Pope Benedict on war and peace.

Pope Benedict, perhaps even more so than his predecessor John Paul II, spends much time praying, reflecting, and speaking on international issues, including peace and war. "The search for peace, justice and understanding must be a primary objective of everyone," he stated on December 14, 2006.

The Pope is convinced that there will be no peace in the Middle East, in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, unless the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is settled first, in a fair and just division of the land, enabling people to live within secure, internationally recognized borders. Thus, on November 3, and on November 16, Vatican representatives at the United Nations called once more for the resumption of direct negotiations. The international community must act to develop tactics and agreements on all matters of common concern, they stated, including the use of water, the environment, trade, the status of Jerusalem, access to the Holy Places, the wall, and other related issues.

In mid-January 2007, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in the region hoping to do just that by reviving the Mideast peace process. But observers were not optimistic. "Rice is stalled on a road to nowhere," read one headline (Globe and Mail, Jan. 16, 2007).

Towards the end of 2006, Benedict made no fewer than three long addresses. All of them were concerned with peace and war. They covered some of the conditions that must be fulfilled for peace to succeed. What principles are involved?

First, there is the question of faith in God. In the Pope's mind, it is a key issue.

"If more people believed in God, lived according to his law and recognized each other as his children, the world would have greater peace and hope for the future," he said on December 22. Jesus "gives himself to us as peace, as reconciliation beyond all boundaries."

He added, there is an "unbreakable connection between the relationship of people with God and their relationships with each other."

On Christmas Day, celebrating that night 2,000 years ago when there "was born in the City of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk. 2:11), Benedict wondered out loud whether "a humanity which has reached the moon and Mars and which has deciphered the marvelous codes of the human genome still needs a Saviour?" He followed it by reciting a list of modern evils, from hunger and thirst to intolerance, racism, and suppression of freedom, to show that science and knowledge have not brought salvation.

The second principle flows immediately from this; namely, the recognition and safeguarding of the dignity of every human being, regardless of ethnicity, religion, age and gender. The subtitle of the World Day of Peace message on January 1, 2007, was "the human person, the heart of peace."

"Sacred Scripture," the Pontiff points out, "affirms that 'God created man in His own image, in the image of Cog He created them; male and female He created them' (Gen. 1:27). As one created in the image of Cod, each individual human being has the dignity of a person; he or she is not just something, but someone, capable of self-knowledge, self-possession, free self-giving and entering into communion with others."

If God is eliminated in the thinking of statesmen, then the dignity of the individual is non-existent. This has been fully illustrated by the horrors of the 20th century, the great holocausts under Marxism, Hitler's attempted extermination of the Jews, and the present worldwide slaughter of the unborn. "Peace," says Benedict, "is based on the rights of all."

"As far as the right to life is concerned," the Pope stated, "we must denounce its widespread violation in our society: alongside the victims of armed conflicts, terrorism and the different forms of violence, there are the silent gear's caused by bunger, abortion, experimentation on human embryos and euthanasia. How can we fail to see in all this an attack on peace?"

A third principle is that "violence solves nothing." Indeed, it only makes matters worse. Pope John Paul II rejected the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 for that very reason. As for "war in God's name, it is never acceptable," says Benedict. And should we not add: war in the name of democracy.

The vision of Benedict, Paola Carozza of Notre Dame University points out, shows a sharp difference from an approach to peace based merely on diplomatic, economic and military relations between sovereign states. Yet, this vision is more aligned with the cultural trends since World War II which have highlighted the outrages to the dignity of the human person.

FATHER

ALPHONSE DE VALK, C.S.B.

EDITOR