MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE
DAY OF PEACE

1 JANUARY 1978

To the world and to humanity we once more dare to address the meek and solemn word, Peace. This word oppresses us and exalts us. It is not ours; it comes down from the invisible kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. We perceive its prophetic transcendence, which is not extinguished by our humble repetition of it: " Peace on earth to those on whom God's favour rests " (Lk 2: 14). Yes, we repeat: Peace must be! Peace is possible!

Peace, let us repeat at once, is not a purely ideal dream, nor is it an attractive but fruitless and unattainable utopia. It is, and must be, a reality - a dynamic reality and one to be generated at every stage of civilization, like the bread on which we live, the fruit of the earth and of divine Providence but also the product of human work. In the same way Peace is not a state of public indifference in which those who enjoy it are dispensed from every care and defended from all disturbance and can permit themselves a stable and tranquil bliss savouring more of inertia and hedonism than of vigilant and diligent vigour. Peace is an equilibrium that is based on motion and continually gives forth energy of spirit and action; it is intelligent and living courage. 

We therefore beseech, also on the threshold of this new year 1978, all men and women of good will: the leaders of the collective conduct of the life of society, politicians, thinkers, publishers, artists, those who mould public opinion, the teachers in the schools, the teachers of art, of prayer, the great planners and operators of the world arms market - we beseech all of them to begin once more to reflect with generous honesty on Peace in the world, today!

The first phenomenon is magnificently positive; and is constituted by the developing progress of Peace. It is an idea that is gaining prestige in the conscience of humanity; it advances, and precedes and accompanies, the idea of progress, which is the idea of the unity of the human race. The history of our time - let it be said for its glory - is studded with the flowers of a splendid documentation in favour of Peace, one that has been carefully thought out, desired, organized, celebrated and defended: Helsinki teaches this. And these hopes are confirmed by the next Special Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, devoted to the problem of disarmament, and also by the numerous efforts of both great and humble workers for peace.

We would like to be able to dispel this threatening and terrible nightmare by proclaiming at the top of our voice the absurdity of modern war and the absolute necessity of Peace - Peace not founded on the power of arms that today are endowed with an infernal destructive capacity (let us recall the tragedy of Japan), nor founded on the structural violence of some political regimes, but founded on the patient, rational and loyal method of justice and freedom, such as the great international institutions of today are promoting and defending. We trust that the magisterial teachings of our great Predecessors Pius XII and John XXIII will continue to inspire on this fundamental theme the wisdom of modern teachers and contemporary politicians.

But now we wish to make reference to a second phenomenon, this one negative and concomitant with the first: this is the phenomenon of passionate or premeditated violence. This phenomenon is spreading in modern civilized life; it takes advantage of the ease that the activity of a citizen enjoys to lay snares for and to strike, usually with calculated surprise, a fellow-citizen who is a legal obstacle to some personal interest. This violence, which we can still call private, even if astutely organized in clandestine and factious groups, is taking on alarming proportions, to the extent that it is becoming habitual. By reason of the antijuridical terms in which it is expressed it could be called criminal, but the manifestations which for some time and in some circumstances it has been employing require a proper analysis, and this is extremely involved and difficult. This violence derives from a decay of the moral conscience which is not trained and not helped, and which is usually permeated with a social pessimism that has extinguished in the spirit the taste for and the commitment to honesty professed for its own sake, as well as what is most beautiful and most happy in the human heart: love - true, noble and faithful love. Often the psychology of violence takes its origin from the depraved root of deliberate revenge, and hence of an unsatisfied justice steeped in bitter and selfish thoughts, potentially undirected and unrestrained towards any aim. What is possible takes the place of what is honest; the only restraint is the fear of incurring some public or private sanction. Hence the habitual attitude of this violence is one of hidden action and of cowardly and treacherous acts that repay the violence with successful impunity.

Violence is antisocial by reason of the very methods that allow it to be organized into group complicity, in which a conspiracy of silence forms the binding cement and the protective shield. A dishonouring sense of honour gives it a palliative of conscience. And this is one of the distortions, widespread today, of the true social sense, a distortion which clothes with secrecy and with the threat of pitiless revenge certain associated forms of collective selfishness. Violence distrusts normal legal processes and is always clever at evading the observance of those processes, by devising, almost by force of circumstances, criminal undertakings that sometimes degenerate into acts of pitiless terrorism, the final result of a wrong choice of road and the cause of deplorable forms of repression. Violence leads to revolution, and revolution to the loss of freedom. The social axis around which violence conducts its own fateful development is wrong. Once having exploded as a reaction of force, at times not lacking in a logical impulse, violence concludes its cycle against itself and against the motives that provoked its intervention. Perhaps it is appropriate to recall Christ's lapidary phrase: " ... for all who take the sword will perish by the sword " (Mt 26: 52). Let us remember therefore: violence is not courage. Violence does not ennoble the man who has recourse to it.

In this Message of Peace we are speaking about violence as the antagonistic term of Peace, and we have not spoken about war. War still deserves our condemnation, even though today it is being rejected ever more widely; against it a praiseworthy and ever more authoritative effort is being made, both socially and politically. Another reason is that war is being kept in check by the terrible nature of its own arms, which it would immediately have at its disposal in the extremely tragic eventuality that it should break out. Fear, which is common to all Peoples, and to the strongest ones especially, holds in check the eventuality that war might turn into a cosmic conflagration. And fear, which is more an imagined restraint than a real one, is accompanied, as we have said, by a lofty and rational effort being made at the highest political levels - an effort which must tend not so much towards balancing the forces of the possible contenders as towards showing the supreme irrationality of war, and at the same time towards establishing relationships between Peoples, which are ever more interdependent, with ultimate solidarity, and ever more friendly and human. God grant that it be so.

And in fact we must defend Peace today under what we could call its metaphysical aspect. This aspect is prior to and higher than the historical and contingent aspect of military ceasefires and of the external tranquillitas ordinis. We wish to consider the cause of Peace as it is reflected in that of human life. Our " yes " to Peace broadens out into a " yes " to Life. Peace must be brought not only to the battlefields but wherever human existence is carried on. There is indeed there must be also a Peace that not only protects this existence from the threats of the weapons of war but also protects life as such against every peril, every misfortune, every insidious attack.

As ministers of Religion, we look on this very elect category of persons, devoted to the physical and mental health of mankind, with great admiration, with great gratitude and with great trust. In many ways physical health, the healing of sicknesses, the easing of pain, the energy of development and work, the duration of temporal existence, and even a great part of moral life depend on the wisdom and care of these protectors, defenders and friends of humanity. We are close to them and, as far as we can, uphold their toil, their honour and their spirit. We hope to have them in solidarity with us in affirming and in defending human life in those exceptional contingencies in which life itself can be jeopardized by deliberate and evil designs of the human will. In our " yes " to Peace there rings out a " yes " to life. Human life is sacred from the moment it comes into existence. The law "Thou shalt not kill" protects this inexpressible miracle of human life with transcendent sovereignty. This is the principle that governs our religious ministry with regard to the human being. We are confident that we have as an ally the ministry of medicine.

But we must add a word for all the children. With regard to violence they are the most vulnerable sector of society, but they are likewise the hope of a better tomorrow. Through some kind and thoughtful intermediary may our Message reach them too.

You children of the new age must get used to loving everybody, to giving to our society the appearance of a community which is more noble, more honest, more unified. Do you really want to be human beings and not wolves? Do you really want to have the merit and the joy of doing what is right, of helping those in need, and of being able to do good works with the sole reward of a good conscience? Well then, remember the words which Jesus spoke at the Last Supper, the night before his Passion. He said: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another ... By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13 : 34-35 ).

PAULUS PP. VI