POPE FRANCIS 2022 : “The invasion of Ukraine, since the beginning of this cruel and senseless war, like every war, represents a defeat for every one, for everyone of us. We need to reject war, a place of death where fathers and mothers bury their children, where men kill their brothers and sisters without even having seen them, where the powerful decide and the poor die.
War does not devastate the present only, but the future of a society as well. I read that from the beginning of the aggression in Ukraine, one out of every two children has been displaced from their country. This means destroying the future, causing dramatic trauma in the lives of the smallest and most innocent among us. This is the brutality of war — a barbaric and sacrilegious act!
War should not be something that is inevitable. We should not accustom ourselves to war. Instead, we need to convert today’s indignation into tomorrow’s commitment, because if we will emerge from these events, the way we were before, we will all be guilty in some way. Faced with the danger of self-destruction, may humanity understand that the moment has come to abolish war, to erase it from human history, before it erases humans from history.”
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LAUDATO SI
57. It is foreseeable that, once certain resources have been depleted, the scene will be set for new wars, albeit under the guise of noble claims. War always does grave harm to the environment and to the cultural riches of peoples, risks which are magnified when one considers nuclear arms and biological weapons. “Despite the international agreements which prohibit chemical, bacteriological and biological warfare, the fact is that laboratory research continues to develop new offensive weapons capable of altering the balance of nature”. Politics must pay greater attention to foreseeing new conflicts and addressing the causes which can lead to them. But powerful financial interests prove most resistant to this effort, and political planning tends to lack breadth of vision. What would induce anyone, at this stage, to hold on to power only to be remembered for their inability to take action when it was urgent and necessary to do so?
PAPA FRANCESCO
DISCORSO ACCADEMIA DELLE SCIENZE
2022 / SETTEMBRE
Dopo le due tragiche guerre mondiali, sembrava che il mondo avesse imparato a incamminarsi progressivamente verso il rispetto dei diritti umani, del diritto internazionale e delle varie forme di cooperazione. Ma purtroppo la storia mostra segni di regressione. Non solo si intensificano conflitti anacronistici, ma riemergono nazionalismi chiusi, esasperati e aggressivi (cfr Enc. Fratelli tutti, 11), e anche nuove guerre di dominio, che colpiscono civili, anziani, bambini e malati, e provocano distruzione ovunque.
I numerosi conflitti armati in corso preoccupano seriamente. Ho detto che era una terza guerra mondiale “a pezzi”. Oggi forse possiamo dire “totale”, e i rischi per le persone e per il pianeta sono sempre maggiori. San Giovanni Paolo II ringraziò Dio perché, per intercessione di Maria, il mondo era stato preservato dalla guerra atomica. Purtroppo dobbiamo continuare a pregare per questo pericolo, che già da tempo avrebbe dovuto essere scongiurato.
Nel nome di Dio, che ha creato tutti gli esseri umani per un comune destino di felicità, siamo chiamati oggi a testimoniare la nostra essenza fraterna di libertà, giustizia, dialogo, incontro reciproco, amore e pace, evitando di alimentare odio, risentimento, divisione, violenza e guerra. Nel nome del Dio che ci ha donato il pianeta per salvaguardarlo e svilupparlo, oggi siamo chiamati alla conversione ecologica per salvare la casa comune e la nostra vita insieme a quella delle generazioni future, invece di aumentare le disuguaglianze, lo sfruttamento e la distruzione.
POPE FRANCESCO
SPEECH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
2022 / SEPTEMBER
After the two tragic world wars, it seemed that the world had learned to progress gradually towards respect for human rights, international law and various forms of cooperation. But unfortunately, history shows signs of regression. Not only do anachronistic conflicts intensify, but closed, exasperated and aggressive nationalisms re-emerge (cf. Enc. Brothers all, 11), and also new wars of domination, affecting civilians, the elderly, children and the sick, and causing destruction everywhere.
The numerous ongoing armed conflicts are of serious concern. I said it was a “broken” third world war. Today perhaps we can say “total”, and the risks for people and for the planet are ever greater. St. John Paul II thanked God because, through Mary’s intercession, the world had been preserved from the atomic war. Unfortunately, we must continue to pray for this danger, which should have been averted for some time.
In the name of God, who created all human beings for a common destiny of happiness, we are called today to witness our fraternal essence of freedom, justice, dialogue, mutual encounter, love and peace, avoiding to feed hatred, resentment, division. , violence and war. In the name of the God who gave us the planet to safeguard and develop it, today we are called to ecological conversion to save our common home and our life together with that of future generations, instead of increasing inequality, exploitation and destruction.
PRESIDENT AESI MESSAGE 2022
DIPLOMACY AND CRISIS : IS THERE A ROAD FOR PEACE ? AESI Video :
PRESIDENT AESI MASSIMO MARÍA CANEVA: “AESI goes much further because, even in the analysis of the true knowledge of the limits of each political and cultural system, it requires the University to overcome precisely those divisions that lead to conflict, not only with the honest search for truth, but above all by promoting those prerequisites for a sincere dialogue between parties starting from the new generations and investing in their training!
In particular, it is thanks to university cooperation for peace that the University is not only a meeting place between the parties in conflict, but above all as a true actor at international level for a new foreign policy that favors, always through its institutional activities, dialogue and peace. This strategy is also able to promote synergy between the International Actors engaged in crisis areas and favor a new and effective “soft diplomacy” through the States and the United Nations.”
Pope: ‘Difficult to dialogue with those who started a war, but it must be done’
On the flight back to Rome from Kazakhstan on Thursday, Pope Francis tells reporters that “the decadent West breeds populism; in politics we must start again from values…. With China, we need the patience of dialogue.”
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Rudiger Kronthaler, ARD
“Holy Father thank you for your message of peace, I am German, as you can hear from my accent. My people are responsible for millions of deaths eighty years ago. I would like to ask a question about peace, since my people are responsible for millions of deaths, we learn in school that you should never use weapons, never violence: the only exception is self-defense. In your opinion, should Ukraine be given weapons at this time?”
This is a political decision, which can be moral – morally acceptable – if it is done according to the conditions of morality, which are manifold, and then we can talk about it. But it can be immoral if it is done with the intention of provoking more war or selling weapons or discarding those weapons that are no longer needed. The motivation is what largely qualifies the morality of this act. To defend oneself is not only lawful but also an expression of love of country. Those who do not defend themselves, those who do not defend something, do not love it, instead those who defend, love.
Here you touch on something else that I said in one of my speeches, which is that one should think more about the concept of just war. Because everybody is talking about peace today: for so many years, for seventy years, the United Nations has been talking about peace; they have been making so many speeches about peace. But right now how many wars are going on? The one you mentioned, Ukraine-Russia, now Azerbaijan and Armenia which had stopped for a while because Russia acted as a guarantor: a guarantor of peace here and makes war there… Then there is Syria, ten years of war, what is going on there for which it never stops? What interests are moving these things? Then there is the Horn of Africa, then northern Mozambique, or Eritrea and a part of Ethiopia, then Myanmar with this suffering people that I love so much, the Rohingya people who go around and around and around like a gypsy and find no peace. But we are in a world war, please…
I remember a personal event, as a child; I was nine years old. I remember hearing the alarm of the biggest newspaper in Buenos Aires sounding: sometimes to celebrate and other times to give bad news. They would sound that – now it doesn’t sound anymore – and it could be heard all over the city. Mother said, “What’s going on?” We were in the war, the year 1945. A neighbor came to the house, and said, “The alarm sounded…” and she cried, “The war is over!” And I still see mom and the neighbor crying with joy because the war was over, in a South American country, so far away! These women knew that peace is greater than all wars, and they cried with joy when peace was made. I cannot forget that.
I wonder, I don’t know if our hearts are educated well enough today to cry for joy when we see peace. Everything has changed. If you don’t make war, you are not useful! Then there is the arms business. This is a store of assassins. Someone who understands statistics told me that if you stopped making weapons for a year you would solve all the hunger in the world – I don’t know if that’s true or not. But hunger, education; it’s no use, you can’t because you have to make weapons.
In Genoa a few years ago, three or four years ago, a ship arrived loaded with weapons that was going to transfer them to a bigger ship that was going to Africa, near South Sudan. The dock workers didn’t want to do it; it cost them, but they said, “I won’t cooperate.” It is an anecdote but one that makes one feel a consciousness of peace.
You spoke about your homeland. One of the things I learned from you is the ability to repent and ask forgiveness for the mistakes of war. And also, not only to ask forgiveness, but to pay for the mistakes of war – this speaks well of you. It is an example that we should imitate. War itself is a mistake; it is a mistake! And we right now are breathing this air: if there is no war it seems there is no life. A bit messy but I said all I wanted to say about just war. But the right to defense yes, that yes, but use it when necessary.
Sylwia Wysocka, PAP
“Holy Father, you said: we can never justify violence. Everything that is happening in Ukraine now is pure violence, death, total destruction by Russia. We in Poland have the war so close to our doorstep, with two million refugees. I would like to ask if you think there is a red line beyond which you should not say: we are open to dialogue with Moscow. Because so many people have a hard time understanding this openness. And I would also like to ask if the next trip will be to Kyiv.”
I will answer that, but I would prefer that the questions about the trip be asked first…
I think it is always difficult to understand the dialogue with the states that started a war, and it seems that the first step was from there, from that side. It is difficult but we must not discard it; we must extend the opportunity for dialogue to everyone, to everyone! Because there is always the possibility that in dialogue we can change things, and also offer another point of view, another point of consideration.
I don’t exclude dialogue with any power, whether it’s at war, whether it’s the aggressor… sometimes dialogue has to be done in this manner, but it has to be done; it “stinks”, but it has to be done. Always one step ahead, an outstretched hand, always! Because otherwise we close off the only reasonable door to peace.
Sometimes some do not accept dialogue: too bad! But dialogue must always be done, at least offered, and this is good for those who offer it; it helps them to breathe.
