MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE JOHN PAUL II
FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE
WORLD DAY OF PEACE

To all of you who believe in the urgency of peace,
To you, parents and educators, who want to be the promoters of peace,
To you, political leaders, who bear direct responsibility for the cause of peace,
To you, men and women of culture, who seek to build peace in today's civilization,
To all of you who suffer for the sake of peace and justice,
And above all to you, the young people of the world, whose decisions about yourselves and your vocation in society will determine the prospects for peace today and tomorrow,

To all of you, and to all people of good will, I send my message on the Eighteenth World Day of Peace because peace is an overriding concern, an unavoidable challenge, an immense hope.

It is important to discern the ultimate causes of this state of conflict that makes peace precarious and unstable. The effective promotion of peace demands that we should not limit ourselves to deploring the negative effects of the present situation of crisis, conflict and injustice; what we are really required to do is to destroy the roots that cause these effects. Such ultimate causes are to be found especially in the ideologies that have dominated our century and continue to do so, manifesting themselves in political, economic and social systems and taking control of the way people think. These ideologies are marked by a totalitarian attitude that disregards and oppresses the dignity and transcendent values of the human person and his or her rights. Such an attitude seeks political, economic and social domination with a rigidity of purpose and method that is closed to any authentic dialogue or real sharing. Some of these ideologies have even become a sort of false secularistic religion, claiming to bring salvation to the whole of humanity but without providing any proof of its own truth.

The present difficulties are really a test of our humanity. They can be turning points on the road to lasting peace for they kindle the boldest dreams and unleash the best energies of mind and heart. Difficulties are a challenge to all; hope is an imperative for all. But today I want to draw your attention to the role that youth is called upon to play in the endeavour to bring about peace. As we prepare to enter a new century and a new millennium, we must be aware that the future of peace and therefore the future of humanity have been entrusted, in a special way, to the fundamental moral choices that a new generation of men and women are being called upon to make. In a very few years, the young people of today will hold responsibility for family life and for the life of nations, for the common good of all and for peace. Young people have already begun to ask themselves all over the world: What can I do? What can we do? Where does our path take us? They want to make their contribution to the healing of a wounded and weakened society. They want to offer new solutions to old problems. They want to build a new civilization of fraternal solidarity. Taking inspiration from these young people, I wish to invite everyone to reflect on those realities. But I want to address myself in a special and direct way to the young people of today and tomorrow.

The first appeal I want to address to you, young men and women of today, is this: Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid of your own youth, and of those deep desires you have for happiness, for truth, for beauty and for lasting love! Sometimes people say that society is afraid of these powerful desires of young people, and that you yourselves are afraid of them. Do not be afraid! When I look at you, the young people, I feel great gratitude and hope. The future far into the next century lies in your hands. The future of peace lies in your hearts. To construct history, as you can and must, you must free history from the false paths it is pursuing. To do this, you must be people with a deep trust in man and a deep trust in the grandeur of the human vocation - a vocation to be pursued with respect for truth and for the dignity and inviolable rights of the human person.

In this situation, some of you may be tempted to take flight from responsibility: in the fantasy worlds of alcohol and drugs, in shortlived sexual relationships without commitment to marriage and family, in indifference, in cynicism and even in violence. Put yourselves on guard against the fraud of a world that wants to exploit or misdirect your energetic and powerful search for happiness and meaning. But do not avoid the search for the true answers to the questions that confront you. Do not be afraid!

Among the inevitable questions that you must ask yourselves, the first and foremost is this: What is your idea of man? What, to you, makes up the dignity and the greatness of a human being? This is a question that you young people have to ask yourselves but which you also put to the generation that has preceded you, to your parents and to all those who at various levels have had the responsibility of caring for the goods and values of the world. In the attempt to respond to this question honestly and openly, young and old can be led to reconsider their own actions and their own histories. Is it not true that very of ten, especially in the more developed and richer nations, people have given in to a materialistic idea of life? Is it not true that parents sometimes feel that they have fulfilled their obligations to their children by offering them, beyond the satisfaction of basic necessities, more material goods as the answer for their lives? Is it not true that, by doing this, they are passing on to the younger generations a world that will be poor in essential spiritual values, poor in peace and poor in justice? Is it not equally true that in other nations, the fascination with certain ideologies has left to the younger generations a legacy of new forms of enslavement without the freedom to pursue the values that truly enhance life in all its aspects? Ask yourselves what kind of people you want yourselves and your fellow human beings to be, what kind of culture you want to build. Ask yourselves these questions and do not be afraid of the answers, even if they will require of you a change of direction in your thoughts and loyalties.

You must then decide what values you want to build society upon. Your choices now will decide whether in the future you will suffer the tyranny of ideological systems that reduce the dynamics of society to the logic of class struggle. The values that you choose today will decide whether relations between nations will continue to be overshadowed by tragic tensions that are the product of undeclared or openly touted designs to subdue all peoples to regimes where God does not count, and where the dignity of the human person is sacrificed to the demands of an ideology that attempts to deify the collectivity. The values that you commit yourselves to in your youth will determine whether you will be satisfied with the heritage of a past in which hatred and violence suffocate love and reconciliation. Upon the choices of each one of you today will depend the future of your brothers and sisters.

The cause of peace, the constant and unavoidable challenge of our day, helps you to discover yourselves and your values. The realities are stark and frightening. Millions spent on weapons. Resources of material and intellectual talent devoted solely to the production of arms. Political stances that at times do not reconcile and bring peoples together, but rather erect barriers and isolate nation from nation. In such circumstances a just sense of patriotism can fall victim to overzealous partisanship, and honourable service in defence of one's country can become the subject of misinterpretation and even ridicule (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 79). In the midst of many siren calls of self-interest, the man and woman of peace must learn to heed first the values of life and then move with confidence to put those values into practice. The call to be peacemakers will then rest firmly on the call to conversion of heart, as I suggested in last year's World Day of Peace Message. It will then be strengthened by a commitment to honest dialogue and sincere negotiations based on mutual respect, coupled with a realistic assessment of the just demands and legitimate interests of all partners. It will seek to diminish the weapons whose existence in great numbers strikes fear into people's hearts. It will devote itself to building the bridges - cultural, economic, social, political - that will allow greater exchange among nations. It will promote the cause of peace as the cause of everyone, not by slogans that divide or by actions that needlessly arouse passions, but by the calm confidence that is the fruit of a commitment to true values and to the good of all humanity.

One aspect of this relationship is the deployment of resources for one purpose (armaments), rather than for another (development). But the real connection is not simply the use of resources, important as that may be. It is between the values that commit one to peace and the values that commit one to development in the true sense. For as certainly as true peace demands more than just the absence of war or merely the dismantling of weapons systems, so too development, in its true and integral sense, can never be reduced solely to an economic plan or to a series of technological projects, no matter how good they may be. In the whole area of progress that we call peace and justice, the same values have to be applied that spring from the idea we have about who man is and who God is in relation to the whole human race. The same values that commit one to be a peacemaker will be the values that impel one to foster the integral development of every human being and of all peoples.

A world of justice and peace cannot be created by words alone and it cannot be imposed by outside forces: it must be desired and must come about through the contribution of all. It is essential for every human being to have a sense of participating, of being a part of the decisions and endeavours that shape the destiny of the world. Violence and injustice have often in the past found their root causes in people's sense of being deprived of the right to shape their own lives. Future violence and injustice cannot be avoided when and where the basic right to participate in the choices of society is denied. But this right must be exercised with discernment. The complexity of life in modern society demands that people delegate the power of decisionmaking to their leaders. They must be able to trust that their leaders will make decisions for the good of their own people and of all peoples. Participation is a right, but it carries with it obligations: to exercise it with respect for the dignity of the human person. The mutual trust between citizens and leaders is the fruit of the practice of participation, and participation is a cornerstone for building a world of peace.

In Christ, you can believe in the future even though you cannot discern its shape. You can hand yourselves over to the Lord of the future, and thus overcome your discouragement at the magnitude of the task and the price to be paid. To the dismayed disciples on the way to Emmaus, the Lord said: "Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" (Lk 24: 26). The Lord speaks those same words to each one of you. So do not be afraid to commit your lives to peace and justice, for you know that the Lord is with you in all your ways.

JOANNES PAULUS PP. II