Pope Francis message for 2023 Christmas included this:
“To say “yes” to the Prince of Peace, then, means saying “no” to war, to every war and to do so with courage, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. This is what war is: an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. To say “no” to war means saying “no” to weaponry. 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? Today, as at the time of Herod, the evil that opposes God’s light hatches its plots in the shadows of hypocrisy and concealment. How much violence and killing takes place amid deafening silence, unbeknownst to many! People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms. Yet that is something they ought to know! It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war.” . . .
“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.”
Pope Francis is moving the Church away from the “just war” theory:
For many, many centuries, Catholic theologians have been trying to say when it’s OK to make war. They devised the “just war” theory to say when a war would be “just” instead of cruel. Pacifists have been debunking that as a perversion of honest religion that has been corrupted in service to the militaristic state. In recent years Pope Francis has been moving the Church away from that doctrine. See this article from 2016: http://www.alternet.org/belief/pope-francis-leads-church-just-war-just-peace?akid=14239.2186.0RJIFb&rd=1&src=newsletter1056085&t=16
The great pacifist writer Michael Nagler wrote this about Pope Francis’ move to challenge the “just war” theory:
“There’s a saying in India that a palm frond is so strong that ten men could not pull it off the tree, but when a new frond appears the old one drops off by itself. Nonviolence is that new frond. As it becomes better known and its capacities more broadly recognized, the institution of war—which is seemingly so well-entrenched—is bound to loosen its hold.”
Environmentalists — and Pope Francis — know everything is interconnected:
For example, peace, climate, economics, and human rights are all interconnected. Pope Francis know that and issued this statement on October 4, 2023: Pope decries ‘terrible world war’ on environment, announces new writing (msn.com)
Pope Francis said this about war:
“Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil.” — Pope Francis, “Fratelli Tutti” encyclical
There are many more examples. If you want more, tell me at (360) 491-9093 or glen@parallaxperspectives.org, and I’ll post more examples.
