf. Eph 2:14-16).
Whoever accepts the Good News of Jesus is able to acknowledge the violence
within and be healed by God’s mercy, becoming in turn an instrument of
reconciliation. In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi: “As you announce
peace with your mouth, make sure that you have greater peace in your
hearts”.
To be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing
his teaching about nonviolence. As my predecessor Benedict XVI observed,
that teaching “is realistic because it takes into account that in the world
there is too much violence, too much injustice, and therefore that this
situation cannot be overcome except by countering it with more love, with more
goodness. This ‘more’ comes from God”. He went on to stress
that: “For Christians, nonviolence is not merely tactical behaviour but a
person’s way of being, the attitude of one who is so convinced of God’s love
and power that he or she is not afraid to tackle evil with the weapons of love
and truth alone. Love of one’s enemy constitutes the nucleus of the
‘Christian revolution’”. The Gospel command to love your enemies
(cf. Lk 6:27) “is rightly considered the magna carta of Christian nonviolence.
It does not consist in succumbing to evil…, but in responding to evil with good
(cf. Rom 12:17-21), and thereby breaking the chain of injustice”.
More powerful than violence
4. Nonviolence is sometimes taken to mean
surrender, lack of involvement and passivity, but this is not the case.
When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she clearly stated
her own message of active nonviolence: “We in our family don’t need bombs and
guns, to destroy to bring peace – just get together, love one another…
And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world”.
For the force of arms is deceptive. “While weapons traffickers do their
work, there are poor peacemakers who give their lives to help one person, then
another and another and another”; for such peacemakers, Mother Teresa is “a
symbol, an icon of our times”. Last September, I had the great joy
of proclaiming her a Saint. I praised her readiness to make herself
available for everyone “through her welcome and defence of human life, those
unborn and those abandoned and discarded… She bowed down before those who
were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given
dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they
might recognize their guilt for the crimes – the crimes! – of poverty they
created”. In response, her mission – and she stands for thousands,
even millions of persons – was to reach out to the suffering, with generous
dedication, touching and binding up every wounded body, healing every broken
life.
The decisive and consistent practice of nonviolence has
produced impressive results. The achievements of Mahatma Gandhi and Khan
Abdul Ghaffar Khan in the liberation of India, and of Dr Martin Luther King Jr
in combating racial discrimination will never be forgotten. Women in
particular are often leaders of nonviolence, as for example, was Leymah Gbowee
and the thousands of Liberian women, who organized pray-ins and nonviolent
protest that resulted in high-level peace talks to end the second civil war in
Liberia.
Nor can we forget the eventful decade that ended with the
fall of Communist regimes in Europe. The Christian communities made their
own contribution by their insistent prayer and courageous action.
Particularly influential were the ministry and teaching of Saint John Paul
II. Reflecting on the events of 1989 in his 1991 Encyclical Centesimus
Annus, my predecessor highlighted the fact that momentous change in the lives
of people, nations and states had come about “by means of peaceful protest,
using only the weapons of truth and justice”. This peaceful
political transition was made possible in part “by the non-violent commitment
of people who, while always refusing to yield to the force of power, succeeded
time after time in finding effective ways of bearing witness to the
truth”. Pope John Paul went on to say: “May people learn to fight for
justice without violence, renouncing class struggle in their internal disputes
and war in international ones”.
The Church has been involved in nonviolent peacebuilding
strategies in many countries, engaging even the most violent parties in efforts
to build a just and lasting peace.
Such efforts on behalf of the victims of injustice and
violence are not the legacy of the Catholic Church alone, but are typical of
many religious traditions, for which “compassion and nonviolence are essential
elements pointing to the way of life”. I emphatically reaffirm that
“no religion is terrorist”. Violence profanes the name of
God. Let us never tire of repeating: “The name of God cannot be
used to justify violence. Peace alone is holy. Peace alone is holy,
not war!”
The domestic roots of a politics of nonviolence
5. If violence has its source in the human
heart, then it is fundamental that nonviolence be practised before all else within
families. This is part of that joy of love which I described last March
in my Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, in the wake of two years of reflection by
the Church on marriage and the family. The family is the indispensable
crucible in which spouses, parents and children, brothers and sisters, learn to
communicate and to show generous concern for one another, and in which
frictions and even conflicts have to be resolved not by force but by dialogue,
respect, concern for the good of the other, mercy and forgiveness.
From within families, the joy of love spills out into the world and radiates to
the whole of society. An ethics of fraternity and peaceful
coexistence between individuals and among peoples cannot be based on the logic
of fear, violence and closed-mindedness, but on responsibility, respect and
sincere dialogue. Hence, I plead for disarmament and for the prohibition
and abolition of nuclear weapons: nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutual
assured destruction are incapable of grounding such an ethics. I
plead with equal urgency for an end to domestic violence and to the abuse of
women and children.
The Jubilee of Mercy that ended in November encouraged each
one of us to look deeply within and to allow God’s mercy to enter there.
The Jubilee taught us to realize how many and diverse are the individuals and
social groups treated with indifference and subjected to injustice and
violence. They too are part of our “family”; they too are our brothers
and sisters. The politics of nonviolence have to begin in the home and
then spread to the entire human family. “Saint Therese of Lisieux invites
us to practise the little way of love, not to miss out on a kind word, a smile
or any small gesture which sows peace and friendship. An integral ecology
is also made up of simple daily gestures that break with the logic of violence,
exploitation and selfishness”.
My invitation
6. Peacebuilding through active
nonviolence is the natural and necessary complement to the Church’s continuing
efforts to limit the use of force by the application of moral norms; she does
so by her participation in the work of international institutions and through
the competent contribution made by so many Christians to the drafting of
legislation at all levels. Jesus himself offers a “manual” for this
strategy of peacemaking in the Sermon on the Mount. The eight Beatitudes
(cf. Mt 5:3-10) provide a portrait of the person we could describe as blessed,
good and authentic. Blessed are the meek, Jesus tells us, the merciful
and the peacemakers, those who are pure in heart, and those who hunger and
thirst for justice.
This is also a programme and a challenge for political and
religious leaders, the heads of international institutions, and business and
media executives: to apply the Beatitudes in the exercise of their respective
responsibilities. It is a challenge to build up society, communities and
businesses by acting as peacemakers. It is to show mercy by refusing to
discard people, harm the environment, or seek to win at any cost. To do
so requires “the willingness to face conflict head on, to resolve it and to
make it a link in the chain of a new process”. To act in this way
means to choose solidarity as a way of making history and building friendship
in society. Active nonviolence is a way of showing that unity is truly
more powerful and more fruitful than conflict. Everything in the world is
inter-connected. Certainly differences can cause frictions.
But let us face them constructively and non-violently, so that “tensions and
oppositions can achieve a diversified and life-giving unity,” preserving “what
is valid and useful on both sides”.
I pledge the assistance of the Church in every effort to
build peace through active and creative nonviolence. On 1 January 2017,
the new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development will begin its
work. It will help the Church to promote in an ever more effective way
“the inestimable goods of justice, peace, and the care of creation” and concern
for “migrants, those in need, the sick, the excluded and marginalized, the
imprisoned and the unemployed, as well as victims of armed conflict, natural
disasters, and all forms of slavery and torture”. Every such
response, however modest, helps to build a world free of violence, the first
step towards justice and peace.
In conclusion
8. As is traditional, I am signing this
Message on 8 December, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary is the Queen of Peace. At the birth of
her Son, the angels gave glory to God and wished peace on earth to men and
women of good will (cf. Luke 2:14). Let us pray for her guidance.
“All of us want peace. Many people
build it day by day through small gestures and acts; many of them are
suffering, yet patiently persevere in their efforts to be
peacemakers”. In 2017, may we dedicate ourselves prayerfully and
actively to banishing violence from our hearts, words and deeds, and to
becoming nonviolent people and to build nonviolent communities that care for
our common home. “Nothing is impossible if we turn to God in prayer. Everyone
can be an artisan of peace”.
From the Vatican, 8 December 2016
Francis
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