The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

Embrace your part to create a more just, peaceful world

(En Espanol)

Pope Francis began this new year, as he does every year, with an urgent cry for peace.

Our world does not know true peace. We are people who are divided internally among ourselves and externally among diverse nations and cultures. As the Holy Father predicted in the midst of the worldwide economic, social and health crises caused by COVID-19, we did not emerge from the pandemic unchanged.

As Pope Francis said in his message for the 56th World Day of Peace on Jan 1:

Nor can we overlook the fractures in our social and economic order that the pandemic exposed, and the contradictions and inequalities that it brought to the fore. It threatened the job security of many individuals and aggravated the ever-increasing problem of loneliness in our societies, particularly on the part of the poor and those in need. We need but think of the millions of informal workers in many parts of the world left without a job and without any support during the time of the lockdown.

The pandemic was not the root cause of our most serious problems, but it “exposed them” and brought the “contradictions and inequalities” that already existed into the harsh light of day.

The challenges we face as individuals, communities and nations can be traced back to the sins of selfishness, avarice and indifference that have plagued humanity since the dawn of time. We refuse to acknowledge that we are members of one human family with God as our Father.

As a result, we stubbornly insist on doing things our way without regard for the needs of others. We insist that our family, our community or our nation have all the answers to life’s questions. We close our minds and hearts to the ideas, traditions and values of “outsiders,” and we resist every effort to reconcile our differences and build a lasting peace.

Pope Francis argues that genuine peace is impossible when our hearts are hardened and our minds are closed. The inevitable result is “bitterness” and the kind of despondency that causes people to lose hope. As the pope says:

Only rarely do individuals and societies achieve progress in conditions that generate such feelings of despondency and bitterness, which weaken efforts to ensure peace while provoking social conflict, frustration and various forms of violence. Indeed, the pandemic seems to have upset even the most peaceful parts of our world, and exposed any number of forms of fragility.

Conflict is not productive. It pits people against each other and makes productive dialogue difficult, if not impossible. In order to build the kind of peace that can last, we must be willing to listen to each other, to respect our differences and, if necessary, to agree to disagree without rancor or resentment.

As Pope Francis sees things, the hardships that we have endured in recent years “have made us all the more aware of the need for everyone, including peoples and nations, to restore the word ‘together’ to a central place.”

As the Holy Father argued passionately in his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Relationship” it is together, in fraternity and solidarity, that we build peace, ensure justice and emerge from the greatest disasters.

Our recent history shows us, the pope believes, that “the most effective responses to the pandemic came from social groups, public and private institutions, and international organizations that put aside their particular interests and joined forces to meet the challenges. Only the peace that comes from a fraternal and disinterested love can help us overcome personal, societal and global crises.”

The challenges we face in this and every new year is to restore a sense of sisterhood and brotherhood among us. As Pope Francis teaches:

We can no longer think exclusively of carving out space for our personal or national interests; instead, we must think in terms of the common good, recognizing that we belong to a greater community, and opening our minds and hearts to universal human fraternity. We cannot continue to focus simply on preserving ourselves; rather, the time has come for all of us to endeavor to heal our society and our planet, to lay the foundations for a more just and peaceful world, and to commit ourselves seriously to pursuing a good that is truly common.

No one can be saved alone, the pope says. We need each other to flourish and grow as individual and societies.

As we begin this new year, let’s take Pope Francis’ words to heart and “lay the foundations for a more just and peaceful world.”
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †