Vatican City, 15 December 2015 (VIS) –
This morning the Holy Father's Message for the World Day of Peace1
2016 (1 January 2016), entitled “Overcome indifference and win
peace”, was presented in the Holy See Press Office. The panel was
composed of Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, president of the
Pontifical Council “Justice and Peace”, Flaminia Giovanelli and
Vittorio V. Alberti, respectively under-secretary and official of the
same dicastery. The conference was also attended by various refugees
from Syria, Somalia, Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire, assisted by the Centro
Astalli in Rome. Archbishop Michele Pennisi of Monreale, Italy and
Fr. Luigi Ciotti, founder of the Abel Group and the Association
“Libera”, also contributed to the presented with a written
account.
Cardinal Turkson began by explaining
that in a period in which there is a widespread attitude of
indifference, the Pope considers in depth this “globalisation of
indifference” which, starting with indifference to God, is extended
to human beings and all creation. Human beings consider themselves
self-sufficient and believe they owe nothing to anyone other than
themselves, granting themselves rights without assuming duties.
“After showing that peace is
threatened by indifference at all levels, the Message offers a
biblical and theological reflection, which enables us to understand
the need to overcome indifference to open up to compassion, mercy,
commitment and, therefore, to solidarity. This latter is defined as a
moral virtue and an attitude that those with responsibility in
education and formation, such as families, educators and trainers,
and those who work in relation to means of social communication, are
required to cultivate”.
The document reaffirms the confidence
in the capacity of human beings to conquer evil with good, and
indicates the many praiseworthy forms of solidarity present in
society in favour of victims of armed conflicts and natural
disasters, the poor and migrants. It concludes with an appeal from
the Holy Father to every person, in the spirit of the Jubilee of
Mercy, to assume a concrete commitment to help improve the situation
in which he or she lives: in the family, the neighbourhood, or the
workplace. … Therefore, it is not only indifference at the centre
of the 2016 Message, but also man's capacity, with the grace of God,
to overcome evil and to combat resignation and indifference. In this
regard, the Pope mentions some key events in 2015, such as the COP 21
on climate change, the Addis Abeba Summit for funding sustainable
development worldwide, the adoption of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable
Development, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of Nostra
Aetate and Gaudium et Spes, two Vatican Council II documents that
opened the door to dialogue with non-Christian religions and all the
human family.
The under-secretary Flaminia Giovanelli
noted the continuity of Pope Francis' teaching with that of his
predecessors Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II. The Pope emeritus, in
Caritas in Veritate, identified in the anthropological question the
current social issue, emphasising the problem of nihilism. The link
to the Magisterium of St. John Paul II is instead particularly
visible in the indication of the path of mercy as the way to combat
indifference.
Vittorio V. Alberti commented that if
peace demands a victory and a conquest, it is because there is a
conflict. “Indifference affects the public sphere – politics and
culture”, he said, “and Francis writes once only a word that is a
major conflict: corruption. When he was a cardinal, he called it the
tiredness of transcendence – resignation, turning in on oneself.
This is corruption. … There are many key words in the Message:
man's capacity, apathy, lack of commitment, concrete commitment to
contributing to improve the situation. But to improve in the name of
what?”
“If I do not believe that there is a
future”, he continued, “I do not believe in the meaning of
things. And if I do not believe, where can I find the trust – and
thus the strength of commitment – to combat corruption and to
overcome indifference? … But is this a crime, nowadays? It is and
it isn't. And this is perhaps the most dramatic terrain of this
message: indifference that must be treated with mercy. If I see
Palmyra destroyed, or the spread of corruption, I feel crushed by it
because I do not believe that together we can change things. This is
nihilism”.
“Mercy is not merely a moral fact,
but also mental and intellectual: it is freedom of thought and
Francis is giving us the deepest keys to combating indifference. He
is providing the cultural base for combating corruption, framing it
in the broader context of the crisis of our times, which is a
cultural crisis. The lack of meaning is the greatest form of
suffering because, insisting upon a perennial present, it corrupts
the past, the future and the very present itself by exhausting its
transcendence, debilitating the capacity to go beyond, towards a
dream or an ideal”.
The archbishop of Monreale, in his
text, recalls that it is decisive for the credibility of the Church
to live and bear witness to mercy in the first person, towards the
frailest in society, including detainees, as the Pope emphasises. He
writes, “I hope that the Church and civil society will take into
consideration Article 27 of the Italian Constitution, which affirms
that 'punishment cannot consist in treatment contrary to human
dignity and must aim at rehabilitating the offender'. Custodial
sentences are meaningful if, as well as affirming the needs of
justice and deterrence, they serve also to rehabilitate the person,
offering those who have erred the possibility to reflect and change
their life, so as to be fully reintegrated in society. The Christian
community is called upon to educate, assist and rehabilitate every
person, enabling them to feel worthy of being loved and promoted in
social life”.
Don Luigi Ciotti writes that peace,
from Pope Francis' perspective, is “the opposite of quietism, of
seeking to 'stay in peace'. True peace comes from a spiritual
reawakening that has immediate practical consequences, that asks to
be incarnated in … actions that involve our existence both as
people and as citizens. We are workers for peace when we are
attentive to our neighbours, when we do not turn away from their
needs and their fragility; when we promote the common good. …
Inhabiting the 'peripheries' is the first step in constructing peace,
the basis for a more human civilisation and a society of closeness,
in which people are not instruments for profit, and the well-being of
the few does not mean poverty, exclusion, desperation and death for
many others”.
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