Pope: Listening, dialogue and cooperation are the only means to resolve conflicts

Alessandro De Carolis – Vatican News

While rockets and attacks on various conflict scenes do not wish for the desired peace, Pope Francis, for his part, does not relent in pillaging war. Challenges addressed to the human conscience follow one after the other practically every day, and today, November 10, the Pope expresses them in a message signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin. The paper repeats the points of his magisterium, addressed for this occasion to the participants of the Paris Peace Forum, which takes place today and tomorrow, and which, through debates and panels on various topics, is confronted with a very specific basic idea, namely the search for common ground in a world full of rivalry.

A slow and patient process

In a message read by the apostolic nuncio to France, Celestino Migliore, Francis asks that the forum be a sign of hope, backed by commitments that would strengthen an honest dialogue based on listening to all those who suffer because of terrorism, general violence and wars, which are all calamities that benefit only to a few groups with their particular interests, unfortunately, as the Pope notes, often disguised as noble intentions. On the other side, on the side of the common good, is the difficult building of peace: a slow and patient process, as the Pope defines it, which requires the courage and concrete commitment of all people of good will who care about the present and future of humanity and the planet.

The UN and rights, a gap to be bridged

František realistically notes that exactly 75 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is still a gap between the solemn commitments made on December 10, 1948 and reality, a gap that still needs to be overcome, and in some cases very urgently. How many children are deprived of the basic and primary right to life and physical and mental integrity as a result of conflict? And similarly, how many people are deprived of the right to clean water and healthy food, the right to freedom of religion, health, decent housing, quality education and decent work?

War is not worth a mother’s tears

As the Pope repeats in almost every audience, war is always a defeat for humanity and no war, the message emphasizes, is worth the tears of a mother who saw her child maimed or experienced his death, or the loss of the life of a single human being, a sacred being created in the image and image of the Creator, for the poisoning of our common home, for the despair of those who are forced to leave their homeland. Listening, dialogue and cooperation are the only means of resolving conflicts, and what is urgently needed, the Pope concludes, is to silence the guns and rethink the production and trade of these instruments of death so that the reasons for peace can finally be heard loud and clear.