Editor’s note: On Oct. 25, 2022, the Community of Sant’Egidio hosted its thirty sixth annual “Spirit of Assisi” event at Rome’s Colosseum. Within the presence of heads of state and spiritual leaders, Pope Francis delivered a concluding prayer for peace.
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I thank each of you who’ve taken part on this meeting of prayer for peace. In a special way, I thank the Christian leaders and people of other religions, who’ve joined us in the identical spirit of fraternity that inspired the primary historic convocation willed by St. John Paul II in Assisi, 36 years ago.
This 12 months our prayer has change into a heartfelt plea, because today peace has been gravely violated, assaulted and trampled upon, and this in Europe, on the very continent that within the last century endured the horrors of two world wars. Sadly, since then, wars have continued to cause bloodshed and to impoverish the earth. Yet the situation that we’re presently experiencing is especially dramatic. That’s the reason we’ve got raised our prayer to God, who all the time hears the anguished plea of his little children.
Peace is at the center of the religions, their sacred writings and their teaching. This evening, amid the silence of prayer, we’ve got heard that plea for peace: a peace suppressed in so many areas of the world, violated by all too many acts of violence, and denied even to children and the elderly, who haven’t been spared the bitter sufferings of war. That plea for peace is commonly stifled, not only by hostile rhetoric but in addition by indifference. It’s reduced to silence by hatred, which spreads because the fighting continues.
The plea for peace can’t be suppressed: it rises from the hearts of moms; it’s deeply etched on the faces of refugees, displaced families, the wounded and the dying.
Yet the plea for peace can’t be suppressed: it rises from the hearts of moms; it’s deeply etched on the faces of refugees, displaced families, the wounded and the dying. And this silent plea rises as much as heaven. It has no magic formulas for ending conflict, but it surely does have the sacred right to implore peace within the name of all those that suffer, and it deserves to be heard. It rightfully summons everyone, starting with government leaders, to take time and listen, seriously and respectfully. That plea for peace expresses the pain and the horror of war, which is the mother of all poverty.
“Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil” (“Fratelli Tutti,” No. 261). These convictions are the fruit of the painful lessons of the 20 th century, and sadly, over again, the start of the twenty-first. Today, the truth is, something we dreaded and hoped never to listen to of again is threatened outright: the usage of atomic weapons, which even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki continued wrongly to be produced and tested.
On this bleak scenario, where, sad to say, the plans of potent world leaders make no allowance for the just aspirations of peoples, God’s plan for our salvation, which is “a plan for peace and never for evil” (cf. Jer 29:11), never changes. Here the voice of the voiceless finds a hearing; here the hope of the poor and the powerless is firmly established: in God, whose name is Peace. Peace is God’s gift, and we’ve got implored that gift from him. Yet peace should be embraced and nurtured by us men and ladies, especially by those of us who’re believers. Allow us to not be infected by the perverse rationale of war; allow us to not fall into the trap of hatred for the enemy. Allow us to over again put peace at the center of our vision for the longer term, as the first goal of our personal, social and political activity at every level. Allow us to defuse conflicts by the weapon of dialogue.
That is what we’ll strive to do ever higher every day. Allow us to never grow resigned to war; allow us to cultivate seeds of reconciliation.
In October 1962, amid a grave international crisis, when military confrontation and nuclear holocaust seemed imminent, St. John XXIII made this appeal: “We plead with all government leaders not to stay deaf to this cry of humanity. Allow them to do the whole lot of their power to safeguard peace. They’ll thus spare the world the horrors of a war, the terrible consequences of which can’t be foreseen…. Promoting, fostering, and accepting dialogue in any respect levels and in all times is a rule of wisdom and prudence that draws the blessing of heaven and earth” (Radio Message, Oct. 25 1962).
Sixty years later, these words still impress us by their timeliness. I make them my very own. We are usually not “neutral, but allied for peace”, and for that reason “we invoke the ius pacis as the proper of all to settle conflicts without violence” (Meeting with Students and Representatives of the Academic World, Bologna, Oct. 1 2017).
In recent times, fraternal relations between religions have taken decisive steps forward: “Sister religions to assist peoples be brothers and sisters living in peace” (Meeting of Religions for Peace, Oct. 7, 2021). Increasingly more, we feel that we’re all brothers and sisters! A 12 months ago, gathered here before the Colosseum, we launched an appeal that’s all of the more timely today: “Religions can’t be used for war. Only peace is holy and nobody is to make use of the name of God to bless terror and violence. In case you see wars around you, don’t resign yourselves! The peoples desire peace” (ibid.).
That is what we’ll strive to do ever higher every day. Allow us to never grow resigned to war; allow us to cultivate seeds of reconciliation. Today allow us to raise to heaven our plea for peace, again within the words of St. John XXIII: “May all peoples come together as brothers and sisters, and will the peace they so deeply desire ever flourish and reign of their midst” (“Pacem in Terris,” No. 171). So be it, with God’s grace and the great will of the lads and ladies whom he loves.