Pope John Paul has
continued to call for all people to pray for peace. On the occasion of the "World Day
for Peace" on January 1st, he wrote:
It is precisely peace born of justice and forgiveness that is under
assault today by international terrorism. In recent years, especially since the end of the
Cold War, terrorism has developed into a sophisticated network of political, economic and
technical collusion which goes beyond national borders to embrace the whole world.
Well-organized terrorist groups can count on huge financial resources and develop
wide-ranging strategies, striking innocent people who have nothing to do with the aims
pursued by the terrorists.
When terrorist organizations use their own followers as weapons to be
launched against defenseless and unsuspecting people, they show clearly the death wish
that feeds them. Terrorism springs from hatred, and it generates isolation, mistrust and
closure. Violence is added to violence in a tragic sequence that exasperates successive
generations, each one inheriting the hatred which divided those that went before.
Terrorism is built on contempt for human life. For this reason, not only does it commit
intolerable crimes, but because it resorts to terror as a political and military means it
is itself a true crime against humanity.
There exists therefore a right to defend human reasoning; and this, in
the first place, on the basis of what people experience when they do wrong. They
experience their human weakness, and they want others to deal leniently with them. Why not
therefore do toward others what we want them to do toward us? All human beings cherish the
hope of being able to start all over again and not remain forever shut up in their own
mistakes and guilt. They all want to raise their eyes to the future and to discover new
possibilities of trust and commitment.
Forgiveness therefore, as a fully human act, is above all a personal
initiative. But individuals are essentially social beings, situated within a pattern of
relationships through which they express themselves in ways both good and bad.
Consequently, society too is absolutely in need of forgiveness. Families, groups,
societies, states and the international community itself need forgiveness in order to
renew ties that have been sundered, go beyond sterile situations of mutual condemnation
and overcome the temptation to discriminate against others without appeal. The ability to
forgive lies at the very basis of the idea of a future society marked by justice and
solidarity.
By contrast, the failure to forgive, especially when it serves to
prolong conflict, is extremely costly in terms of human development. Resources are used
for weapons rather than for development, peace and justice. What sufferings are inflicted
on humanity because of the failure to reconcile! What delays in progress because of the
failure to forgive! Peace is essential for development, but true peace is made possible
only through forgiveness.
Forgiveness, the High Road
Forgiveness is not a proposal that can be immediately understood or
easily accepted; in many ways it is a paradoxical message. Forgiveness in fact always
involves an apparent short term loss for a real long-term gain. Violence is the exact
opposite; opting as it does for an apparent short-term gain, it involves a real and
permanent loss. Forgiveness may seem like weakness, but it demands great spiritual
strength and moral courage, both in granting it and in accepting it. It may seem in some
way to diminish us, but in fact it leads us to a fuller and richer humanity, more radiant
with the splendor of the Creator.
My ministry at the service of the Gospel obliges me, and at the same
time gives me the strength, to insist upon the necessity of forgiveness. I do so again
today in the hope of stirring serious and mature thinking on this theme, with a view to a
far-reaching resurgence of the human spirit in individual hearts and in relations between
the peoples of the world.
Reflecting on forgiveness, our minds turn naturally to certain
situations of conflict which endlessly feed deep and divisive hatreds and a seemingly
unstoppable sequence of personal and collective tragedies. I refer especially to what is
happening in the Holy Land, that blessed place of God’s encounter with man, where
Jesus, the Prince of Peace, lived, died and rose from the dead.
The present troubled international situation prompts a more intense
call to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has now been going on for more than 50
years, which alternate phases of greater or lesser tension. The continuous recourse to
acts of terror and war which aggravate the situation and diminish hope on all sides must
finally give way to a negotiated solution. The rights and demands of each party can be
taken into proper account and balanced in an equitable way, if and when there is a will to
let justice and renconciliation prevail. Once more I urge the beloved peoples of the Holy
Land to work for a new era of mutual respect and constructive accord.
