The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

To say ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace means saying ‘no’ to war

(En Espanol)

“This is what war is: an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly” (Pope Francis, 2023 “Urbi et Orbi” Christmas message).

Pope Francis hates war. He calls it “an inexcusable folly” and “a defeat without victory.” In war, there are no winners, only losers who have paid an exorbitant price.

As the pope said in his 2023 Christmas message to the city and the world (“Urbi et Orbi”):

Isaiah, who prophesied the Prince of Peace, looked forward to a day when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation,” a day when men “will not learn war anymore,” but instead “beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” [Is 2:4]. With God’s help, let us make every effort to work for the coming of that day!

Swords and spears were, of course, the weapons used in ancient times. Today, they have been greatly exceeded by modern weapons of mass destruction.

Pope Francis hates these as much, or more, than he hates war itself. “To say ‘no’ to war means saying ‘no’ to weaponry,” the Holy Father says. “The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them. And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise?”

As a spiritual father, Pope Francis grieves to see his children slaughtered by the madness of war. Calling attention to the war that is raging in the Holy Land, the pope says:

May [peace] come in Israel and Palestine, where war is devastating the lives of those peoples. I embrace them all, particularly the Christian communities of Gaza, the parish of Gaza, and the entire Holy Land. My heart grieves for the victims of the abominable attack of 7 October last, and I reiterate my urgent appeal for the liberation of those still being held hostage. I plead for an end to the military operations with their appalling harvest of innocent civilian victims and call for a solution to the desperate humanitarian situation by an opening to the provision of humanitarian aid. May there be an end to the fueling of violence and hatred. And may the Palestinian question come to be resolved through sincere and persevering dialogue between the parties, sustained by strong political will and the support of the international community. Brothers and sisters, let us pray for peace in Palestine and in Israel.

Of course, the Holy Land is not the only theater of war today. Pope Francis regularly prays for the people of Ukraine and for the innocent victims of warfare in Syria, Yemen, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the region of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Sudan, as well as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.

In our increasingly interconnected world, war is everywhere today. It affects all of us, and it makes all our lives more complicated and more difficult as our hearts go out to all who are suffering the immediate effects of war.

Pope Francis asks each of us, sisters and brothers of all, to be the voices of the oppressed victims of war. In fact, he says that it is Jesus who makes this request:

From the manger, the Child Jesus asks us to be the voice of those who have no voice. The voice of the innocent children who have died for lack of bread and water; the voice of those who cannot find work or who have lost their jobs; the voice of those forced to flee their lands in search of a better future, risking their lives in grueling journeys and prey to unscrupulous traffickers.

Our Holy Father prays that the Son of God, who emptied himself for our sakes and became a little child, will “inspire political authorities and all persons of good will … to devise suitable ways to resolve social and political conflicts, to combat forms of poverty that offend the dignity of persons, to reduce inequality and to address the troubling phenomenon of migration movements.”

Pope Francis concludes his Christmas message with an appeal to all people of good will in every region of the world to reject war and to embrace peace. In so doing, we will joyfully respond to the Lord’s call in the words of Isaiah’s prophecy “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners” (Is 61:1).
 

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