Editorial

Peacemakers must be active, not passive

Let us pray together that harmony may prevail in all conflicts throughout the world. Only peace, a gift of God, can heal the wounds between peoples. (Pope Leo XIV, Angelus, March 1)

In response to “what is happening in the Middle East and in Iran during this tumultuous time,” and to the “troubling news” about “clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Pope Leo XIV used his March 1 Sunday Angelus message to remind all concerned that, “Stability and peace are not achieved through mutual threats, nor through the use of weapons, which sow destruction, suffering and death, but only through reasonable, sincere and responsible dialogue.”

Peacemaking is a virtue that requires serenity, courage and wisdom. It also demands extraordinary patience and the willingness to trust that the Holy Spirit is at work even in situations that seem hopeless.

In his address to members of the Vatican’s diplomatic corps on Jan. 9, the Holy Father strongly expressed his concerns about the increasing tendency among nations to replace dialogue with a diplomacy based on coercion or force:

In our time, the weakness of multilateralism is a particular cause for concern at the international level. A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies.

War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading. The principle established after the Second World War, which prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others, has been completely undermined. Peace is no longer sought as a gift and a desirable good in itself, or in the pursuit of “the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of justice among men and women” [a quote from St. Paul VI’s March 1967 encyclical letter “Populorum Progressio”]. Instead, peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one’s own dominion. This gravely threatens the rule of law, which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence.

Efforts by individual nations or groups of allies to intervene in the affairs of sovereign states by force is not peacemaking.

While it may seem effective to those who have the means to enforce their will (however virtuous) on others, accomplishing peace by force is not building a just and lasting peace. It is, at best, an attempt to achieve the kind of stability that supports the dominance of one nation and its allies over weaker nations.

Pope Leo said in the same Jan. 9 address: “At the heart of many of the situations I have mentioned, we can see something that Augustine himself pointed out, namely the persistent idea that peace is only possible through the use of force and deterrence.”

“While war is content with destruction,” he said, “peace requires continuous and patient efforts of construction as well as constant vigilance. Such efforts are required of everyone, starting with the countries that possess nuclear arsenals.”

True peacemaking must be active, not passive. It requires that people actively listen to one another and that they commit to working together to achieve “the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect form of justice among men and women.”

Above all, there is no place in genuine peacemaking for what Pope Leo calls “a zeal for war.”

As followers of Jesus Christ, we can have no tolerance for the idea that peace can be achieved through violence and the weapons of war. We believe that only nonviolence, which is the way of Jesus, can build a lasting peace.

Pope Leo went on to say in his Jan. 9 address, “During our pilgrimage on this Earth, peacemaking requires humility and courage. The humility to live truthfully and the courage to forgive. In the Christian life, we see these virtues reflected at Christmas, when Truth, the eternal Word of God, becomes humble flesh, and at Easter, when the condemned Righteous One forgives his persecutors and grants them his life as the Risen One.”

Our Church strongly supports what Pope Leo identified in his address to the Vatican diplomatic corps as a multilateral approach to peacemaking.

“Peace is more than just a goal,” the Holy Father said. “It is a presence and a journey. Even when it is endangered within us and around us, like a small flame threatened by a storm, we must protect it, never forgetting the names and stories of those who have borne witness to it.”

Peacemaking demands more from us than passive acceptance. It demands that we pray fervently for peace among nations and that we work tirelessly to build a just and lasting peace.

—Daniel Conway