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Jesus
Christ called down a special blessing on peacemakers,
calling them God's children (Matthew 5,9). Peace is
the word used by Christians to greet one another.
Peace is intimately linked with love, which lies at
the very heart of the Christian message. Peace is
the main focal point of the teaching of the Popes,
notably in recent times the great Pope John XXIII
(1958-63) and the present Holy Father. Peace is the
central message of all the great religions.
Pope
John's final testament to the world was his great
Encyclical Letter, Peace on Earth (1963). For the
past 25 years, Pope John Paul II has continued the
tradition of observing a World Peace Day every year
on 1 January and of issuing a special Peace Message
for that day. He has joined with the leaders of
other Faiths in praying for peace, for example in
the beautiful Umbrian town of Assisi, which is forever
associated with the great Apostle of Peace and lover
of nature, Saint Francis. The Pope has also intervened
whenever possible either personally or through his
emissaries when the world has faced the threat of
war.
Peacemaking
is no easy task. In our Catholic religious tradition,
we find inspiration and encouragement in the example
of many noble individuals and groups. I am thinking
of people like the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador,
Oscar Romero, who gave up his life in pursuit of
justice for the oppressed, since without justice
there can be no true peace; Dorothy Day, an American
woman who spent her life caring for the under-privileged
and opposing violence in all its forms; Northern
Ireland's Mairead Corrigan McGuire, who has given
her troubled community and the rest of us an example
of a non-violent response to harassment and murder;
America's Berrigan brothers, thorns in the side
of militarists and warmongers; the late Cardinal
Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, who was victimised
and unjustly imprisoned in Vietnam for many years
but who befriended his gaolers through his charity
and his attitude of forgiveness; the great Brazilian
Churchman, Don Helder Camara, who lived the gospel
of social justice; and the Community of Saint Egidio,
whose members serve the cause of peace as mediators
wherever possible. Among our other peacemaking models
are people from different Christian traditions and
other faiths (or none). To name a few, they include
the likes of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela,
ex-President Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Mahatma
Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Those
I have named are heroic figures. Most of us will
never be publicly acclaimed as heroes. But we can
all be true peacemakers wherever we are, spreading
by word and deed the message of peace. Sometimes
we will fail or fall short of our own ideals, but
we must take courage. May the World Peace Forum
give us a further stimulus to carry out this difficult,
essential and blessed task.
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