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VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - N° 228
DATE 14-12-2012
Summary:
- PRESENTATION OF THE POPE'S MESSAGE FOR WORLD DAY OF PEACE
- BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS
- CHRISTMAS TREE: A SIGN AND REMINDER OF DIVINE LIGHT
- AUDIENCES
___________________________________________________________
PRESENTATION OF THE POPE'S MESSAGE FOR WORLD DAY OF PEACE
Vatican City, 14 December 2012 (VIS) - A press conference was held this
morning in the Holy See Press Office to present Benedict XVI's Message for the
46th World Day of Peace, which will take place on 1 January with the theme
"Blessed are the
peacemakers". Participating in today's conference were Cardinal Peter Kodwo
Appiah Turkson and Bishop Mario Toso S.D.B., respectively president and
secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The cardinal referred first to the "concrete" nature of the document. "The
title, drawn from the Gospel, would induce us to think of the Message as
having a rather spiritual or, so to speak, theoretical nature", he said.
"However, the Pope's message is
very closely linked to reality. It states a fact - the existence, in the midst
of conflicts, tension and violence, of numerous peacemakers; in the
explanation of the Gospel beatitude it explains that this is a promise that is
guaranteed, in that it is
made by God and does not refer merely to the future but already finds
fulfilment in this life. It clearly indicates the duties of peacemakers: they
must promote life in its fullest expression, in its entirety and therefore in
all the dimensions of the
human person, and draws attention to urgent problems issues such as the
correct vision of marriage, the right to conscientious objection, religious
freedom, the issues of work and unemployment, the food crisis, the financial
crisis,
and
the role of the family in education.
He then went on to emphasise the "positivity" of the Message which, "aside
from opening the way to hope, reflects love for life and life in its
completeness. Alongside the theme of the defence of life, the Pope highlights
matters connected to justice,
necessary for a worthwhile life, lived fully, or rather in which all people
have the opportunity to develop their own potential".
A further characteristic of the text is its "educational and pedagogical
perspective. ...This is an aspect which is always close to the heart of the
Church, one of whose tasks is to 'form consciences'", the cardinal emphasised.
"In this regard, the
Pontiff calls for responsibility on the part of the various educational
institutions who must form capable leaders and propose new economic and
financial models. This is necessary to overcome the particularly grave
situation the globalised world is
currently facing, a phase of profound spiritual and moral crisis in which
there are still bloody conflicts and numerous threats to peace".
Bishop Mario Toso observed that Benedict XVI's message is "an invitation to
become peacemakers 'at three hundred and sixty degrees', in our entirety,
protecting and implementing all the rights and duties of the individual and of
communities".
He continued, "Typical of the Pontiff's view is the part of the Message in
which he urges us not to erode social rights, foremost among which he includes
the right to work, which is a fundamental rather than marginal right. This is
in spite of the
context of economic recession, provoked in part by the financial crisis which
began in 2007, and ideologies of radical liberalism and technocracy according
to which development can be achieved without social and democratic progress.
Without the defence
and promotion of social rights - as recognised by liberals, communists,
socialists and Catholics during the last century - civil and political rights
cannot be adequately attained, and democracy itself - substantial, social and
participatory - would be
undermined.
"In summary, the Message promotes the growth of a human family that is not
divided into groups and peoples in favour of life, and those who work for
peace without equal passion for the defence of human life from conception to
natural end. Peace is a
common goal to be pursued as a community, to the full benefit of every human
being and population", concluded the secretary of the Pontifical Council for
Justice and Peace.
___________________________________________________________
BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS
Vatican City, 14 December 2012 (VIS) - "Blessed are the Peacemakers" is the
title chosen by the Holy Father for his Message for the 46th World Day of
Peace, celebrated every year on 1 January. Given below is the full text of the
Message:
"1. Each new year brings the expectation of a better world. In light of this,
I ask God, the Father of humanity, to grant us concord and peace, so that the
aspirations of all for a happy and prosperous life may be achieved.
"Fifty years after the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, which helped
to strengthen the Church’s mission in the world, it is heartening to
realise that Christians, as the People of God in fellowship with Him and
sojourning among mankind,
are committed within history to sharing humanity’s joys and hopes, grief
and anguish, as they proclaim the salvation of Christ and promote peace for
all.
"In effect, our times, marked by globalisation with its positive and negative
aspects, as well as the continuation of violent conflicts and threats of war,
demand a new, shared commitment in pursuit of the common good and the
development of all men, and
of the whole man.
"It is alarming to see hotbeds of tension and conflict caused by growing
instances of inequality between rich and poor, by the prevalence of a selfish
and individualistic mindset which also finds expression in an unregulated
financial capitalism. In
addition to the varied forms of terrorism and international crime, peace is
also endangered by those forms of fundamentalism and fanaticism which distort
the true nature of religion, which is called to foster fellowship and
reconciliation among people.
"All the same, the many different efforts at peacemaking which abound in our
world testify to mankind’s innate vocation to peace. In every person the
desire for peace is an essential aspiration which coincides in a certain way
with the desire for
a full, happy and successful human life. In other words, the desire for peace
corresponds to a fundamental moral principle, namely, the duty and right to an
integral social and communitarian development, which is part of God’s
plan for mankind.
Man is made for the peace which is God’s gift.
"All of this led me to draw inspiration for this Message from the words of
Jesus Christ: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children
of God'.
Gospel beatitude
"2. The beatitudes which Jesus proclaimed are promises. In the biblical
tradition, the beatitude is a literary genre which always involves some good
news, a 'gospel', which culminates in a promise. Therefore, the beatitudes are
not only moral
exhortations whose observance foresees in due time – ordinarily in the
next life – a reward or a situation of future happiness. Rather, the
blessedness of which the beatitudes speak consists in the fulfilment of a
promise made to all those
who allow themselves to be guided by the requirements of truth, justice and
love. In the eyes of the world, those who trust in God and His promises often
appear naïve or far from reality. Yet Jesus tells them that not only in
the next life, but
already in this life, they will discover that they are children of God, and
that God has always been, and ever will be, completely on their side. They
will understand that they are not alone, because He is on the side of those
committed to truth
,
justice and love. Jesus, the revelation of the Father’s love, does not
hesitate to offer Himself in self-sacrifice. Once we accept Jesus Christ, God
and man, we have the joyful experience of an immense gift: the sharing of
God’s own life,
the life of grace, the pledge of a fully blessed existence. Jesus Christ, in
particular, grants us true peace, which is born of the trusting encounter of
man with God.
"Jesus’ beatitude tells us that peace is both a messianic gift and the
fruit of human effort. In effect, peace presupposes a humanism open to
transcendence. It is the fruit of the reciprocal gift, of a mutual enrichment,
thanks to the gift which
has its source in God and enables us to live with others and for others. The
ethics of peace is an ethics of fellowship and sharing. It is indispensable,
then, that the various cultures in our day overcome forms of anthropology and
ethics based on
technical and practical suppositions which are merely subjectivistic and
pragmatic, in virtue of which relationships of coexistence are inspired by
criteria of power or profit, means become ends and vice versa, and culture and
education are centred on
instruments, technique and efficiency alone. The precondition for peace is the
dismantling of the dictatorship of relativism and of the supposition of a
completely autonomous morality which precludes acknowledgement of the
ineluctable nat
ural
moral law inscribed by God upon the conscience of every man and woman. Peace
is the building up of coexistence in rational and moral terms, based on a
foundation whose measure is not created by man, but rather by God. As Psalm 29
puts it: 'May the Lord
give strength to His people; may the Lord bless His people with peace'.
Peace: God’s gift and the fruit of human effort
"3. Peace concerns the human person as a whole, and it involves complete
commitment. It is peace with God through a life lived according to His will.
It is interior peace with oneself, and exterior peace with our neighbours and
all creation. Above all,
as Blessed John XXIII wrote in his Encyclical Pacem in Terris, whose fiftieth
anniversary will fall in a few months, it entails the building up of a
coexistence based on truth, freedom, love and justice. The denial of what
makes up the true nature of
human beings in its essential dimensions, its intrinsic capacity to know the
true and the good and, ultimately, to know God Himself, jeopardises
peacemaking. Without the truth about man inscribed by the Creator in the human
heart, freedom and love
become debased, and justice loses the ground of its exercise.
"To become authentic peacemakers, it is fundamental to keep in mind our
transcendent dimension and to enter into constant dialogue with God, the
Father of mercy, whereby we implore the redemption achieved for us by His
only-begotten Son. In this way
mankind can overcome that progressive dimming and rejection of peace which is
sin in all its forms: selfishness and violence, greed and the will to power
and dominion, intolerance, hatred and unjust structures.
"The attainment of peace depends above all on recognizing that we are, in God,
one human family. This family is structured, as the Encyclical Pacem in Terris
taught, by interpersonal relations and institutions supported and animated by
a communitarian
'we', which entails an internal and external moral order in which, in
accordance with truth and justice, reciprocal rights and mutual duties are
sincerely recognized. Peace is an order enlivened and integrated by love, in
such a way that we feel the
needs of others as our own, share our goods with others and work throughout
the world for greater communion in spiritual values. It is an order achieved
in freedom, that is, in a way consistent with the dignity of persons who, by
their very nature as
rational beings, take responsibility for their own actions.
"Peace is not a dream or something utopian; it is possible. Our gaze needs to
go deeper, beneath superficial appearances and phenomena, to discern a
positive reality which exists in human hearts, since every man and woman has
been created in the image
of God and is called to grow and contribute to the building of a new world.
God Himself, through the incarnation of His Son and His work of redemption,
has entered into history and has brought about a new creation and a new
covenant between God and man,
thus enabling us to have a 'new heart' and a 'new spirit'.
"For this very reason the Church is convinced of the urgency of a new
proclamation of Jesus Christ, the first and fundamental factor of the integral
development of peoples and also of peace. Jesus is indeed our peace, our
justice and our reconciliation.
The peacemaker, according to Jesus’ beatitude, is the one who seeks the
good of the other, the fullness of good in body and soul, today and tomorrow.
"From this teaching one can infer that each person and every community,
whether religious, civil, educational or cultural, is called to work for
peace. Peace is principally the attainment of the common good in society at
its different levels, primary
and intermediary, national, international and global. Precisely for this
reason it can be said that the paths which lead to the attainment of the
common good are also the paths that must be followed in the pursuit of peace.
Peacemakers are those who love, defend and promote life in its fullness
"4. The path to the attainment of the common good and to peace is above all
that of respect for human life in all its many aspects, beginning with its
conception, through its development and up to its natural end. True
peacemakers, then, are those who
love, defend and promote human life in all its dimensions, personal,
communitarian and transcendent. Life in its fullness is the height of peace.
Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life.
"Those who insufficiently value human life and, in consequence, support among
other things the liberalization of abortion, perhaps do not realize that in
this way they are proposing the pursuit of a false peace. The flight from
responsibility, which
degrades human persons, and even more so the killing of a defenceless and
innocent being, will never be able to produce happiness or peace. Indeed how
could one claim to bring about peace, the integral development of peoples or
even the protection of
the environment without defending the life of those who are weakest, beginning
with the unborn. Every offence against life, especially at its beginning,
inevitably causes irreparable damage to development, peace and the
environment. Neither is it just
to introduce surreptitiously into legislation false rights or freedoms which,
on the basis of a reductive and relativistic view of human beings and the
clever use of ambiguous expressions aimed at promoting a supposed right to
abortion a
nd
euthanasia, pose a threat to the fundamental right to life.
"There is also a need to acknowledge and promote the natural structure of
marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the face of attempts to make it
juridically equivalent to radically different types of union; such attempts
actually harm and help to
destabilize marriage, obscuring its specific nature and its indispensable role
in society.
"These principles are not truths of faith, nor are they simply a corollary of
the right to religious freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself,
accessible to reason and thus common to all humanity. The Church’s
efforts to promote them are
not therefore confessional in character, but addressed to all people, whatever
their religious affiliation. Efforts of this kind are all the more necessary
the more these principles are denied or misunderstood, since this constitutes
an offence against
the truth of the human person, with serious harm to justice and peace.
"Consequently, another important way of helping to build peace is for legal
systems and the administration of justice to recognize the right to invoke the
principle of conscientious objection in the face of laws or government
measures that offend
against human dignity, such as abortion and euthanasia.
"One of the fundamental human rights, also with reference to international
peace, is the right of individuals and communities to religious freedom. At
this stage in history, it is becoming increasingly important to promote this
right not only from the
negative point of view, as freedom from – for example, obligations or
limitations involving the freedom to choose one’s religion – but
also from the positive point of view, in its various expressions, as freedom
for – for
example, bearing witness to one’s religion, making its teachings known,
engaging in activities in the educational, benevolent and charitable fields
which permit the practice of religious precepts, and existing and acting as
social bodies
structured in accordance with the proper doctrinal principles and
institutional ends of each. Sadly, even in countries of long-standing
Christian tradition, instances of religious intolerance are becoming more
numerous, especially in relation to
Christianity and those who simply wear identifying signs of their religion.
"Peacemakers must also bear in mind that, in growing sectors of public
opinion, the ideologies of radical liberalism and technocracy are spreading
the conviction that economic growth should be pursued even to the detriment of
the state’s social
responsibilities and civil society’s networks of solidarity, together
with social rights and duties. It should be remembered that these rights and
duties are fundamental for the full realisation of other rights and duties,
starting with those
which are civil and political.
"One of the social rights and duties most under threat today is the right to
work. The reason for this is that labour and the rightful recognition of
workers’ juridical status are increasingly undervalued, since economic
development is thought to
depend principally on completely free markets. Labour is thus regarded as a
variable dependent on economic and financial mechanisms. In this regard, I
would reaffirm that human dignity and economic, social and political factors,
demand that we continue
'to prioritise the goal of access to steady employment for everyone'. If this
ambitious goal is to be realised, one prior condition is a fresh outlook on
work, based on ethical principles and spiritual values that reinforce the
notion of work as a
fundamental good for the individual, for the family and for society.
Corresponding to this good are a duty and a right that demand courageous new
policies of universal employment.
Building the good of peace through a new model of development and economics
"5. In many quarters it is now recognized that a new model of development is
needed, as well as a new approach to the economy. Both integral, sustainable
development in solidarity and the common good require a correct scale of goods
and values which can
be structured with God as the ultimate point of reference. It is not enough to
have many different means and choices at one’s disposal, however good
these may be. Both the wide variety of goods fostering development and the
presence of a wide
range of choices must be employed against the horizon of a good life, an
upright conduct that acknowledges the primacy of the spiritual and the call to
work for the common good. Otherwise they lose their real value, and end up
becoming new idols.
"In order to emerge from the present financial and economic crisis –
which has engendered ever greater inequalities – we need people, groups
and institutions which will promote life by fostering human creativity, in
order to draw from the
crisis itself an opportunity for discernment and for a new economic model. The
predominant model of recent decades called for seeking maximum profit and
consumption, on the basis of an individualistic and selfish mindset, aimed at
considering
individuals solely in terms of their ability to meet the demands of
competitiveness. Yet, from another standpoint, true and lasting success is
attained through the gift of ourselves, our intellectual abilities and our
entrepreneurial skills, since a
'liveable' or truly human economic development requires the principle of
gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity and the logic of gift.
Concretely, in economic activity, peacemakers are those who establish bonds of
fairness and reciprocity
with
their colleagues, workers, clients and consumers. They engage in economic
activity for the sake of the common good and they experience this commitment
as something transcending their self-interest, for the benefit of present and
future generations. Thus
they work not only for themselves, but also to ensure for others a future and
a dignified employment.
"In the economic sector, states in particular need to articulate policies of
industrial and agricultural development concerned with social progress and the
growth everywhere of constitutional and democratic states. The creation of
ethical structures for
currency, financial and commercial markets is also fundamental and
indispensable; these must be stabilised and better coordinated and controlled
so as not to prove harmful to the very poor. With greater resolve than has
hitherto been the case, the
concern of peacemakers must also focus upon the food crisis, which is graver
than the financial crisis. The issue of food security is once more central to
the international political agenda, as a result of inter- related crises,
including sudden shifts
in the price of basic foodstuffs, irresponsible behaviour by some economic
actors and insufficient control on the part of governments and the
international community. To face this crisis, peacemakers are called to work
together in a sp
irit
of solidarity, from the local to the international level, with the aim of
enabling farmers, especially in small rural holdings, to carry out their
activity in a dignified and sustainable way from the social, environmental and
economic points of view.
Education for a culture of peace: the role of the family and institutions
"6. I wish to reaffirm forcefully that the various peacemakers are called to
cultivate a passion for the common good of the family and for social justice,
and a commitment to effective social education.
"No one should ignore or underestimate the decisive role of the family, which
is the basic cell of society from the demographic, ethical, pedagogical,
economic and political standpoints. The family has a natural vocation to
promote life: it accompanies
individuals as they mature and it encourages mutual growth and enrichment
through caring and sharing. The Christian family in particular serves as a
seedbed for personal maturation according to the standards of divine love. The
family is one of the
indispensable social subjects for the achievement of a culture of peace. The
rights of parents and their primary role in the education of their children in
the area of morality and religion must be safeguarded. It is in the family
that peacemakers,
tomorrow’s promoters of a culture of life and love, are born and
nurtured.
"Religious communities are involved in a special way in this immense task of
education for peace. The Church believes that she shares in this great
responsibility as part of the new evangelisation, which is centred on
conversion to the truth and love of
Christ and, consequently, the spiritual and moral rebirth of individuals and
societies. Encountering Jesus Christ shapes peacemakers, committing them to
fellowship and to overcoming injustice.
"Cultural institutions, schools and universities have a special mission of
peace. They are called to make a notable contribution not only to the
formation of new generations of leaders, but also to the renewal of public
institutions, both national and
international. They can also contribute to a scientific reflection which will
ground economic and financial activities on a solid anthropological and
ethical basis. Today’s world, especially the world of politics, needs to
be sustained by fresh
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