Vatican City (Fides Service) - At a time when the winds of war blow ever stronger and some leading nations doggedly want war, the words of Pope John Paul II fall like a blessing, in favour of peace. The Holy Father's words are addressed to people of good will as Pope John XXIII forty years ago, with his magnificent Pacem in Terris encyclical written after the Cuba crisis when the United States and the USSR were on the brink of a nuclear war.
Let us hope that Pope John Paul II's message, which quotes the unsurpassable encyclical of his predecessor (an encyclical that retains all of its potential and which in my opinion should be studied at school to educate children to peace), will help to ward off the conflict sought at all costs, by Mr Bush and some European allies, against the tyrant Saddam Hussein and the innocent and suffering people of Iraq.
This war is not inevitable, with war all is lost, a conflict always brings incalculable suffering and consequences. This is why Pope John Paul II indicates as the only path to peace, a new World Order founded on moral principles which has in the United Nations an authentic democratic instance with the power to settle conflicts between countries. The Pope basis this Order on four pillars truth, justice, love and freedom and on the recognition of the inalienable dignity and rights of every human person.
It is necessary to create a new mentality, a culture of peace founded on moral values, dialogue, mutual recognition and respect, beginning from the Holy Land where for the second year running the town of Bethlehem, the birth place of the Lord Jesus Christ, is besieged by tanks stationed in front of the Nativity Church.
More than preventative war (which is a "war of aggression", as it was underlined by Archbishop Martino for many years Holy See Observer to the UN), we must strive, stimulated by the Pope's words, to work for a preventative and permanent peace, based on justice which is another name for peace. (Rev. Antonio Sciortino) (Fides Service 21/12/2002)