Pope calls on Catholic lawmakers to renounce war as a means of solving conflicts
August 26, 2024
» Continue to this story on Vatican Press Office
CWN Editor's Note: Pope Francis received members of the Vienna-based International Catholic Legislators Network as the lawmakers discussed “The World at War: Permanent Crises and Conflicts – What Does It Mean for Us?”
Restating his belief that the world is in the midst of the third world war, the Pontiff spoke of “the imperative of renouncing war as a suitable means of resolving conflicts and establishing justice.”
“Capitulation does not mean one country’s surrender to another; war itself is a capitulation,” the Pope continued. “The enormous destructive capacity of contemporary weaponry has effectively rendered the traditional boundaries of warfare obsolete. In many instances, the distinction between military and civilian targets is increasingly erased.”
Pope Francis also encouraged the lawmakers to
- persevere patiently “in pursuing the path of peace, in season and out of season, through negotiation, mediation and arbitration”
- resolve lesser conflicts “in a spirit of dialogue and sensitivity to others and their reasons, and in shared commitment to justice in the pursuit of the common good”
- be “witnesses of hope, particularly to the rising generation,” much as the “spirt of hope” led to the “establishment of the structures of cooperation in the service of peace in the wake of the Second World War”
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